Ask ChatGPT to recommend an accountant in your town and it will name some. Ask Google a question and, more often than not, an AI-written answer now sits above the normal results, quoting a handful of websites.
Either your business is in those answers or a competitor is. That’s the new version of the question owners have asked for twenty years, “why am I not on Google?”, and it deserves the same straight treatment. If you’re not showing in ordinary search results either, start with our guide to why your website isn’t showing up on Google, because AI visibility builds on the same foundations.
AI search optimisation is the work of making your business easy for AI systems to find, understand, trust and quote. You’ll also see it called GEO (generative engine optimisation) or AEO (answer engine optimisation). Different labels, same job.
How AI answers actually choose their sources
Nobody outside these companies knows the full recipe, and anyone who claims to is selling something. But the systems are observable, and a few patterns hold up consistently when you look at what gets cited.
They quote pages that answer the question directly. When someone asks “how much does a website cost”, the AI wants a source that says “a website costs X to Y” in an extractable sentence. Pages that circle the question for eight paragraphs don’t get lifted.
They favour clear structure. Proper headings, short sections that make sense on their own, visible FAQs, plain definition sentences. AI systems pull paragraphs out of pages, so paragraphs that stand alone travel best.
They lean on consistency and reputation. Your business name, address, services and phone number repeated identically across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and reviews give the system confidence it’s describing a real, specific business. Contradictions make you risky to cite, so you get skipped.
They still start from search. Several AI tools retrieve live web results before writing their answer. Solid ordinary SEO, the kind we explain in our plain-English guide to SEO, remains the entry ticket. There’s no secret separate index for chatbots.
What a small business can do this month
None of this needs a developer. It needs a few honest hours.
1. Answer your real questions in public. List the ten questions customers actually ask you, then answer each one on your website in 40 to 60 plain words before expanding. “How much does a rewire cost?” answered with a genuine range beats “contact us for a quote” for AI citation every time. Vague pages have nothing worth quoting.
2. Add definition sentences. Early in each key page, state plainly what you do: “Smith & Co is a family-run accountancy firm in Chester specialising in small limited companies.” That single sentence is exactly the shape AI systems repeat when someone asks who does accounts in Chester.
3. Fix your consistency. Same business name, same address format, same phone number, everywhere. Website footer, Google Business Profile, Facebook, directories. Ten minutes of checking, and it strengthens your local rankings at the same time.
4. Collect genuine reviews. AI recommendations lean heavily on review signals when someone asks for “the best” or “a recommended” anything. A steady flow of real Google reviews is one of the strongest citation signals available to a local business, and it’s free.
5. Keep content fresh and dated. A visible “last updated” date, and content that’s actually maintained, matters because AI retrieval prefers current sources. A 2022 pricing page is a reason to quote someone else.
6. Be the source for something. Publish the thing nobody else in your area has bothered to write: the honest price guide, the process explainer, the comparison. AI systems need a source for every claim. Be the business that put the useful answer in writing.
What to ignore
You’ll see people selling “AI ranking hacks”, secret prompt tricks and guaranteed ChatGPT placement. Treat those exactly like “guaranteed page 1 on Google” offers: nobody controls these systems, so nobody can guarantee a mention. The boring fundamentals above are the whole game right now.
Please note, AI visibility sits alongside SEO rather than replacing it. The same structured, honest, well-maintained pages win in both places, which is why we build both into the same monthly work on our SEO plans. What each tier includes, and what it costs, is broken down in our UK SEO pricing guide.
We practise this ourselves, by the way. This article opens with a 48-word direct answer, uses definition sentences and carries a visible update date, because MarketingDone4U uses AI tools openly in its own work and watches how these systems behave week to week. We’ve written about that honestly in our post on what “built by AI, refined by experts” really means.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI search optimisation?
AI search optimisation is the work of making a business easy for AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to find, understand and quote. It’s also called GEO or AEO. In practice it means direct answers, clear page structure, consistent business details across the web and genuine reviews.
How do I get my business mentioned by ChatGPT?
Publish pages that directly answer the questions your customers ask, in plain extractable sentences. Keep your name, address and services identical across your website, Google Business Profile and directories, and build genuine reviews. AI tools retrieve and summarise web sources, so the businesses easiest to understand and verify get named most.
Is AI search optimisation different from SEO?
They overlap heavily. Ordinary SEO gets your pages found and ranked, and most AI tools start from search results when composing answers. AI search optimisation adds an emphasis on quotable structure: short direct answers, definition sentences, visible FAQs and fresh dates. The same well-built page typically wins in both channels at once.
Can anyone guarantee my business appears in AI answers?
No. Nobody outside the companies building these systems controls what they cite, and the systems change constantly. Treat guaranteed AI placement offers the same way as guaranteed Google rankings: as a red flag. What you can do is stack the odds with structure, consistency, reviews and genuinely useful published answers.
Do Google reviews affect AI recommendations?
Yes, noticeably. When people ask AI tools for “the best” or “a recommended” local business, the answers lean on review volume, ratings and what reviewers actually say. A steady flow of genuine Google reviews strengthens both your map pack visibility and your chances of being the business an AI answer names.
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