> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcitable.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> Connect your domain, run your first AI visibility scan, and review your first recommendations. Three minutes of setup.

By the end of this guide you'll have a scan running, a dashboard showing your AI visibility against competitors, and a prioritized list of things to do about it.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Sign up and add your domain">
    Go to [app.getcitable.com](https://app.getcitable.com) and create an account. When prompted, enter your company's primary domain (for example, `getcitable.com`).

    Citable reads your homepage to draft an initial brand profile — name, mission, industry, key differentiators. You can edit any of this on the Brand page.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Pick competitors and journey stages">
    Add three to ten competitors you want to track. These are the brands you expect AI assistants to mention alongside (or instead of) you. Lower is better — a tight list produces sharper comparisons than a long one.

    Then pick which buyer-journey stages matter: awareness, consideration, purchase, or support/usage. Most B2B brands focus on consideration and purchase at first.

    <Tip>
      Don't overthink the competitor list. You can edit it later, and adding a missing competitor mid-quarter is normal.
    </Tip>
  </Step>

  <Step title="Run your first scan">
    Click **Run scan** on the dashboard. Citable generates a set of prompts for your industry and journey stages, then runs each one against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Grok.

    A first scan takes 10–15 minutes. You'll see results stream in as each prompt finishes. There's nothing to do while it runs — close the tab and come back, or watch it live.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Read your dashboard">
    When the scan completes, the dashboard shows four headline metrics:

    * **Citation Rate** — how often you're cited by an AI engine
    * **Mention Rate** — how often you're mentioned, even without a link
    * **Average Rank** — when you appear, how high in the answer
    * **Sentiment** — how the AI describes you

    Each is shown against your competitors, so you can see where you're ahead and where you're behind.

    See [metrics](/concepts/metrics) for what each number really means.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Review the Action Engine">
    Open the **Action Engine**. You'll see a stack of cards, each one a specific recommendation: write a blog post on a topic competitors are winning on, fix an FAQ block on a page that's losing citations, reply to a Reddit thread where buyers are asking your category's question.

    Approve the ones you want to do. Drafts and details land in Brand Studio.

    See [action types](/concepts/action-types) for what each kind of recommendation looks like.
  </Step>

  <Step title="(Optional) Connect Google Analytics">
    To attribute organic traffic to the content you ship, connect a GA4 property under **Settings → Connectors**. Citable joins your posted URLs against GA4 sessions so you can see which posts actually drove visits, not just citations.

    Connecting GA4 is optional — citation tracking works without it. But attribution is much sharper with it on.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## What to do next

Once your first scan is in and you've approved a few actions, the rhythm is roughly:

1. Open Citable once a week.
2. Review what shipped and what moved.
3. Approve the next batch of recommendations.
4. Let the 30-day measurement window run.

The platform learns from your wins and losses over time. The more actions you approve, the better the recommendations get.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="How AI citations work" icon="lightbulb" href="/concepts/how-ai-citations-work">
    Why some brands get cited and others don't.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Brand Studio" icon="pen-nib" href="/features/brand-studio">
    Generate hub content tuned to your voice.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>