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Independent AI search optimisation for UK businesses: found, read and named by ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini and Claude.
Search engine optimisation, for a different reader
Ask ChatGPT for a good accountant in Leeds, or which CRM suits a ten-person firm, and it searches the web, reads a handful of pages and names a few businesses. Google's AI Overviews, Gemini and Claude do the same. This is the work of being one of the businesses they name.
You'll see it called AI SEO, AEO (answer engine optimisation), GEO (generative engine optimisation) or LLM SEO. As with any new technology, there are many emerging schools of thought, and the industry will agree on one name eventually. For now they're four names for one job, and most of that job is search engine optimisation: AI search leans on the same crawlers and the same search indexes as Google and Bing.
How ChatGPT decides who to mention, step by step, is in how to get your business mentioned in ChatGPT's answers. This page is about doing it for you.
The foundations haven't changed
AI search can only quote what's worth reading. Under the technical work, the content has to do what good SEO content has always done.
Built around what people search
Keyword research shows the words your customers use and how often they use them. The questions they ask ChatGPT are longer versions of the same searches. Each page aims at the searches it should own, not at whatever the business calls itself.
Genuinely useful
A page earns a mention by answering the question better than the pages already ranking: a figure, a comparison or a caveat the others leave out. Restating what's already out there gives AI search no reason to pick you.
Experience, expertise, authority and trust
Google's quality guidelines call it E-E-A-T, and say trust matters most. On the page, that means a real author who has done the work, evidence behind the claims, and a business that's easy to verify.
Not just AI output
Using AI to help write is fine, and Google says it rewards quality however it's produced. But a purely AI-generated page says nothing ChatGPT couldn't say itself, and pages mass-produced to rank count as spam under Google's own policies.
Where I start
Four questions, in this order, because a no to an early one makes the later ones irrelevant.
Can AI search reach you?
Each AI company's search crawler has to be let through, and most sites that block one never chose to. A blanket AI rule, a CDN default or a host rewriting robots.txt on the way out can all shut the door while your own settings say it's open.
Are you in the indexes they search?
ChatGPT's search draws on third-party providers, and Bing is the one OpenAI names. Google's index feeds AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini. A page neither has indexed is a page no AI search can find.
Is there anything worth quoting?
An AI tool building an answer looks for a sentence it can lift and attribute. "Prices vary" gives it nothing. A price range, a timescale or a named product gives it something to cite.
Are you one business everywhere?
Before naming you, AI search has to be confident you're one real business. It gets there from agreement: the same name, description and facts on your site, your Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories and reviews.
Not sure which question stops you? Thirty minutes on a free call usually finds the first one.
Talk through your businessWhat I do
A baseline before anything changes, then the content and the fixes, measured against the same questions every month.
Monthly
the same questions your customers ask, put to ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini and Claude, each answer scored cited, mentioned or absent.
- ChatGPT
- Google AI Overviews
- Gemini
- Claude
- Google AI Mode
- Copilot
- Perplexity
Before anything changes
Your questions, written down first
Ten to twenty questions your customers actually ask, agreed with you, and put to each AI tool before anything is changed. Without that baseline, nobody can say later whether the work did anything.
Content
A content plan
Keyword and question research: the words your customers use, how often, and which of your pages should answer each. Where no page does, that gap goes on the plan, in order of what it's worth to you.
New content, written
Pages and articles for the gaps, built on the foundations above: genuinely useful, carrying what you know from doing the work, and not AI output dressed up. I can write them myself or brief them for you or your writer, depending on the level of service you want.
Existing pages made quotable
The answer in the first paragraph, specific and checkable facts, comparisons in HTML tables rather than images, the exact names of things, and a visible date. I can rewrite them myself or brief the changes for you or your web designer, depending on the level of service you want.
Kept current
Pages with prices, figures or rules in them are checked again on a schedule, and the date on the page moves only when the check has happened. A stale figure under a fresh date is worse than an old date.
Technical
Crawler access, checked at the edge
The
robots.txtyour site actually serves, and your CDN or firewall settings, not just what your CMS says. The search crawlers that fetch pages to answer questions are let through.The training crawlers: your call
Whether to let crawlers that collect text for training future models in is a separate and genuinely nuanced decision, and Google's is the awkward one: blocking Google-Extended also stops Gemini using your pages when it answers. I'll set out both sides, but it's yours to make.
Indexed where AI search looks
Bing Webmaster Tools verified with your sitemap submitted, IndexNow so new and changed pages are announced straight away, and Google Search Console. Key pages checked to work without JavaScript, because many AI crawlers don't run it.
Structured data
Organization or LocalBusiness markup with
sameAslinks to every profile that's genuinely yours: the machine-readable way of saying they're all the same business.
Reputation
One description, everywhere
Your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directory listings brought into agreement on what you are and what you do.
Mentions you don't write
Reviews, directory listings, press and trade coverage. Your own site is only your word; independent mentions are evidence AI search can check, and they're the slowest part. I can go after them for you, or tell you where they should come from and leave the asking to you.
Measurement
AI referrals in GA4
Visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and the rest separated out in GA4. Some arrive without a source and land in direct traffic, so the figure is treated as a minimum.
One report
The question scores and the referrals each month, in the same report as your paid search where I run that too.
How we'll know it's working
No dashboard reports how often AI answers name you. The fixed question set gets closest, and only if the questions don't change.
Each month, each question goes to each AI tool in a fresh conversation, with no leading follow-up and nothing signed in that could flatter the result. Every answer is scored one of three ways:
-
Cited
Named, with a link to your site.
-
Mentioned
Named, with no link.
-
Absent
Not there at all.
Expect it to be slow. Fixes to crawler access and indexing are picked up in days to weeks; being trusted enough to be named takes months. Give it three months at the very least before judging it.
You can't buy the answer. Google went this way first: organic results came first, then paid ads, and ChatGPT has followed suit. The answer is the organic result, and nobody pays for it. The labelled card below it is the paid one, and that's ChatGPT Ads management.
Nobody can guarantee a mention. Which businesses AI answers name is decided inside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and the others. Anyone promising a placement in ChatGPT's answers is promising something nobody outside OpenAI controls.
What about llms.txt? It's cheap to publish and does no harm, so you'll get one. But no major AI company has said it reads the file, so it isn't what gets a business cited, and it isn't what you're paying for.
Want to know where you stand now? On a free call we can put a few of your customers' questions to ChatGPT together.
Book a free intro callWhat it costs
Flat fees, set the same way as my other services: a fixed fee for the groundwork, then a flat monthly fee for the work that keeps going.
Both depend on how much of the work you want me to do. Rewriting your pages and chasing mentions myself is a bigger job than briefing you or your web designer to do them, and the fee says so.
It's quoted after the intro call; how fees are set is on Services.
The groundwork
The baseline, crawler access, indexing, structured data and one description everywhere. A fixed fee, agreed before any work starts.
The ongoing work
The monthly question set, pages made quotable, mentions, and the report. Give it three months at least.
Common questions
Is this different from SEO?
Mostly not. It's search engine optimisation pointed at a different reader: the AI that reads your pages and decides whether to name you. AI search leans on the same crawlers and search indexes as ordinary Google and Bing search, so most of the work does both jobs.
Can you guarantee a mention?
No. Which businesses AI answers name is decided inside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic and the others, and nobody outside them controls it. What I can do is remove the reasons they can't name you, give them something worth quoting, and track every month whether they start to.
How long does it take?
Fixes to crawler access and indexing are picked up in days to weeks. Being trusted enough to be named takes months, because it rests on mentions of your business that you don't write. Judge it at three months at the earliest.
Which AI tools does it cover?
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. The groundwork is shared, because they draw on the same few search indexes, but the monthly check asks each one separately.
Do I need ChatGPT Ads as well?
No. The ad buys a labelled card shown apart from the answer, and it can't buy a word of the answer itself. Some businesses run both while the organic side builds, but neither depends on the other.
Is anything stopping AI search naming you?
Thirty minutes, free. Whether they can reach your site, whether you're in the indexes they search, and what to fix first.