Be the source AI cites when your buyer asks.Not the site nobody reads.
Custom Agentic Search Engine Optimization for teams who want AI visibility as an engineering discipline, not a marketing hope. We audit, ship structured data + extractable content, and measure citation share on the queries your buyers actually ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude — every month.
One retail-media advertising platform we work with —#1 cited source on 10+ buyer-intent queries in their category.
Citation share = the percentage of AI-generated answers to that query across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews that name this client as a source. Baseline before we started: near zero on most of these queries.
The AI answer economy is already real.
Google AI Overviews appear in ~45% of searches and reduce click-through to websites by up to 58%. ChatGPT hit 500M weekly users and answers questions with sourced citations. Perplexity grew 10x YoY on the promise of “answers, not links.”
In every one of those answers, some source gets cited. Or several. The buyer's decision now happens inside that answer — before they ever visit anyone's website. If you're not one of the sources cited, you're not in the consideration set.
AEO (also called GEO, also called AI SEO) is the discipline of engineering your site, your content, and your third-party footprint so AI systems reliably cite you when a buyer asks a question you should be the answer to.
Baseline. Audit. Ship. Extend. Compound.
Baseline
For a defined set of 25–100 buyer-intent queries, we log current AI citation status across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Copilot. Who's cited today? What competitors surface? Where are you invisible?
Audit
Robots.txt, structured data, content extractability, freshness signals, author E-E-A-T, third-party citation surface. Written report with a prioritized backlog — each item has an expected-impact score.
Implement
Ship the structured data (FAQPage, Article, Product, HowTo, Organization). Rewrite thin content into extractable answer blocks with sourced statistics. Unblock the crawlers you care about. Close the obvious wounds.
Extend
Third-party citation surface: Wikipedia accuracy, Reddit participation, industry publication placement, review-site profiles. Brands are 6.5× more likely to be cited via third-party sources than their own domain.
Measure & compound
Monthly baseline rerun. Citation-share deltas, which pages got cited for which queries, what competitors surfaced that you didn't. That report becomes the retainer's roadmap for the next month.
Audit first. Build off the map. Retainer keeps it moving.
Citation Baseline & Audit
2–3 weeks. Query landscape mapped, current citation share logged, technical + content gaps identified, prioritized backlog delivered. Standalone deliverable — build isn't required.
Implementation Build
4–8 weeks depending on scope. Structured data across the site, extractable content rewrite for priority pages, third-party citation initial push. Ship a measurably improved surface.
Monthly Retainer
Ongoing. Monthly citation baseline rerun, one new extractable content block or comparison page per month, third-party citation extensions, quarterly strategy review with your team.
Pricing is quoted per engagement — scope depends on your query volume, site size, and how much third-party citation work is required. The audit is the qualifier for the build; the build is the qualifier for the retainer.
The disciplines overlap. The tactics differ.
| Dimension | Traditional SEO | AEO / GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Optimization target | Rank #1 for a keyword | Get cited as a source in AI answers |
| Success metric | Position + click-through rate | Citation share across AI platforms |
| Content pattern | Long-form pages, keyword density | Extractable answer blocks, statistics, sources |
| Schema | Nice-to-have | Load-bearing (FAQPage, Article, Product) |
| Third-party leverage | Backlinks | Wikipedia, Reddit, review sites, industry pubs |
| Keyword stuffing | Diminishing returns | Actively hurts (~10% penalty) |
| Time to first result | 6–12 months typical | 4–8 weeks for AI Overviews; slower for ChatGPT |
| Who owns the answer | Google (the ranking) | The AI system (the citation) |
What buyers ask. Answered extractably.
This block is wrapped in FAQPage JSON-LD — so AI systems can extract any answer here and cite it as a source. Which is exactly what you'd want the same treatment to do for your site.
What's the difference between AEO, GEO, and traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO optimizes a page to rank in Google's ten blue links. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — the two current acronyms for the same category — optimize a page to be cited by AI systems (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Copilot) as the source of their answer. In AI search, a well-structured page can get cited even if it ranks on page 2 or 3 — sources are selected on content quality, structure, and authority, not just rank position.
Which AI platforms should I care about?
In 2026, five bots matter for citation: GPTBot and ChatGPT-User (OpenAI), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), ClaudeBot and anthropic-ai (Anthropic), Google-Extended (Google Gemini and AI Overviews), and Bingbot (Microsoft Copilot). If any of these are blocked in your robots.txt, that platform can't cite you. Google AI Overviews now appear in roughly 45% of searches — the highest-volume surface — so Google-Extended access is table stakes.
How long before we see citation share move?
Google AI Overviews respond in 4–8 weeks once structured data and extractable content ship, because it draws heavily from traditional-SEO rank. ChatGPT and Perplexity are less predictable — some queries move in weeks, others take a quarter as the index refreshes. Third-party citations (Wikipedia, Reddit, review sites) can move any of them faster than site-owned changes. We publish a monthly baseline so you see what moved and what didn't.
Isn't this just SEO with a new name?
There's overlap — good traditional SEO is the foundation. But AEO adds a distinct set of tactics: structured data (FAQPage, Article, Product, HowTo schemas), extractable answer blocks that read well out of context, statistics and citations that AI systems weight heavily (+37% and +40% respectively in Princeton's GEO study), and third-party presence engineering. Keyword stuffing — still tolerated in traditional SEO — actively reduces AI visibility by ~10%.
What if my content is thin or gated?
AI can't cite what it can't read. Gated content is invisible to citation systems. Part of the audit is finding the pages that should be public but aren't, and identifying the topical gaps we need to fill before optimization can move the needle. Content itself isn't excluded from the build — thin pages get rewritten to extractable answer blocks with sourced statistics.
How do you measure results?
Every engagement establishes a baseline: for a defined query set (typically 25–100 buyer-intent prompts), we log current citation status across the five major platforms. Monthly reports show citation-share deltas, which pages got cited for which queries, and what competitors are surfacing that you aren't. The retainer's job is to close those gaps every month.
Do you work with regulated industries (legal, medical, financial)?
Yes. Regulated industries actually benefit most from AEO — the highest-intent queries in these categories now surface AI-generated answers, and being the cited source is closer to being the trusted answer than any ad placement can be. Compliance review of every claim we publish is part of the process; no surprise language ships.
Can I do this myself?
Yes — the tactics are documented. The reasons teams hire it out: (1) it's a per-query craft, not a template, so scale requires ongoing analytical work; (2) schema mistakes are common and silently kill visibility; (3) measuring citation share across five platforms every month is a real workflow that competes with the team's actual roadmap. If you have the engineering time and analytical instinct, DIY is real. If not, this is what a retainer buys you.
What does the audit deliver?
A written report covering: current citation baseline for your top 25–100 buyer queries; robots.txt and structured-data audit; content-extractability score per page (structure, statistics, sources, freshness); third-party citation footprint (Wikipedia, Reddit, industry publications, review sites); and a prioritized backlog of changes with expected impact per item. The audit standalone is often what a team needs — the build proposal is off the back of that document.
Running a Park City small business rather than a B2B team? The same service, framed for local operators, lives at parkcityaisolutions.com/ai-search-visibility →
Ready to be the source AI cites?
Start with a 30-minute call. If AEO makes sense for you, we'll scope the audit on the spot. If it doesn't, you'll leave with a clearer read on your current AI visibility — either way, worth the time.