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AEO: get your business cited in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity

Answer engine optimisation makes your business easy for AI search to find, quote and trust. We fix AI crawler access, rewrite key pages to answer questions directly, clean up your structured data and build the outside mentions AI answers rely on, then track where you’re cited every month.

Typical timeline
6–12 weeks, then monthly
Your quote
Fixed, in writing
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Good for
Businesses whose customers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI answers before they search, and who want to be the name those answers mention.

Who it’s for, and who it isn’t

A good fit
  • Businesses whose customers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI answers before they search, and who want to be the name those answers mention.
  • AI assistants recommend competitors when asked about your service
  • They describe your business wrongly, or not at all
Probably not for you
  • Anyone looking for a guaranteed spot in AI answers (nobody can promise that honestly)
  • Sites with no search basics in place yet: we would start with SEO

What changes

✕BeforeAI answers recommend your competitors, describe you wrongly or don’t mention you at all.
✓AfterYour pages are readable, quotable and consistent everywhere AI answers look, and you can see where you’re cited.
For the people using it
  • Clear, direct answers on your own site
  • Consistent facts about you wherever they look
For your business
  • A measured baseline of where AI answers mention you
  • A monthly report on citations and referrals
The guide

What AEO is, and what actually works

Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of getting your business found, quoted and recommended in AI answers: ChatGPT search, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. Google’s own guidance from May 2026 is blunt: optimising for generative AI search is optimising for search. AI answers are built from the same search index, so the foundations are the same as good SEO.

What changes is emphasis. AI answers favour pages that answer a question directly, sites they are allowed to crawl, and businesses that other trusted sources mention. Studies of millions of AI citations found most come from earned media and third-party sites, not from the business’s own pages. So AEO is part on-site clarity, part technical access, and part being mentioned in the right places, never tricks. Google’s spam policies now name attempts to manipulate AI answers.

Signs you need this

  • AI assistants recommend competitors when asked about your service
  • They describe your business wrongly, or not at all
  • Your site blocks AI search bots without you knowing
  • Your pages bury the answer under long introductions

What’s included

Scope, price and timeline are fixed in writing before work starts.

  1. 01AI visibility audit across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews
  2. 02Crawler access for AI search bots (robots.txt, CDN and firewall settings)
  3. 03Answer-first rewrites of your key pages
  4. 04Entity and structured data clean-up
  5. 05Directory, review and press mentions plan
  6. 06Monthly citation tracking

How it works

  1. Week 1 · Free

    Strategy call

    Which questions your customers ask AI assistants, and who gets mentioned today.

  2. Weeks 1–2

    Visibility audit

    We test your target questions in the main AI assistants and check crawler access, structured data and how consistent your business details are.

  3. Weeks 3–8

    Fix and publish

    Answer-first rewrites, structured data, crawler settings, and listings on the directories and review sites AI answers cite.

  4. Monthly

    Track and improve

    Citation tracking, referral traffic from AI assistants, and the next pages and mentions to work on.

Risks we remove

What usually goes wrong with aeo: ai search optimisation projects, and what we do about it.

01

Penalties for manipulation

No AI-citation packages, bought links or fake reviews. Google’s spam policies now cover attempts to manipulate AI answers.

02

Blocking the bots you need

We check robots.txt and your CDN or firewall settings so AI search crawlers can reach you, while you choose what to allow for training.

03

Paying for vanity numbers

Reports show citations for questions that matter to your sales, and the visits and enquiries they bring.

Worked example

A typical AEO engagement

A software consultancy finds that when buyers ask an AI assistant for options in its niche, three competitors are named and it isn’t. The audit shows a firewall rule blocking AI search bots, service pages that open with long introductions, and inconsistent company details across directories.

In the first weeks we fix crawler access, rewrite the five most important pages to answer the buyer’s question first, add structured data and correct the directory listings. From month two we track the same questions every month and report which assistants now mention the company, and the visits they send.

An illustrative example of how we would run this kind of project, not a client case study.

Technology we use
Google Search ConsoleBing Webmaster ToolsIndexNowSchema.orgCloudflareAstroWordPress
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SEO, AEO and doing nothing

Do nothingSEO onlySEO + AEO
Found in Google resultsMaybeYesYes
Readable and quotable by AI answersBy chancePartlyYes
Mentioned on sites AI answers citeRarelySometimesPlanned
Know where you’re citedNoNoMonthly report
Free quote · no obligation

Talk to a AEO: AI search optimisation specialist this week.

Leave your email and a line about what you need. We reply with questions or a price range. Prefer to talk? Book a free 30-minute call.

No spam. One reply from a real person.

AEO: AI search optimisation: questions, answered

Can you guarantee we’ll be cited by ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. We improve the things that make citations more likely, measure them every month and report honestly on what changes.
Is AEO different from SEO?
It builds on SEO rather than replacing it. AI answers draw on search indexes, so crawlability, quality content and links still matter. AEO adds answer-first writing, AI crawler access, entity consistency and outside mentions.
Do we need an llms.txt file?
Google says it doesn’t use llms.txt, and there is no special markup for AI features. It takes minutes to add if you want one, but it isn’t where results come from.
How do you measure results?
We track your target questions in the main AI assistants each month, AI referral traffic in analytics (ChatGPT tags its links), Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI citation reports and Google Search Console.
How does pricing work?
After a free scoping call you get a written proposal setting out the scope, the cost and a planned timeline, so you know what you are agreeing to before work starts.

Another question? Email us or book a free call.

Further reading
Knowledge base · SEOWhat is structured data (schema)?Knowledge base · SEOHow do I write a good page title and meta description?Knowledge base · SEOHow do I add my site to Google Search Console?
Blog →Knowledge base →

Often paired with

All services →
Design & grow

SEO & Marketing

Search, ads and social once you are live.

Build

Web Development

Fast, accessible, SEO-ready websites that convert.

Run & care

Care & Maintenance

Hosting, monitoring, updates and fixes. We keep it running.