Search has split in two. People still type queries into Google and click results — but more and more of them also ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google's AI Overviews and read the answer without clicking anything.
If your business is not in that answer, you are invisible to those buyers. This guide explains the three disciplines involved and what to actually do.
The three terms, in plain language
SEO — search engine optimisation
Getting your pages to rank in Google's (and Bing's) list of results. It covers technical health, content that matches what people search, and authority from links and mentions.
AEO — answer engine optimisation
Structuring content so a search engine or voice assistant can lift a direct answer from it — featured snippets, "People also ask" boxes, voice results. AEO is about format: question-shaped headings, a clear answer in the first sentence, lists and tables.
GEO — generative engine optimisation
Making your business easy for AI models to understand, trust and cite when they write an answer. GEO is about clarity and consistency: what you do, where, for whom, described the same way everywhere, backed by structured data and third-party mentions.
The good news: one solid foundation serves all three.
Layer 1: Technical foundation
Nothing else works if crawlers cannot read your site properly.
- One canonical domain. Choose
wwwor non-www, redirect the other permanently, and use the same version in canonical tags, sitemap and schema. - Fast on mobile. Aim for good Core Web Vitals; compress images and avoid heavy scripts above the fold.
- Crawlable content. Important text should be in the HTML, not only revealed by JavaScript after a click.
- Clean sitemap and robots.txt. List every important page, block nothing that is needed to render it, and explicitly allow AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot if you want to be cited.
- Unique titles and descriptions on every page, written for the searcher, not stuffed with keywords.
Layer 2: Page structure that answers questions
- One page per service. "Website development", "custom CRM" and "SEO" each deserve their own page; a single "services" page cannot rank for all of them.
- Answer first. Open each page and section with a one- or two-sentence direct answer. Explanation comes after.
- Question-shaped headings that mirror what buyers type: How long does it take…, How much does it cost…, What is the difference between…
- Visible FAQs on service pages, written in plain language.
- Tables and lists for comparisons, steps and timelines — AI engines and snippets love structured content.
Layer 3: Structured data
Schema markup tells machines exactly what each page is. For a service business, the essentials are:
| Schema type | Where | What it tells engines |
|---|---|---|
| Organization / ProfessionalService | Site-wide | Your name, location, services, socials, contact |
| Service | Each service page | What the service is, who provides it, where |
| FAQPage | Pages with visible FAQs | Question-and-answer pairs |
| BlogPosting | Each article | Headline, dates, author, topic |
| BreadcrumbList | Every page | How the page fits in the site |
Keep schema consistent with what is visible on the page — mismatches are ignored or penalised.
Layer 4: Entity consistency (the heart of GEO)
AI models build a picture of your business from everything they can read. Make that picture sharp:
- Use one consistent description of what you do on your homepage, about page, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories and social bios.
- Keep your name, location and contact details identical everywhere.
- Earn reviews and mentions on sites AI engines already trust — industry directories, partner sites, local press, podcasts.
- Add an llms.txt file that summarises your business and links to key pages.
Layer 5: Content that compounds
A blog is not decoration — it is how you show up for the hundreds of questions buyers ask before they are ready to buy.
- Write about decisions your buyers face ("custom CRM or Zoho?"), not just your own news.
- Give specific, honest answers, including when your service is not the right choice. That is exactly what AI engines prefer to cite.
- Link every article to the relevant service page, and service pages back to articles.
- Update important posts when facts change, and show the updated date.
A 30-minute self-audit
- Search
site:yourdomain.comon Google — are all your important pages indexed? - Check the canonical tag on your homepage — does it match the URL you actually land on?
- Open your service page on a phone over mobile data — does it load in a few seconds?
- Ask ChatGPT or Perplexity "best [your service] company in [your city]" — are you mentioned? Who is, and why?
- Paste a service page into Google's Rich Results Test — is schema detected?
- Read the first two sentences of each service page — do they answer what, for whom, where?
The short version
SEO, AEO and GEO are three views of the same goal: be the clearest, most trustworthy answer to your buyer's question. Fix the technical foundation, give every service its own answer-first page, add structured data, describe your business consistently everywhere, and publish genuinely useful content.
We do technical SEO and Google ranking, SEO content and copywriting, and build websites designed to rank from day one. Ask us for an audit and we will show you what is holding your site back.