How to Create an llms.txt File: Step-by-Step Guide

Creating an llms.txt file is one of the fastest and highest-impact things you can do for AI search visibility. This step-by-step guide will get you from zero to a deployed llms.txt in under 30 minutes.

What you will need

Creating an llms.txt file requires nothing more than:

• A plain text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, VS Code, or any code editor)
• Access to upload a file to your website root (FTP, your CMS file manager, or your hosting control panel)

No coding knowledge is required. The format is plain text with simple Markdown styling.

Step 1: Understand the structure

An llms.txt file follows this basic structure:

# Site Name

> One-sentence description of what the site does.

## About
[2-4 sentence description: who you are, what you do, who you serve]

## Key pages
- [Page Title](https://yoursite.com/page/): Brief description
- [Page Title](https://yoursite.com/page/): Brief description

## Key topics
[Comma-separated list of main topics covered on the site]

## Contact
[Email or contact page URL]

Step 2: Write your site description

The one-line description after the > is the most important line in the file. It is the first thing an AI model reads and sets the context for everything that follows.

Write it as a clear, factual statement of what your site does. Avoid marketing language. Be specific.

• ✗ "The leading platform for digital transformation excellence"
• ✓ "SearchScore audits websites for AI search visibility across 50+ technical and content signals"

Step 3: Write your About section

The About section gives AI models more context about who you are. Include:

• What your organisation does
• Who your audience or customers are
• Any relevant credentials, founding information or notable facts
• Your location if relevant

Step 4: List your key pages

Include your 5 to 15 most important pages. For each, include the full URL and a brief one-line description. Prioritise:

• Your homepage
• About or team page
• Core product or service pages
• Your most important content or blog posts
• Contact page

Step 5: Add key topics

List the main subjects covered on your site as a comma-separated list or short sentences. This helps AI models understand your topical authority and route relevant queries to your content.

Step 6: Deploy the file

Save the file as llms.txt (plain text, UTF-8 encoding). Upload it to the root of your website - the same directory that contains your homepage. Test by visiting yoursite.com/llms.txt in a browser - you should see your plain text file.

Step 7 (optional): Create llms-full.txt

For maximum impact, create a companion llms-full.txt file containing the complete text of your most important pages. This gives AI models your best content in one clean, easy-to-read file - without needing to crawl your entire site.

Simply copy the main text content (not HTML) from your top 5 to 10 pages and separate each page section with a clear heading in the file.