Software and growth systems for small teams
AEO specialist for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini visibility
The short answer
Answer engine optimisation (AEO), also called generative engine optimisation (GEO), makes your content easy for AI assistants to find, understand and cite. In practice it means direct answers, question-led structure, accurate structured data and pages that AI crawlers can reach, on top of sound SEO. I apply it to my own products, and ChatGPT already sends visitors to them.
Buyers increasingly ask an assistant before they search. When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews answer a question in your market, the sources they cite get the visit. Those systems lean heavily on pages that already rank and that state the answer plainly. AEO is not a replacement for SEO. It is a way of writing and structuring pages so that search engines can rank them and AI systems can lift accurate answers from them.
SEO reviews and implementation are scoped separately.
What the finished solution should accomplish
Raise the chance that AI assistants mention and link to your product when people ask about the problem it solves, and measure the visits those mentions send.
What this could look like in practice
A comparison page might bury its conclusion in the fifth paragraph. Restructured, it opens with a short answer, uses headings phrased as the questions buyers ask, lays out a clear comparison table and links to supporting detail. The same page then serves a reader skimming on mobile, a search snippet and an assistant summarising the options.
Decisions to make before building
Choose the questions that matter commercially: the ones a buyer asks just before choosing a tool or supplier. Check that your robots rules and hosting allow the crawlers you want, such as OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot and Googlebot. Agree how to measure it: referral visits from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai, session recordings of what those visitors do, and repeated checks of how assistants answer your target questions.
When a simpler option is enough
If your site is not indexed properly or ranks for nothing yet, start with technical SEO and core pages; assistants rarely cite sources that search engines cannot find. Be wary of anyone promising guaranteed placement in AI answers. These systems change often and nobody controls them. The durable approach is useful, well-structured content that earns citations on its merits.
An initial scope could include
- A list of high-value questions buyers ask assistants in your market
- Key pages restructured with direct answers, question-led headings and comparisons
- Structured data and crawler access checked for search and AI bots
- Referral tracking for AI assistants set up in your analytics
How we would check the work
- Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini your target questions and record which sources they cite
- Track referral visits from AI assistants and the pages they land on
- Confirm restructured pages keep or improve their Google rankings
Is AEO different from SEO?
It overlaps heavily. Assistants with web search lean on the same indexes and ranking signals as search engines, so technical SEO and relevant content remain the foundation. AEO adds emphasis on answering questions directly, structuring information so it can be quoted accurately, and measuring visibility inside AI answers as well as search results.
Can you guarantee my brand appears in ChatGPT answers?
No, and nobody honestly can. Assistants decide what to cite, and their answers vary between sessions and users. What can be controlled is whether your pages are open to AI crawlers, answer questions clearly and are trusted enough to rank, which are the conditions citations depend on.
How do you track traffic from AI assistants?
Visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sites appear as referrals in most analytics tools. I set up a dedicated view for them and use session recordings to see which pages those visitors land on and what they do next.
Scope, ownership and working together
You work directly with Joel from discovery through implementation. We agree the outcome, exclusions and acceptance checks before a build. You receive access to the code, deployment and handover documentation. Hosting, third-party services and ongoing support are identified separately; owning the code does not make operating costs disappear.
SEO engagement pricing follows the review and implementation scope. Rankings and enquiry volumes cannot be guaranteed.
Further reading: Google’s people-first content guidance and scaled content policy.
MathersLabs · Updated
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