Ask ChatGPT for "a good roofer near me" or Google for "how much does a kitchen remodel cost," and you'll often get an answer before you see a single link. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making sure your business is part of that answer.
It matters because the shift is happening fast. In BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey, 45% of consumers said they'd used ChatGPT or another AI tool to find local business recommendations, up from 6% the year before.
What is AEO?
AEO is the practice of structuring your website and online presence so AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude can understand your business, trust it, and recommend or cite it when people ask relevant questions. Where SEO aims for a click from a list of results, AEO aims for a mention inside the answer.
How do AI assistants decide what to recommend?
Each AI tool works a little differently, but they draw on the same broad sources:
- Search results. Google's AI features are built on its core search ranking systems, and other assistants run web searches when they answer questions about current businesses.
- Your website, especially pages that answer specific questions clearly.
- Third-party sources: review sites, directories, local news, forums and lists of recommended businesses.
- Consistency. When your name, services, location and phone number match across all of these, an AI can be confident it's describing the same business.
What does Google say about optimizing for AI search?
Google's guidance on AI features in Search, last updated in December 2025, is clear: there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. You don't need special files, special schema or content written "for AI." A page simply needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in search with a snippet.
Google's recommended practices are the SEO fundamentals: let search engines crawl your site, make content easy to find through internal links, provide a good page experience, keep important content in text, make structured data match what's on the page, keep your Business Profile current, and use Search Console. Traffic from AI features is counted in Search Console's normal Performance report.
AEO vs SEO: what's different?
| SEO | AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank pages in search results | Be mentioned or cited in AI answers |
| Success looks like | Clicks to your site | Your business named in the answer, often with a link |
| Main inputs | Content, technical health, links, reviews | The same, plus clear answers and consistent details across the web |
| Biggest overlap | Useful, trustworthy content that answers real questions |
In practice, AEO is SEO with extra attention on two things: answering questions directly, and making sure the rest of the internet agrees about who you are.
How to optimize your business for AI search
1. Answer real questions directly
Write pages and FAQ sections around the questions customers actually ask: what something costs, how long it takes, what's included, how to choose. Put the direct answer in the first sentence or two, then add detail. A clear, self-contained answer is easy for both people and AI to quote.
2. Make your business details identical everywhere
Your business name, address, phone number, website, hours and services should match exactly on your website, Google Business Profile, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, Facebook, LinkedIn and every directory. Inconsistent details make an AI less confident about recommending you.
3. Keep reviews coming
Reviews are among the strongest trust signals for local businesses, for people and machines. In the same BrightLocal survey, 74% of consumers said they only care about reviews from the last three months. A steady stream of recent, detailed reviews, with your replies, gives AI tools fresh, specific information about your work.
4. Get mentioned on other websites
AI answers often cite third-party sources: local news, industry directories, "best of" lists, supplier pages and community sites. Earn genuine mentions by doing notable work, sponsoring local events, contributing expertise to industry publications and making sure you're listed wherever your customers look.
5. Use structured data
Schema markup describes your business, services, reviews and FAQs in a format machines read easily. Google notes that structured data must match the visible content of the page. It won't rescue thin content, but it removes guesswork.
6. Show who is behind the business
Name the people behind your business, explain their experience and keep your about page current. Dates matter too: show when articles were published and last updated, and refresh them when facts change.
7. Consider an llms.txt file
An llms.txt file is a plain-text summary of your business and key pages, placed at the root of your website for AI tools to read. Google says it doesn't need one, but it's quick to add and some AI tools may use it. Treat it as a small extra, not a strategy.
How to check your AI visibility
- List 10 to 20 questions your customers ask, such as "best HVAC company in [town]" or "how much does a new roof cost."
- Ask each one in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google every month.
- Note whether your business is mentioned, which competitors appear, and which sources are cited.
- Look at the cited sources. They tell you where you need to be present.
What not to do
- Don't stuff keywords or write awkward copy aimed at machines. Write for people.
- Don't mass-produce thin pages. Google treats scaled, low-value content as spam, whether or not AI wrote it.
- Don't fake reviews or mentions. It's against platform rules and erodes the trust AEO depends on.
- Don't block AI crawlers in your robots.txt if you want to be cited.
Want help getting found in AI search?
AEO is part of our SEO and marketing service: clear answer-first pages, consistent business details, review systems, structured data and monthly visibility checks. Every website we build launches with these foundations in place. Get a fixed quote to see what it would take for your business.
