GEO and AEO: how your business shows up in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI

More and more people no longer search "web design agency Sibiu" in Google and open ten links. They ask ChatGPT or Perplexity directly, or read the AI summary at the top of Google. If your business doesn't appear in those answers, it doesn't exist for them.

That's where GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) come in.

How AI assistants decide what to recommend

An AI assistant answering a question about local services generally combines two sources:

1. what it "learned" from web text during training;
2. what it finds live by searching the web (ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews).

Either way, the model needs to be able to read your site and clearly understand who you are, what you do, where and for whom. A beautiful site that only shows text after running lots of JavaScript, or one that says "innovative solutions for your needs" without specifics, gives it very little to quote.

1. Don't block AI crawlers by accident

Many sites block AI crawlers in robots.txt, sometimes by mistake, sometimes through a security plugin's defaults. The main crawlers are:

Crawler	Owner	Used for
GPTBot	OpenAI	model training
OAI-SearchBot	OpenAI	ChatGPT Search results
ClaudeBot	Anthropic	Claude
PerplexityBot	Perplexity	indexing for answers
Google-Extended	Google	use of content in Gemini (doesn't affect Google Search)

If you want to be recommended, check none of them has Disallow: /. Our scanner does this automatically.

2. Put your text in the HTML, not only in JavaScript

Most AI crawlers download the page HTML and don't run JavaScript. If your site is an app that builds its content in the browser, the crawler sees a nearly empty page. The fix is server-side rendering or static generation, so the text exists right in the HTML.

3. Add structured data

Structured data (JSON-LD using the schema.org vocabulary) states explicitly: this is the business name, this is the address, this is the phone, these are the services, these are the FAQs and their answers. The most useful types for a service business:

• Organization or LocalBusiness for business details;
• Service for each service;
• FAQPage for frequently asked questions;
• Article for blog posts;
• Product and Review for online stores.

4. Write answers, not slogans

AEO means answering the questions customers actually ask. Instead of "We offer quality services at competitive prices," write:

A business website usually takes 7 working days. The price depends on the number of pages and integrations, and you get it fixed, in writing, before we start.

A sentence like that can be lifted almost word for word into an AI answer. A short summary at the top of articles (like the TL;DR above) and an FAQ section on every service page help a lot.

5. Add an llms.txt file

llms.txt is a standard proposed in 2024: a text file at /llms.txt that briefly describes your business and links your most important pages. Not every AI provider officially uses it yet, but it's easy to create. Ours is here if you want an example.

6. Be consistent everywhere

AI assistants cross-check information across sources. Your business name, address, phone and description should be identical on your site, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Genuine Google reviews and mentions in local press or industry sites build trust.

How to check where you stand

Run the free scan. Besides speed and SEO, we calculate an AI visibility score from the checks above: AI crawler access, structured data, FAQ, llms.txt and content visible without JavaScript. You also get the exact list of things to fix.