What AI SEO means, without the jargon
A growing share of research now happens in conversation. A practice manager in Perth asks ChatGPT which patient booking systems suit a small allied health clinic. A homeowner in Brisbane asks Gemini what a full bathroom renovation involves. Google shows an AI Overview above the ordinary results for many questions. In each case the assistant writes an answer, and sometimes names businesses and links to sources.
AI SEO is about being one of those names and sources. The industry has produced several labels for it:
- GEO (generative engine optimisation): visibility in answers composed by generative AI tools.
- AEO (answer engine optimisation): an older term for being the answer, from featured snippets to voice assistants.
- LLM optimisation: the same goal, named after the large language models behind the tools.
The labels overlap almost completely. What matters is the work underneath, and most of that is good SEO done thoroughly. That is why we treat AI SEO as an extension of our SEO services, not a separate product. For the background, read our explainer on what AI search optimisation is.
Where AI assistants get their answers
Broadly, AI assistants draw on two sources. The first is what the model learned during training, a snapshot of the public web and other text that is months or years old. The second is live retrieval: the assistant runs a search, reads a handful of pages and writes an answer from them, often with links.
The second route is where businesses can make a real difference, because it rewards pages that are indexable, clear and trusted. Google states in its documentation on AI features in Search that there are no special requirements to appear in AI Overviews beyond the ordinary SEO fundamentals: a page must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. Other assistants rely on their own crawlers and on web search indexes, so the same principle holds: if your pages are hard to crawl, vague or unsupported by anyone else, you give them little to work with.
Training data shifts more slowly. Being consistently described the same way across your own site, directories, industry bodies, media and reviews makes it more likely that models associate your name with the right things.
What an AI SEO audit looks at
Before changing anything, we establish where you stand. An AI and LLM visibility audit covers:
- Prompt testing: a set of realistic questions your buyers ask, run across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews, noting whether you are named, how you are described and which sources are cited instead.
- Crawler access: whether your robots.txt, firewall or hosting accidentally blocks the crawlers that AI search tools use, and whether the choices you have made are deliberate.
- Entity clarity: whether your business name, what you do, where you operate and who runs it are stated plainly and consistently, including the business details in your structured data.
- Answerability: whether your key pages answer the obvious questions in the first lines, or bury them under introductions.
- Third-party footprint: what other sites say about you, from industry associations and media to review platforms and forums.
The technical parts overlap with a conventional SEO audit, which is why we usually combine them.
The work itself
AI search optimisation is not a single setting. It is a set of levers, each of which also helps ordinary search:
| Lever | What we do | Why it matters to AI systems |
|---|---|---|
| Indexing and access | Make sure key pages are crawlable, fast and not blocked by accident | A page that cannot be retrieved cannot be cited |
| Answer-first content | Open each page with a direct, self-contained answer, then the detail | Assistants quote passages that stand on their own |
| Entity facts | State who you are, what you do, where and for whom, consistently across the site and structured data | Consistent facts reduce the chance of being confused or misdescribed |
| Demonstrated expertise | Named authors, credentials, real examples, cited sources | Systems lean towards sources that look accountable and trustworthy |
| Earned mentions | Digital PR, industry bodies, expert commentary, genuine reviews | Being mentioned by others is evidence that you matter in your field |
| Comparison and pricing clarity | Explain how options differ, what drives cost, who you are and are not for | Buyers ask comparison questions, and assistants look for pages that answer them honestly |
Measuring AI visibility honestly
AI answers vary. Ask the same question twice and you may get two different lists of businesses. Answers also differ by location, by whether the user is logged in, and by the model version. So we never report a single screenshot as proof of anything.
Instead we track a fixed set of prompts over time, run several times per period, and report how often you are named, how accurately you are described and which competitors and sources appear alongside you. We combine this with harder data: referral traffic from AI tools in your analytics, branded search trends and the enquiries that mention finding you through an assistant. The picture is directional rather than precise, and we say so.
What AI SEO cannot do, and claims to be wary of
The field is new and full of confident promises. A few things to keep in mind:
- No one controls what ChatGPT recommends. An agency that promises your business will be the answer is selling something it cannot deliver.
- llms.txt is not a ranking switch. It is a proposed file format that some tools may read. It costs little to add, but there is no evidence that it improves visibility on its own.
- Mass-produced content backfires. Hundreds of thin pages written to catch AI questions are exactly what Google's guidance on helpful, people-first content warns against.
- Planted mentions are a risk. Fake forum posts and invented reviews can mislead consumers, which raises issues under the Australian Consumer Law, and they damage trust when discovered.
AI search for Australian businesses
For a small business, AI SEO rarely means anything exotic. It means a website that clearly states what you do, where you work and why you are credible, a Google Business Profile that matches it, genuine reviews, and a few pages that answer your customers' real questions better than anyone else in Australia.
Regulated professions need extra care, because AI assistants quote your own words back to people. If a dental or physiotherapy page makes a claim that would breach AHPRA's advertising rules, an AI summary can repeat it to a much wider audience. The same applies to lawyers working under state conduct rules and to financial services. We write content that is precise enough to be quoted safely.
Content quality underpins all of this. Our SEO content writing is built to be quoted: direct answers, specific facts and a clear author. Earned mentions come from our link building and digital PR work.