Get cited by AI, not just ranked by Google
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) - structuring content so AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity cite you directly instead of skipping you.
What is AI SEO?
AI SEO is the practice of structuring a website's content, markup, and entity signals so that AI systems - Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and voice assistants - can accurately extract, verify, and cite it inside a generated answer. It sits on top of traditional SEO rather than replacing it, and it splits into two related disciplines: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), which structures content to directly answer specific questions, and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), which optimises for being selected and quoted inside an AI-generated summary.
AI SEO is structuring content and data so AI-generated answers cite your site as the source, rather than only ranking your site in a traditional list of links.
Why this matters for the business
A meaningful share of searches now end without a click - the answer arrives directly inside an AI Overview, a chat response, or a voice reply, and the underlying pages never get visited at all. When that happens, being the source the AI actually cites is the only visibility left; ranking third on a results page that nobody scrolls to is functionally invisible.
This also changes what search engines and AI models value. Keyword density and backlink volume matter less than whether a claim is stated plainly, backed by a verifiable source, and structured so a language model can lift it out of the page without misreading it. Sites that haven't adapted to that shift are being quietly skipped, not penalised - which makes the problem easy to miss until someone checks.
What makes this hard to get right
- Content written to rank for a keyword often buries the direct answer under introductory paragraphs an AI system has to work harder to parse
- AI citation behaviour is not fully transparent and changes without public changelogs, unlike traditional ranking factors
- Entity ambiguity - multiple businesses or concepts sharing a similar name - makes it harder for a model to confirm who is actually being referenced
How we approach AI SEO
Technical Foundation
- Crawlability for AI bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and others)
- Fast, cleanly rendered HTML an LLM can parse without executing heavy JavaScript
- llms.txt and machine-readability review
Content Intelligence
- Direct-answer-first structure - the answer stated before the supporting explanation
- Content depth benchmarked against what's already winning citations
- Question-and-answer formatting aligned to how people actually query AI systems
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)
- FAQ, HowTo, and Article schema built specifically for machine extraction
- Concise, quotable answer blocks for common questions in your category
- Formatting that survives being lifted out of context
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
- Content structured to be a preferred source for AI-generated summaries
- Multi-source corroboration - claims backed by citable, checkable evidence
- Monitoring which prompts surface your brand versus competitors
Entity & Semantic SEO
- Organisation and author entity markup so AI models can verify who you are
- Consistent naming and disambiguation across the web
- Topical clustering so a model understands what you're actually an authority on
Citation Monitoring & Iteration
- Tracking brand mentions and citations across AI search surfaces
- Identifying which content gets cited and reverse-engineering why
- Iterating on underperforming pages based on real citation data
Scope, area by area
| Area | What we deliver |
|---|---|
| Technical & Crawl Access | AI bot crawlability review, machine-readability audit, fix list |
| Structured Data | FAQ, HowTo, Article, and entity schema implemented across priority pages |
| Content Restructuring | Priority pages rewritten answer-first, with supporting detail restructured beneath |
| Entity Clarity | Organisation and author markup, disambiguation review across the web |
| Monitoring | Ongoing tracking of brand citations and mentions across AI search surfaces |
How it actually runs
Citation Baseline
We check where and whether you currently appear in AI-generated answers for questions your business should own.
Entity & Technical Audit
We confirm AI crawlers can actually access your site and that your organisation is unambiguously identifiable.
Content Restructuring
Priority pages are rewritten to lead with a direct, quotable answer before the supporting explanation.
Schema Implementation
Structured data is added so the answer is machine-readable, not just human-readable.
Monitoring & Iteration
We track which pages get cited and which don't, and adjust based on what's actually working rather than theory.
How this compares
| AI SEO | Traditional SEO |
|---|---|
| Goal: be the cited source inside a generated answer | Goal: rank in a list of ten blue links |
| Success measured by citation and extraction | Success measured by position and click-through |
| Rewards direct, verifiable, quotable statements | Rewards keyword relevance and backlink authority |
| Entity clarity and structured data carry more weight | On-page keywords and link equity carry more weight |
| The result can bypass your site entirely | The result always sends a click to a page |
These aren't competing strategies - a site with weak traditional SEO rarely earns AI citations either, because the same crawlability and authority signals underpin both.
What we measure this against
- Citation frequency across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity for target questions
- Share of voice against named competitors inside AI-generated answers
- Schema validation and crawl access rate for AI bots
Who needs this
Businesses in high-consideration categories
Where buyers research via AI assistants before ever visiting a website.
Sites already investing in content
AI SEO gets more out of content you're already producing rather than requiring a separate content pipeline.
Where this applies
- A SaaS company wants to be the source cited when someone asks an AI assistant to compare tools in its category
- A services business wants its pricing and process pages to surface accurately when prospects ask an AI system direct questions
- A publisher wants to protect traffic that would otherwise be replaced entirely by a zero-click AI summary
The sites earning AI citations right now aren't necessarily the highest-ranking ones in classic search - they're the ones that state a claim in one clean sentence instead of three paragraphs of preamble. That's a content discipline problem more than a technical one, which is why AI SEO work often starts with rewriting, not just markup.
Other services in this area
Fix what stops a site from ranking at all
The foundation layer - crawl access, indexation, speed, and schema - that has to be right before any other SEO work can compound.
Every page optimised for the query it should win
Title tags, headers, internal linking, and content structure aligned to search intent, page by page - not applied as a template.
Authority built deliberately, not accumulated by accident
Link building and digital PR focused on relevance and editorial placement, not volume.
Win the map pack, not just the search results page
Google Business Profile optimisation and location-specific SEO for multi-location and local-service businesses.
Hundreds of pages, one system, real quality
Template-driven page generation for long-tail keyword coverage, built to avoid the thin-content trap.
Experience, expertise, authority, and trust - demonstrated, not claimed
Content and site signals built to satisfy Google's E-E-A-T framework for competitive, expertise-driven categories.
Know exactly what's broken before you fix anything
Full technical, on-page, and off-page audits that prioritise fixes by impact instead of listing every issue.
A second opinion from someone who has run the campaigns
Fractional SEO strategy and team training for businesses that want in-house capability, not permanent dependency.
Common questions
No agency can honestly guarantee that. AI citation behaviour is controlled by third-party systems that change without notice, and no one outside those companies has full visibility into the selection logic. What we can guarantee is the work that measurably improves your odds - clean crawl access, entity clarity, and content structured so a model can extract and verify it easily.
No - it sits on top of it. AI systems still rely on crawlable, well-structured, authoritative sites as their source material. A site with no traditional SEO foundation is unlikely to earn AI citations either.
We track citation frequency for target questions across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, alongside share of voice against named competitors. It's a newer measurement discipline than rank tracking, and less standardised, but it's directional and improving.
Existing content is usually restructured rather than replaced - the underlying research and expertise stays, but the format shifts to answer-first, with the direct response stated plainly before the supporting explanation.
No. Google's AI Overviews pull heavily from indexed, ranking content and its own knowledge graph. ChatGPT and Perplexity have different retrieval and citation behaviours. We optimise for the shared fundamentals - clarity, structure, verifiability - and monitor platform-specific differences separately.
Slower than traditional SEO in most cases, because AI crawl and retraining cycles aren't as frequent or transparent as a standard search index refresh. Expect a longer measurement window and treat early data directionally rather than as a final verdict.
Want to know if AI search tools already know about you?
We'll check where you currently show up - or don't - across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity before recommending anything.
Ready to get started?
We usually reply within 24 hours.