I added one to this site. Here is what it is, whether it’s worth your time, and how to add one properly.
What llms.txt is
The format was proposed in 2024 as a way to give large language models a clean, compact version of a website instead of making them wade through menus, scripts and cookie banners. It is a Markdown file with a simple structure:
# Your Business Name
> One or two sentences on who you are, what you do and who for.
A short paragraph with key facts: location, how pricing works,
how to get in touch.
## Services
- [Service one](https://yoursite.com/service-one/): one-line description
- [Service two](https://yoursite.com/service-two/): one-line description
## Proof
- [Case study](https://yoursite.com/work/client/): what you did
## Contact
- Email: hello@yoursite.comYou can see mine at jamshadulrafi.com/llms.txt.
Does llms.txt help SEO or AI visibility?
Honestly, not in any way anyone can prove yet.
- Google: has stated you don’t need llms.txt or any special AI markup to appear in its AI features, and that its search ignores the file.
- OpenAI, Anthropic and others: publish llms.txt files on their own documentation sites, but haven’t announced that their crawlers read other websites’ files.
- AI coding tools and agents: are the clearest real use. Some developer tools will read a site’s llms.txt when pointed at it.
So why add one? It takes minutes, it can’t hurt rankings, and writing it forces you to decide how you describe your business in two sentences. That description is worth reusing on your homepage, your Google Business Profile and your schema, which do matter.
How to add llms.txt in WordPress
Option 1: Your SEO plugin
Recent versions of Rank Math and Yoast can generate an llms.txt file for you. Look in the plugin’s general settings for an llms.txt option, choose which post types to include, and it builds the file from your pages and posts. It’s the fastest route, but the result is a list of links. Edit the description so it reads like your business, not like a sitemap.
Option 2: A hand-written file
Write the file in a text editor, save it as llms.txt and upload it to your site’s root folder (the same folder that holds wp-config.php) with your host’s file manager or SFTP. Check it opens at yoursite.com/llms.txt as plain text. If you use both methods, keep one: a real file in the root usually wins over the plugin’s generated version.
What to put in it
- Your business name as the heading and a one-line summary as the quote.
- Facts people and AI get wrong: where you work, who you serve, how pricing works.
- Links to your service pages, your best case studies and your most useful guides, each with a one-line description.
- How to contact you.
Leave out tag archives, thin pages and anything you wouldn’t want quoted.
What to do first instead
If you have a few hours for AI visibility, spend them in this order: make sure Bing indexes your site and your robots.txt allows OpenAI’s search crawler, give each service its own page that answers price, timing and process questions directly, add Organization or Person, Service and FAQ schema, and earn mentions on directories and articles in your niche. I cover all of that in how to get your business mentioned in ChatGPT. Add llms.txt at the end.
If you’d rather have it done for you, that’s part of my SEO and AI search service.