When did you last scroll past the first thing Google showed you?
For a lot of people, that first thing is now an AI Overview. Plenty of others skip Google altogether and ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity instead, and get one neat answer back with a few sources tucked underneath.
You’ll hear two bits of jargon for getting into those answers, AEO (answer engine optimisation) is about having your content picked as the answer, like the AI Overview at the top of Google. GEO (generative engine optimisation) is about your business being cited as a source, or mentioned by name, when tools like ChatGPT put an answer together.
Reassuringly, most of it is good SEO done properly. Google said as much in its guide to AI search, last updated in July 2026: as far as Google is concerned, AEO and GEO are still SEO. The less good news is that a few things matter a lot more than they used to, and there’s plenty of snake oil doing the rounds.
So here’s everything we think actually matters, in order of quickest wins first.
The short version
If you only read one bit, make it this. Getting into AI answers comes down to five stages, roughly in this order:
- Get the fundamentals right. Let AI in, tell it clearly who you are, and label your pages so machines can understand them.
- Make your pages easy to quote. Clear answers, question-style headings and content that covers the follow-up questions.
- Give AI something worth repeating. Your own expertise, experience and numbers.
- Get talked about elsewhere. Reviews, listings, press, YouTube, LinkedIn and anywhere your customers hang out.
- Measure it and go round again. See what’s working and refresh what isn’t.
Stage 1: Get the fundamentals right
These are the foundations everything else sits on, and they’re exactly what our free AI readiness audit scores you on; whether AI can get in, whether it can tell who you are, and whether your pages are labelled and structured so it can make sense of them.
1. Let AI in, and make sure it can read you
Nobody can quote a page they can’t get into, check that your robots.txt file (a little note telling visiting bots where they’re allowed) and any security service in front of your site, such as Cloudflare, aren’t shutting AI search bots out by accident.
While you’re at it, make sure your words are in the page itself rather than loaded in by scripts afterwards, because most AI bots don’t run JavaScript. Give every page a clear title and description, keep your sitemap up to date, and check the Search generative AI setting in Google Search Console is switched on (it is by default).
2. Tell AI exactly who you are
Before an AI tool recommends a business, it needs to be sure which business it’s talking about. There might be three companies with a name like yours. So make the facts about you clear, consistent and easy to join up:
- Your business name, address, phone number and opening hours, written exactly the same way everywhere.
- Links from your site to your official social profiles, and from them back to you.
- Real, named people on your team page, with their roles and experience.
- Named clients, case studies and the places you work, so there’s evidence behind the claims.
- Proper sharing previews (the title, description and image that appear when someone posts your link).
3. Label everything with schema
Schema is behind-the-scenes code that labels your content for machines, a few examples; This is our business. This is our address. These are our social profiles. This person wrote this article, on this date. Here’s a question, here’s the answer. Think of it as labelling every box before the removal van turns up.
Start with your business details (what developers call Organization or LocalBusiness schema), including links to your social profiles, then add author, article and FAQ labels to the pages that matter.
4. Add FAQs to your key pages
A handful of real questions with short, straight answers at the bottom of each important page. It’s exactly the format AI tools find easiest to lift, and it pairs nicely with the FAQ labelling from the step above.
5. Add llms.txt and llms-full.txt files
These are plain text files that sit on your website and give AI tools a tidy summary of who you are, what you do and which pages matter most. The short one (llms.txt) is the contents page. The full one (llms-full.txt) adds the detail: services, FAQs, team, the lot.
Stage 2: Make your pages easy to quote
6. Answer first, explain after
AI tools love a page that gets to the point (so do people). Ask ‘how often should I get my boiler serviced?’ and the best page says ‘once a year’ in its first line, then explains why underneath.
Neil Patel (we read a lot of his stuff) suggests keeping that opening answer to two to four sentences. Answer the question first, then go as deep as you like.
7. Write headings like real questions
Use the words your customers actually use. ‘How much does a loft conversion cost in Leeds?’ beats ‘Our Pricing Philosophy’ every time. Not sure what people ask? Look at your inbox, your sales calls, the ‘People also ask’ box in Google, or tools like AnswerThePublic.
We can help you with this research.
8. Answer the follow-up questions too
When you ask an AI tool something, it quietly runs a bunch of related searches behind the scenes. Google calls this ‘query fan-out’. Its own example: ask how to fix a lawn full of weeds and it’ll also look up weedkillers, chemical-free options and how to stop them coming back.
So cover the obvious next questions on the same page. What does it cost? How long does it take? What can go wrong? One proper page that answers all of that beats ten thin ones.
9. Make it easy to scan
Short paragraphs, bullet points for lists, tables for comparisons, numbered steps for processes. It helps people skim and it helps AI pick out the right bit.
A word of warning, formatting isn’t a cheat code and should only be used when it makes sense. NP Digital, Neil Patel’s agency, analysed 9 million AI answers and found 64% of citations came from ordinary pages, not listicles, comparisons or how-to guides.
10. Put a real name and a real date on it
AI tools, like people, trust content more when they can see who wrote it and when. Add an author name with a short bio that shows real experience, plus a visible ‘last updated’ date. Then actually update things, stale content is one of the big GEO mistakes, and Microsoft has said its AI particularly values fresh content.
Stage 3: Give AI something worth repeating
11. Say something only you can say
If your page says what fifty other pages already say, why would an AI quote yours? Google’s guide is blunt about it; unique, genuinely useful content is likely to make more difference in the long run than anything else it recommends. That means your real experience, your opinions, your process, your prices, your photos and your case studies.
12. Publish your own numbers
AI tools and journalists both love a figure they can’t get anywhere else. ‘We looked at every job we did last year, and here’s what the average one cost’ is gold dust. Original data gives people, and machines, a reason to point back to you.
13. Go deep on what you do, then keep it fresh
Pick the handful of topics you want to be known for and cover them properly, from every angle your customers care about, then keep those pages up to date.
Stage 4: Get talked about elsewhere
When Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands, the thing most closely linked to appearing in Google’s AI Overviews was how often the brand got mentioned across the web.
In other words, AI mostly believes what other people say about you, so you need other people saying it.
14. Sort your Google Business Profile and listings
Google says Business Profiles help local businesses show up in its AI answers, so fill yours in properly; services, opening hours, photos, the lot. Then carry those same details from everywhere else you’re listed, from Bing Places and Apple Business Connect to Yell and your industry directories.
15. Keep the reviews coming
Reviews are real people talking about you, in public, in their own words. NP Digital’s research into trust signals put customer reviews right at the top of the list. Ask every happy customer, make it easy for them, and reply to what they write, whether that’s on Google, Trustpilot or the review sites that matter in your industry.
16. Get onto the lists AI reads
When someone asks AI ‘what’s the best X for Y?’, the answer usually leans on other people’s opinions; review sites, directories, comparison articles and ‘best of’ round-ups. Find the ones that matter in your industry and your area, then get yourself on them. Sometimes that means filling in a form. Sometimes it means a polite email to whoever writes them.
17. Get in the press
Local news, trade magazines, industry blogs, podcasts, guest articles, expert comments for journalists. Every genuine mention on a respected site is another vote of confidence that AI can see.
18. Show up on YouTube and LinkedIn
These two are seriously underrated. In that same 9-million-answer study, NP Digital found YouTube gave brands a bigger boost in AI visibility than any other outside source they measured, with LinkedIn a whisker behind and Reddit just after. A video transcript is really just a long, spoken-word article, and AI reads those happily. So make videos that answer real customer questions, add proper subtitles and say your business name out loud.
19. Join the conversation properly
Reddit threads, Facebook groups, forums, Quora. If your customers ask questions there, be there and be helpful. .
Stage 5: Measure it, then go round again
AI visibility moves about. NP Digital found that up to 58% of AI citations never show up a second time, so this isn’t a job you do once and forget.
20. Use the free reports from Google and Bing
Google Search Console now has a Generative AI performance report showing how your content does in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report showing how often Copilot cites you, and even the phrases it used to find you. Both worth a monthly look.
21. Ask the AI tools yourself
Write down ten questions your customers really ask, the kind that should lead to you. Once a month, put them to ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Claude, and check Google’s AI Overviews too. Are you linked as a source? Are you named?
22. Track your AI visitors
In Google Analytics, look for visitors arriving from places like chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com. For most businesses the numbers won’t be huge yet, but they’re worth watching, and Google reckons people who click through from AI answers may be more likely to stick around.
Rather we did the measuring for you? We’ll take the questions your customers ask most, put them to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and give you a clear report showing exactly where you’re being mentioned, where you’re being cited as a source, and which competitors are turning up instead. Then we’ll tell you what to do about it, and run it again regularly, so you can see what’s moving. Get in touch and we’ll set it up.
What we wouldn’t lose sleep over
There’s a lot of noise about AI search, so here’s what you can mostly ignore.
Chopping your content into tiny chunks ‘for the AI’. Google says there’s no need, just write for people.
Rewriting everything in robot-speak. AI understands synonyms and normal language. If it reads well to a customer, you’re on the right track.
If you only do three things this month
- Run our free AI readiness audit and fix the fundamentals it flags.
- Rewrite the opening of your five most important pages so they answer the main question in the first couple of lines, and add a short FAQ to each.
- Ask ten happy customers for a Google review.
