AI SEO consultant: get named in the answer

I'm an AI SEO consultant based in Sydney. More buyers now ask an assistant for a shortlist before visiting a website. Much of the advice on winning a place in it is guesswork, so we start with what the platforms themselves publish.

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3different outcomes get called "cited": a mention, a linked citation and a recommendation. Each is won and measured differently.

What AI SEO really means

AI SEO, sometimes sold as GEO or AEO, is the work of getting your business named, linked or recommended when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI features a question. The labels are new. Much of the underlying work isn't, and a lot of what's sold under them is guesswork.

Those three outcomes are worth separating. A mention gets you noticed, but the reader still has to find you. A linked citation can bring a visit. A recommendation is the closest thing to a referral, and it's the hardest to earn.

How assistants pick who to name

An assistant answering a current question generally isn't recalling a list from memory. It searches, reads what comes back and writes from those pages. Google's documentation says AI Overviews and AI Mode retrieve from its Search index using its core ranking systems, so being hard to find in search limits you here too.

Recommendations lean on what other websites say about you. That's why this work doesn't stop at your own pages, and why consistent details and real third-party mentions matter so much.

The first check: can they reach you?

Each major assistant separates crawling for search from collecting training data, and you control them independently in robots.txt. Mixing them up is a common reason a business never appears. Blocking Googlebot removes you from Search altogether, while Google says Google-Extended doesn't affect how you appear there.

So we check this first. It costs almost nothing, and there's little point in writing new pages for a crawler that's been told to stay out.

How to tell if it's working

No single number captures AI visibility, and anyone quoting one is estimating. Search Console's generative AI report shows how often links to your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, country, date and device, but it reports impressions only.

So we pair it with a fixed list of real buying questions, checked on a schedule, plus AI referral traffic and what new enquiries tell you. Together, those give an honest picture over time.

What to ignore

Google says Search ignores llms.txt and similar AI text files, so publishing one won't get you into its AI answers. AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on pages from Google's own index, which means ordinary crawling and ranking still come first. Then it's about what other websites say about you, because recommendations lean heavily on those sources.

What we work on

Crawler access checks for each assistant's search bot
Pages that answer the follow-up questions buyers ask
Schema and entity markup that matches what's on the page
Consistent business details everywhere assistants look
Mentions on the third-party sites assistants read
A fixed prompt sample, checked on a schedule

How it runs

BaselineWrite down real buying questions and record who gets named today.
UnblockMake sure the search crawlers can reach you, without confusing them with training crawlers.
EarnImprove your own pages, then the outside sources assistants rely on.
TrackCombine Search Console's AI report, the prompt sample, referrals and enquiries.

Common questions

Do you need a separate AI SEO consultant?

Not usually. AI answers depend heavily on search and on what the web says about you, so it works best as part of your SEO rather than a separate project.

Which AI tools does this cover?

ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Each works a little differently, so we check them separately.

Is this different from SEO?

It overlaps heavily. Google's AI answers retrieve from its Search index, so weak SEO limits you. The extra work is around third-party mentions and answering follow-up questions.

Can you guarantee a citation?

No. Answers change from one run to the next, and anyone guaranteeing placement is overselling. We track how often you appear over time.

How do you measure it?

No single number does the job. We use Search Console's generative AI report, a fixed sample of prompts, AI referral traffic and what enquiries tell you.