When people ask AI for a business like yours, does your name come up?
Your customers are asking ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude for recommendations before they ever reach Google. The answer either names you or it doesn't. This page explains how the engines choose who to recommend, and what to fix so it's you.
Search used to mean ten blue links. Now a question gets one answer.
That answer either mentions you or it doesn't. There's no page two to be found on.
Answer Engine Optimisation, AEO for short, is the work of making sure AI tools know who you are, what you do, and who you serve. It isn't the same job as traditional SEO. Answers get built from your website, yes, but also from directories, listings, reviews, and third-party pages you'd never think to check.
The principle hasn't changed though. Be the clearest, most useful answer to the question your customer is actually asking.
How to become the answer.
Answer real questions on your pages
Write the question your customer would ask, then answer it plainly underneath. Engines lift answers from pages that already read like answers.
Say the same thing everywhere
Your name, what you do and where you do it should match across your website, your Google Business profile and every directory that lists you. Mixed signals cost mentions.
Collect reviews and keep them coming
The engines lean heavily on review sites when they recommend a business. A steady trickle beats a big push once a year.
Get mentioned by pages that aren't yours
Directories, local press, industry lists, supplier pages. Answers get built from what others say about you, not just what you say.
Nobody can see the real questions people type into ChatGPT.
No tool can, and anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. The honest way to work on this is to run the questions your customers would actually ask, see how the engines answer them today, and fix what you find. That's exactly what we do inside the AI Audit.
The other honest bit: changes take roughly four to eight weeks to show up in AI answers. This is a steady game rather than an overnight one.
AEO is one part of a bigger picture.
The full AI Audit covers your AI search visibility alongside everything else: where AI could take work off your plate, and the governance you need for the EU AI Act. One session, one plan, the whole operation.