Structured data done properly
Schema markup that tells machines exactly what your business is, does, serves and charges — the difference between being understood and being guessed at.
Be the answer AI gives.
Your next customer may never see a list of blue links — they’ll ask an assistant and get one answer. AI search optimisation (GEO) is the work of making sure that answer includes you.
What’s included
llms.txt & crawler access
A machine-readable brief of your business at a standard address, plus a robots.txt that actually lets AI crawlers in — many sites block them by accident.
Citation-ready content
Pages restructured so AI systems can lift accurate answers from them: direct answers up front, questions as headings, facts stated plainly.
Consistency across the web
AI systems cross-check. Your details made identical across your site, Google profile, directories and socials, so there’s nothing to contradict you.
Where your business can appear in AI search
“AI search” isn’t one place. Each surface pulls its answers differently, which changes what actually gets you cited.
| Surface | Where it draws answers from | What earns a citation |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews | Its own index — usually pages already ranking well | Strong conventional SEO, plus clear passage-level answers it can lift |
| ChatGPT search | Live web results plus training data | Clean crawlable content, clear structure, being referenced elsewhere |
| Perplexity | Live web, heavily citation-led | Direct answers near the top of the page, credible sourcing |
| Bing Copilot | The Bing index | Being indexed in Bing at all — many small sites simply aren’t |
The pattern behind all four: AI systems mostly cite pages that already rank. That’s why GEO is an extension of good SEO, not a replacement for it — and why anyone selling “AI SEO” as a separate product should be treated with suspicion.
How to get cited in AI Overviews
There’s no ranking dial for AI answers, but the work that earns citations is well understood.
Answer the question outright
Lead a page with a complete, quotable answer in a sentence or two — not a teaser. AI systems lift passages that stand alone, so burying the answer halfway down loses the citation.
Make the machine-readable version match
Valid structured data, sensible headings, an llms.txt file and consistent business details across the web. It all tells an AI system what you are and lets it quote you with confidence.
Earn the ranking underneath
Because citations mostly come from pages that already rank, ordinary SEO is the foundation. Anyone who says otherwise is selling you something.
The honest caveats
This is the newest, least settled area of search. What that means in practice:
Measurement is genuinely imperfect
There’s no Search Console for ChatGPT. Tracking is improving but still partly manual, and anyone promising precise AI-visibility reporting is overstating what’s possible today.
It doesn’t replace your rankings
If your site doesn’t rank, GEO work alone won’t manufacture citations. Fix the fundamentals first — this is an amplifier, not a shortcut.
AI citations don’t always mean clicks
Being quoted builds visibility and trust, but users often get their answer without visiting. Worth doing — just don’t expect it to behave like a traffic channel.
The rules are still changing
Every platform is iterating. I work from what’s observably true now and revise as it shifts — rather than pretending anyone has this permanently solved.
Who it’s for
For businesses that want to be early where their market is going. Almost no local competitors are doing this yet — which is exactly why it works. It layers on top of traditional SEO; the fundamentals are shared.
Common questions
Is GEO a replacement for SEO?
No — it’s an extension. AI assistants draw on crawled, structured, trustworthy websites: the same foundations SEO builds. GEO adds the machine-readability layer on top. Skip the SEO and there’s nothing for the AI to find.
Can you measure AI visibility?
Partially, honestly. You can test what assistants say about your market, track AI-referred traffic, and monitor AI Overview appearances. Measurement is younger than it is for Google rankings, and anyone claiming precise AI rank tracking is ahead of the technology.
Why does it matter now rather than later?
Because early consistency compounds. AI systems build their picture of your business over time — the sooner your facts are clean and machine-readable, the more established you are when your competitors finally arrive.
How do I get my business cited by ChatGPT?
Three things matter most: your page has to be crawlable by OpenAI's bots (many sites accidentally block them), it needs to answer the question directly and quotably near the top rather than burying it, and you need to be referenced elsewhere on the web so the model treats you as credible. There's no submission process and no way to pay for it — it's earned the same way rankings are.
What is llms.txt and do I need one?
It's a plain-text file at the root of your site that tells AI crawlers what your site is about and which pages matter — conceptually similar to robots.txt or a sitemap. Adoption is still early and no major AI platform has committed to honouring it, so it's cheap insurance rather than a guaranteed win. It takes minutes to add, which is why I include it.
Does schema markup help with AI search?
Yes, indirectly. Structured data doesn't force an AI system to cite you, but it removes ambiguity about what your page is, who wrote it and what your business does — which makes a model more confident quoting you. It also drives conventional rich results, so it earns its keep either way.
Worth reading first
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