AI SEO: how to get your business mentioned by ChatGPT and AI Overviews

What AI SEO is

AI SEO is the work of getting your business mentioned, recommended and linked to in answers from AI assistants: ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Gemini. You'll also see it called generative engine optimization (GEO), answer engine optimization (AEO) or LLM SEO. The names differ; the job is the same.

It matters because buyers now ask assistants questions they used to type into Google: "Which IT support companies near me look after small law firms?", "What should a website audit include?", "Who are the best suppliers of industrial fasteners?". If your business isn't in that answer, you're not on the shortlist, and you won't see it happen in your analytics.

The good news is that AI SEO isn't a separate discipline you have to learn from scratch. Most of it is solid SEO, with three extra concerns: whether AI crawlers can reach you, whether your business is described consistently everywhere, and whether other sources back up what you say about yourself.

How AI assistants decide who to mention

Each assistant works a little differently, but they all build answers from content they can find, and they favour sources they can verify.

Two points from the platforms themselves are worth knowing.

Google's guidance on AI features and your website says: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." It also says you don't need new "AI text files" or special schema.

OpenAI's crawler documentation says: "Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers."

So the first job is technical: make sure nothing is stopping these systems reading your site.

Step 1: Check what AI assistants say about you now

Before changing anything, find out where you stand. Write down 10–15 questions a real buyer would ask before choosing a business like yours. Mix three types:

• Category questions: "Best managed IT support for accountancy firms in [region]"
• Problem questions: "How do I stop phishing emails reaching my staff?"
• Comparison questions: "[Your company] vs [competitor]"

Ask each one in ChatGPT, Google (look for an AI Overview), Copilot and Perplexity. For each answer, note:

• whether you're mentioned, and how you're described
• which competitors are mentioned instead
• which websites are cited as sources

The cited sources are the most useful part. They show you exactly which sites the assistant trusts on your topic, and those are the places you need to be.

Step 2: Make sure AI crawlers can reach your site

If a crawler is blocked, nothing else on this page matters.

Check robots.txt. Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and look for rules that block these user agents:

• Googlebot: needed for Google Search, AI Overviews and AI Mode
• Bingbot: needed for Bing and Copilot
• OAI-SearchBot: needed for ChatGPT search answers
• PerplexityBot: used by Perplexity

A line such as Disallow: / under any of these blocks them completely.

Know the difference between search and training bots. Blocking GPTBot stops OpenAI using your content to train models. It doesn't remove you from ChatGPT search; OAI-SearchBot controls that. Google-Extended works in a similar way for some Google AI products, but it doesn't affect Google Search or AI Overviews. You can block training and still be found.

Check your hosting and CDN. Some security services block "AI bots" by default with a single toggle. If you use Cloudflare or a similar service, check its bot settings, because that can block crawlers your robots.txt allows.

Step 3: Get indexed in Google and Bing

AI answers can only draw on pages that are in an index.

• In Google Search Console, check the Page indexing report for your key service pages. Our guide to the page indexing report explains each status.
• Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap there too. Many businesses never do this, and it affects Copilot.
• Make sure your important pages are linked from your navigation or other pages, not just listed in a sitemap.

Step 4: Write pages that answer questions clearly

Assistants pull short, specific passages from pages that answer a question directly. Vague marketing copy is hard to quote. Clear, factual copy is easy to quote.

• Say what you do in one plain sentence near the top of each service page: who it's for, what's included, and where you work.
• Answer the questions buyers ask, in their words, with a short direct answer followed by detail.
• Be specific. Name the sectors you serve, the systems you work with, typical timescales and how pricing works. Specifics are what get quoted.
• Use comparison tables and checklists where they genuinely help. They're easy for people and machines to read.
• Keep important content in text, not only in images, PDFs or videos.
• Add structured data where it fits, such as Organization, LocalBusiness and FAQ markup, and make sure it matches what's visible on the page. Google says there's no special schema for AI features, but accurate markup still helps search engines understand your pages.

Step 5: Describe your business the same way everywhere

Assistants cross-check what you say about yourself against other sources. If your website calls you a "digital transformation partner", your Google Business Profile says "IT services" and LinkedIn says "managed service provider", you're harder to place in the right answer.

Pick one clear description and use it consistently on:

• your homepage and About page
• your Google Business Profile (name, category and description)
• LinkedIn, industry directories and review sites
• your business directory listings

Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere. Inconsistency is a reason for any system, human or machine, to trust you less.

Step 6: Earn mentions on sites assistants trust

When you checked the cited sources in step 1, you'll have seen the same kinds of sites again and again: industry directories, review platforms, trade associations, comparison articles, respected blogs and forums. Being mentioned on those sites is often what tips an assistant towards recommending you.

Practical ways to get there:

• Make sure you're listed, accurately, on the directories and review platforms that appear in your sector's answers.
• Keep reviews coming in on Google and your sector's main review site. Our guide to your Google review link covers a simple routine.
• Offer genuinely useful expertise to trade publications and associations: guides, data from your own work, or commentary.
• Ask happy clients and partners to mention you where it's natural, such as case studies on their sites or supplier lists.

This is slower work than editing your own pages, but it's the part competitors rarely do well.

Does Google penalise AI-written content?

Not for being AI-written. Google's guidance on AI-generated content says it rewards helpful, reliable content however it's produced, and that what it acts against is content made mainly to manipulate rankings. Its spam policies cover "scaled content abuse": publishing lots of low-value pages, by any method, to game search.

In practice:

• Use AI tools to draft, outline and edit, but add what only you know: your process, your examples, your opinions and your results.
• Check every fact. AI tools state wrong things confidently, and errors damage trust with readers and assistants alike.
• Don't publish pages just to target keyword variations. A few strong pages beat many thin ones.

Step 7: Measure what's changing

AI visibility is harder to measure than rankings, but you can track it.

• Search Console: Google counts traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode in the Performance report under the "Web" search type, alongside normal results.
• Google Analytics: look at referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com. Visitors who arrive from an AI answer have often already shortlisted you.
• Your prompt list: re-run the questions from step 1 every month and record whether you're mentioned, how you're described and who's cited.

Expect gradual change. Assistants update their sources at different speeds, and improvements to third-party mentions take time to show up.