Treating it as a separate program
Run in isolation it duplicates cost. It belongs alongside SEO, sharing the same technical and entity foundation.
AI SEO
Get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews
Buyers increasingly ask an assistant before they open a search results page. Answer Engine Optimisation structures your content so those assistants quote you rather than a competitor.
In plain terms
Buyers increasingly ask an assistant before they open a search results page. Answer Engine Optimisation structures your content and your entity data so ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews quote you rather than a competitor when someone asks for your service in your city.
It overlaps heavily with classic SEO — most of the technical foundation is shared — but the target differs. Classic SEO chases a position in a list of links. Answer engine work aims to be the source a model trusts and cites, which rewards clear definitions, structured data, consistent entity signals and content shaped like a direct answer.
What’s included
- Entity and topic modelling so models associate your brand with your service
- Structured data and answer-shaped content blocks
- Monitoring of brand mentions across AI assistants
- Content gap analysis against the sources assistants currently cite
What you get
- 01
Answer audit
What ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews currently say when someone asks for your service in your city.
- 02
Entity cleanup
Consistent naming, schema and third-party signals so models resolve your business to one confident entity.
- 03
Citable content
Pages written in the format assistants extract from — direct answers, defined terms, sourced data.
- 04
Mention tracking
Monthly checks on which assistants name you, and for which prompts.
The engagement
How the AI SEO engagement runs
The sequence rarely changes, even though every account does. Fix the foundation, launch what is fast, then compound.
Week 1
Answer audit: what the major assistants currently say when someone asks for your service in your market, and which sources they pull from.
Weeks 2–4
Entity cleanup — consistent naming, schema and third-party signals so models resolve your business to one confident entity.
Months 2–3
Citable content: pages written in the format assistants extract from, with defined terms, sourced data and direct answers.
Ongoing
Monthly checks on which assistants name you and for which prompts, plus content that closes the gaps against currently-cited sources.
Fit
Who AI SEO is for
And who it isn’t
Not for businesses chosen on proximity alone. An urgent care or a tire shop three miles away wins on map pack, hours and reviews, not on being cited by ChatGPT. Fix the local fundamentals first and come back to this later.
- Your buyers research before they call, and increasingly ask an assistant before they open a search page.
- You already rank reasonably in Google and want the same visibility inside AI answers.
- You have real expertise worth quoting: procedures, eligibility rules, process steps, how pricing works.
What goes wrong
Where AI SEO usually gets wasted
The failure modes we see most often when this channel is run without discipline — worth checking your current setup against.
Expecting instant results
Assistants that use live search update in weeks; models leaning on training data can lag past a year. This is a slow signal.
Buying "guaranteed AI placement"
Nobody can force an assistant to recommend you. Anyone selling a guarantee is describing something that does not exist.
How we measure it
What a working AI SEO account looks like
Booked jobs are the goal. These are the earlier reads that tell us the channel is on track to get there.
Assistant citations for your service
How often the major assistants name you when asked for your service in your city, tracked prompt by prompt.
Cleaner entity resolution
One consistent business identity across the web, so models stop confusing you with a similarly-named competitor.
Answer-shaped content coverage
The share of buyer questions in your category where your page is structured to be the quotable answer.
Referral traffic from AI surfaces
Visits arriving from AI Overviews and assistant links — small today, growing, and worth instrumenting now.
Questions
AI SEO: common questions
It overlaps heavily, but the target differs. Classic SEO chases a position in a list of links. Answer engine work aims to be the source a model quotes, which rewards clear definitions, structured data, consistent entity signals and content shaped like a direct answer. Most of the technical foundation is shared, so we usually run it alongside SEO rather than as a separate program.
Weeks to months, and it varies by assistant. Tools that pull live search results update fastest. Models leaning on training data lag much longer, sometimes past a year. We check monthly which assistants name you and for which prompts, so you can watch movement instead of guessing. Treat this as a slow, ongoing signal rather than a switch you flip.
Mostly content volume and how tangled your entity signals are. A business with one name, one address and consistent listings needs far less cleanup than one that rebranded, moved offices, or trades under three name variants. After that, cost tracks how many questions you want to own the answer to. We scope it against what the audit finds, not a package tier.
Nobody can force it. Assistants synthesize from sources they trust, so the work is making your site one of those sources: unambiguous entity data, content that answers questions directly, and third-party mentions that corroborate what you claim. That improves the odds of being cited. Anyone selling guaranteed placement inside an AI answer is describing something that does not exist.
Find out how we can help your business succeed.
Want to know what ai seo would cost you?
Tell us your market and target job type. We come back with the demand, the competition and a number.
Free audit · No obligation · No long-term contract
Also worth a look