AI search optimisation
More and more, the search that finds you doesn't happen on Google at all.
More and more, the search that finds you doesn't happen on Google at all.
AI search optimisation is the work of helping your business appear when someone turns to an AI tool like ChatGPT, Claude or Google's AI for an answer or a recommendation. Where traditional SEO helps you rank in a list of search results, optimising for AI search helps you get named inside the answer the AI gives back. You might also see it called generative engine optimisation, answer engine optimisation, or AI SEO.
You'd expect the best businesses to rise to the top. With AI search, that isn't quite how it goes. Ask ChatGPT for a recommendation and it answers from what's been written about you around the web. You could be brilliant at what you do and still go unmentioned. An AI recommends what it can understand. If your website and the pages that mention you don't spell out what you are and who you're for, it can't place you. The businesses it understands best are the ones it recommends.
An AI doesn't know you first-hand. It goes by what's written about you, on your own site and on every other site that mentions your name. When those websites describe you in the same way, an AI like ChatGPT can recommend you and trust its own answer. When they contradict each other, it can't tell which version to believe, and it recommends a business it finds easier to understand instead.
AI tools take the words on your website at face value. If your pages aren't clear and consistent about what you do and who you do it for, an AI won't feel confident recommending you. Depending on your site, the work might be as simple as tightening up your copy and on-page SEO, or it might mean rewriting pages and adding content that isn't there yet.
AI tools won't recommend you just because your website says you're good. They want to see other people saying it too, across review sites, directories, and in press coverage. When those mentions are positive and consistent, an AI feels confident putting your name forward. We handle the reviews, directory listings, and editorial placements that give AI tools the confidence to recommend you.
Structured data is code that tells AI tools what your content is about. For example, it might label a page as a boutique hotel in Cornwall, or flag that it answers a question about your cancellation policy. AI tools can read this labelling instantly instead of having to interpret your copy themselves. Pages with structured data are significantly more likely to be cited in AI answers.
Google says as much itself. But what the web says about you is yours to shape. We've spent years testing what makes an AI put one name forward instead of another, and how to make that name yours.
Say helloWhen you search for something on Google, it shows you a list of websites to click on. SEO is the work of helping your website appear in that list. AI tools like ChatGPT work differently. Instead of a list of search results, they write you an answer. AEO is the work of getting your business mentioned in that answer.
No. Far more people still use Google than using AI as a search engine, and Google still sends most of the visitors to websites. But this is changing. More people now get their answer straight from an AI, without clicking any website at all.
No one can promise you a place in an AI's answer. What helps is making sure the internet describes your business clearly, and says the same thing about you everywhere, on your own website and on the other sites that mention you. When everything agrees, an AI can recommend you with confidence.
It goes by a few names. You may see it called AI search optimisation, generative engine optimisation (GEO), answer engine optimisation (AEO), or AI SEO.