How Dietly Made ChatGPT Its Biggest Traffic Source Through Clear, Cited Content

Nutrition platform Dietly found that AI assistants like ChatGPT became its top referral source, surpassing the generic search traffic it had anticipated at launch. The team discovered that pages answering questions directly in the opening paragraph, with concrete figures and named qualifications, were far more likely to be cited by AI tools than broad, slow-to-the-point articles. Editorial discipline played a key role: disputable nutrition claims were linked to health bodies or primary research, and data limitations — such as reliance on Open Food Facts — were stated openly rather than obscured by vague terms like 'verified.' Dietly also adopted structural practices including semantic headings, facts tables, visible review dates, and an llms.txt file to help AI systems identify useful starting points across the site. The team cautioned against treating AI referrals as guaranteed, noting that retrieval behavior changes frequently and that sustainable results come from continuously improving individual pages rather than mass-producing near-identical content.