When restaurant owner Maya asked Claude — not ChatGPT — "How do I reduce staff turnover in 2026?" she wondered which blog pages Claude would actually cite. The answer comes down to speed, structure, and clean schema.
Claude Retrieval Signals
Claude's web search feature is powered by the Brave Search API. It privileges LCP under 2.5 seconds, mobile usability, and a clean HTML heading hierarchy. Slow pages may rank top 10 in organic search yet still fall outside the retrieval window.
In our measurements, blog posts with mobile TTFB above 3 seconds on a 4G profile were never quoted in Claude's answers. After migrating the same content to a CDN and bringing TTFB down to 1.2 seconds, citations started appearing within two weeks.
FAQ Structured Data Impact
Claude extracts Q&A pairs directly from pages with FAQPage schema.org markup. If you want to grow mention share for "[your brand] recommendation" queries, 3-5 Q&A blocks per post is mandatory.
On thMenu blog we wrapped every FAQ section in JSON-LD and validated through Search Console. Five weeks later, our Brave organic rich-result share jumped from 12% to 38% and Claude citations tripled.
thMenu Blog 5-Point Technical SEO
- LCP target: Next.js Image + R2 CDN, mobile < 2.0s
- H2-H3 hierarchy: single H1, sequential H2s, no skipped levels
- FAQ schema: minimum 3 Q&A, JSON-LD format
- Mobile-first: zero horizontal scroll at 360px viewport
- Canonical + hreflang: sitemap.xml hreflang tags for 20 locales
After ticking off all five, Claude started citing thMenu blog as a source for "QR menu turnover impact" queries within 9 days. Anthropic's semi-live index stays in sync with Brave, so the surfacing window is relatively fast.
FAQ
Which search engine does Claude use? Brave Search API primarily, with Bing fallback in some cases.
Is FAQ schema mandatory? Not mandatory but it dramatically increases citation odds. Target 3+ Q&A blocks per page.
What LCP should I aim for? Under 2.5s on mobile, ideally 2.0s. Target PageSpeed Insights score 90+.
Found this helpful? Share it.
Related articles
7 Smart Ways to Place QR Codes in Your Restaurant
Placement matters more than you think. These seven strategies maximize QR code s…
How to Reduce Waiter Workload by 40% Without Firing Anyone
Smart digital tools don't replace your team — they free them to focus on what ma…
12 Concrete Benefits of QR Menus (Backed by Real Data)
From eliminating print costs to boosting average order value by up to 31%, here …