How to show up in AI search: ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews
A growing chunk of searching doesn't happen on a results page anymore. People ask ChatGPT "who's a good X near me", they use Perplexity to research, and Google now answers a lot of queries with an AI Overview at the top. If you're not set up for that, you're invisible in the answer. Here's how to change that.
This is AEO and GEO
Optimising to be quoted by AI tools has a name, actually two: AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO (generative engine optimisation). The good news is it overlaps heavily with good SEO, plus a few extras. If you're doing the basics well, you're already part of the way there.
1. Answer real questions, clearly
AI pulls from content that directly answers a question in plain language. Vague marketing copy doesn't get quoted; a clear page that states what you do, what it costs, and how it works does. Write the way a helpful person would explain it, question first, answer right after.
2. Be legible as data
Schema markup describes your business as structured data an AI can trust, name, location, services, hours. Clean headings and plain language help too. The easier a model can parse you, the more likely it names you instead of a competitor it understands better.
3. Add an llms.txt file
An llms.txt file points AI tools to your key pages and facts, like a sitemap written for language models. It's new, and most sites don't have one, which is exactly why adding one now puts you ahead of your area.
4. Be consistent and mentioned
AI trusts entities it sees referenced consistently across the web. Same business details everywhere, plus genuine mentions in directories, reviews and profiles, all reinforce that you're real and established. Consistency does a lot of quiet work here.
The honest part
Nobody can guarantee an AI names you, and anyone promising that is overselling. What you can do is be the clearest, best-structured, most trustworthy source in your area, and right now that's a low bar almost nobody's clearing. Early movers get named.
Reviews and mentions feed the AI too
AI tools don't just read your site, they draw on what the wider web says about you: your reviews, directory listings, any mentions of your business. A business with genuine reviews and consistent listings looks established and trustworthy to a model deciding who to name. The same groundwork that helps local SEO, reviews and consistent citations, helps AI recommend you.
Structure your pages so a machine can follow them
Clear headings, short paragraphs, a question then its answer, plain language over jargon. AI pulls confidently from content it can parse cleanly and skips content it has to fight through. This is why my whole Answers section is built question-first: it's easy for a person to read and easy for a model to quote. Your key pages should work the same way.
Keep your facts consistent everywhere
If your services, prices, hours or location say different things in different places, an AI can't state anything about you with confidence, so it plays it safe and names someone clearer instead. One consistent version of your facts, on your site, your profile, your listings, makes you the easy, safe answer for the model to give.
Is this worth doing now?
Fair question, since AI search is still young. My honest take: the effort overlaps almost entirely with good SEO, so you're not doing throwaway work, you're doing the fundamentals with an eye on where search is heading. And because so few businesses have set this up, the ones that do now get named while the rest catch up. Early is cheap; late is crowded.
Want the difference between search, answer and AI optimisation spelled out? Read SEO vs AEO vs GEO. Or I can just set it all up for you.