If you've noticed ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews or Perplexity answering questions that used to send people to a list of websites, you're not imagining it. Search behaviour is changing. But it's worth starting with a clear head about what these tools actually do, because a lot of the advice floating around treats this like a brand new game with brand new rules. It isn't, quite.
What's actually changed
AI search tools don't have their own independent knowledge of your business. They pull from and summarise content that already exists on the web, then present it in a more conversational format. Google's AI Overviews still rely on the same web index Google has always used. ChatGPT, when it browses the web, is reading pages much like a person would, just faster and at scale. This matters because it means the fundamentals of being findable online haven't been thrown out. They've been added to.
The practical implication is that you don't need to abandon anything you've already done for search engine optimisation. You need to build on it. Traditional SEO gets your content found and ranked. Newer disciplines, sometimes called AEO and GEO, are about making sure that once your content is found, it's clear and trustworthy enough to be quoted or referenced directly.
SEO, AEO and GEO: three names for a related job
These terms get thrown around as if they're competing strategies. They're not. Think of them as layers, each depending on the one before it.
- SEO (search engine optimisation): the foundation. Making sure your site is technically sound, loads quickly, works on mobile and can be crawled and understood by search engines in the first place.
- AEO (answer engine optimisation): structuring your content so a specific question has a clear, self-contained answer. Think headings that match real customer questions, and answers that don't require reading five paragraphs of preamble first.
- GEO (generative engine optimisation): being the kind of source an AI tool is comfortable citing or drawing from when it generates a response. This leans heavily on trust signals, consistency and the way your expertise is presented across the web, not just on your own site.
None of this replaces the others. A page with brilliant, well-structured answers won't be found if the site itself is slow or badly built. A technically perfect site won't get quoted by an AI tool if the content is vague or generic. You need all three layers working together.
Get the technical foundations right
This is unglamorous but it's where most small business websites still fall down. AI tools, like search engines before them, need to be able to access and parse your content easily. If they can't, they'll simply use a competitor's page instead.
- Make sure your site loads quickly and works properly on a phone, since most browsing and most AI-assisted searches happen on mobile.
- Keep your site structure clean and logical, with clear navigation and no broken links or dead ends.
- Use structured data (schema markup) on key pages, such as your services, opening hours, reviews and business details. This is well established for helping traditional search engines display rich results, and it's reasonable to assume it also helps AI tools understand what a page is about, even though the exact effect on AI citations isn't something search providers have confirmed in detail.
- Make sure your important pages aren't blocked from crawling by accident, which happens more often than you'd think on older or poorly maintained sites.
Be cautious of anyone promising that a specific piece of schema markup will guarantee an AI citation. The mechanics of how these tools select sources aren't publicly documented in detail, so treat this as good technical hygiene rather than a guaranteed shortcut.
Write content that actually answers the question
This is the part that tends to get overcomplicated. AI tools favour content that gives a clear, direct answer to a real question, because that's exactly what they're trying to extract and reuse. If someone asks 'how much does a boiler service cost' or 'do you deliver to Manchester', your website should answer that plainly somewhere, in language a customer would actually use. Buried, vague or overly promotional copy is harder for both humans and AI tools to work with.
Authority matters just as much as clarity. AI tools, much like customers, seem to favour information that's corroborated in more than one place. That means it's worth paying attention to how your business appears across the web, not just on your own site.
- Keep your business name, address, phone number and opening hours consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
- Encourage and respond to genuine customer reviews, since these are a visible signal of trust that gets referenced repeatedly online.
- Make sure any staff or founder expertise is genuinely reflected somewhere, such as a bio, case study or article, rather than just asserted in marketing copy.
- Fix outdated listings. An old address or a defunct phone number showing up on a directory undermines the consistency that builds trust.
Measuring whether any of this is working
This is honestly the hardest part right now, and it's worth being upfront about that. There isn't yet a mature, standard way to measure how often your business is being cited or mentioned inside AI-generated answers, in the way we've come to expect from web analytics. Some newer tools claim to track 'AI search visibility', and a few genuinely attempt to monitor mentions across AI platforms, but this is a young and fast-moving space, so it's worth checking carefully what any tool actually measures before relying on it or paying for it.
In the meantime, there are simpler, more reliable things you can do. Periodically ask ChatGPT and check Google's AI Overviews for questions relevant to your business, and see whether you appear. Keep an eye on branded search volume, meaning how often people search for your business name directly, since this often rises when awareness grows through any channel, AI included. Watch referral traffic in your analytics for unusual sources. None of these are precise measurements, but together they give you a reasonable, honest picture.
Treat AI search visibility as one signal among several, not a single number to chase. The tools for measuring it properly are still developing, and anyone claiming precise, guaranteed metrics in this area should be questioned.
Where to actually start
If you're a small business with limited time and budget, the sensible order is to fix the technical basics first, then improve the clarity of your existing content, then work on consistency and authority across the web. This is slower and less exciting than any promise of an 'AI SEO hack', but it's the version of this work that doesn't need redoing every time a platform changes its approach. The underlying goal hasn't really changed either: be genuinely useful, be easy to find, and be consistent about who you are and what you offer. AI tools are just another audience reading that same story.