A user asks ChatGPT for the best tool in your category. Two things can happen: it names you, or it names a competitor. There is no page two to fall back to. That is the whole game.
AEO, GEO, LLMO — and why the acronyms barely matter
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation): structuring a page so an engine can lift a clean, correct answer from it.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation): earning visibility and citations inside AI-generated results, across platforms.
- LLMO (Large Language Model Optimisation): shaping how models describe your brand and topic.
They are the same work seen from three angles: be the clearest, most trustworthy, most quotable source a model can find on your topic.
How the assistants actually choose sources
Most consumer AI search does retrieval first: it runs a normal-ish search, pulls a handful of pages, and writes an answer from them. So the rules are less mystical than they sound:
- You still have to rank. No top-10 presence for the query, no place in the retrieval set, no citation. Classic SEO is the entry fee.
- The answer has to be easy to lift. Models favour pages that state the point in the first sentence under a heading, not pages that bury it under 400 words of throat-clearing.
- Consensus wins ties. If five trusted sources say the same thing and you are the sixth, you are more likely to be quoted than a lone contrarian.
Make your page quotable
- Answer the question in sentence one under each heading. Expand after.
- Phrase headings the way people ask — "How much does X cost?" not "Pricing".
- Put the facts in plain sentences and short lists. Anything locked inside an image or a sprawling table is invisible to the model.
- Add a two- or three-line summary near the top of long pages.
- Show the date, the sources, and who wrote it, so the model has something to verify against.
Become an entity, not just a website
Models build a map of who is an authority on each topic from signals across the whole web. Strengthen your place on that map:
- Describe your brand the same way everywhere — same name, same one-liner, same category.
- Earn mentions on sites the models already trust, even ones with no link.
- Keep any reference-site presence accurate — Wikipedia, Wikidata, Crunchbase, solid industry directories.
- Publish enough depth on your core topic that the association becomes automatic.
AI visibility is downstream of SEO. The pages getting cited in AI answers are, overwhelmingly, the pages that already rank well and read clearly. Fix the fundamentals first.
Measure it, because rank trackers will not
- Once a month, prompt ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with your ten most important questions. Log whether you are named.
- Track branded and category prompts for the trend, not for a perfect score.
- Watch referral traffic from
chatgpt.com,perplexity.aiand Google's AI surfaces in analytics. - Add a dedicated AI-visibility tool once the channel is worth a line item.
AI search checklist
- You rank on page one for the queries you want to be cited on
- Every section opens with a direct, self-contained answer
- Headings are phrased as real questions
- A short summary sits near the top of every long page
- Author, date and sources are visible on every article
- Your brand name and description are identical across the web
- AI citations and assistant referral traffic are checked monthly
