AEO and GEO Explained: How to Get Your Website Cited by ChatGPT and Google AI

What are AEO and GEO?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring content so search engines can lift a direct answer from your page into a featured snippet, a "People also ask" box or a voice result. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the practice of making your website and brand easy for AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews to understand, trust and cite.

Both sit on top of classic technical SEO. If a page cannot be crawled, loads slowly or has no clear structure, no amount of AEO or GEO will help.

How do AI search engines choose which sources to cite?

AI answer engines retrieve pages that match the question, then prefer sources that are:

• Clear: the answer is stated plainly near the top, not buried in paragraph six.
• Specific: they contain concrete facts, names, numbers and dates that can be quoted.
• Consistent: the same facts appear on the website, social profiles and directories.
• Structured: headings, lists, tables and schema markup make the content easy to parse.
• Trustworthy: there is a real author, a real business and verifiable references.

A practical AEO and GEO checklist

1. Write question headings. Use the exact questions customers ask, such as "How much does a POS system cost?"
2. Answer in the first 40–60 words. Give the direct answer first, then the detail.
3. Add FAQ blocks with FAQPage schema on key pages.
4. Use structured data. Person or Organization, Service, Product, Article and BreadcrumbList tell machines who you are and what each page is about.
5. Publish an llms.txt file at your domain root: a plain-markdown summary of who you are and your most important URLs.
6. Allow AI crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended in robots.txt, if you want to be cited.
7. Keep your entity consistent. Use the same name, headline, photo and links on your site, LinkedIn, Fiverr, GitHub and directories.
8. Show authorship and dates. Add an author bio and a visible "Last updated" date.
9. Never invent statistics. Quote real numbers or none at all; AI tools cross-check.
10. Stay fast. Core Web Vitals still matter for crawling and for users who click through.

Does local SEO still matter for AI search?

Yes. For local businesses, AI tools lean heavily on Google Business Profile data, reviews and consistent name, address and phone (NAP) details. A complete Business Profile plus LocalBusiness schema is still the foundation.

How this website applies AEO and GEO

This site uses Person, ProfilePage, Service, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList schema, an llms.txt file, question-led headings and a quick-facts box, the same approach I use on client sites.

If you want your website to show up in AI answers, see the AEO & GEO optimization service or get in touch.