AI search optimisation that gives ChatGPT good reason to mention you

Google started showing AI Overviews in UK search results in August 2024 (9to5Google), and for many questions the summary is now the first thing people read. Being one of the sources it links to is part of being found.

Some of the people who hear of you this way never visit your site: they read the answer, then search your name or ring. Most of what helps here helps your ordinary SEO too. The free audit includes what AI tools say about your business today.

For local questions (“a good family solicitor in Norwich”), AI tools lean heavily on map listings and directories, so the basics of local SEO come first: the same name, address, postcode and phone on your site, your Business Profile, Bing Places (Copilot draws on Bing), Yell and the directories your trade uses.

We also check that your site lets in the crawlers of the AI search tools you want to appear in (OpenAI's list of its crawlers), and that each page says what you do, where and for whom in its first lines, in British English, as your customers write.

Generative engine optimisation (GEO), answer engine optimisation (AEO), AI SEO and LLM SEO all describe the same job: preparing your business so the systems that write answers (ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode) can find, understand and cite you. There's no secret switch.

The difference from SEO services is what the searcher gets. On Google they see a list of links and pick one; in an AI answer they get a written reply that mentions a few sources, or none. So it matters more that each page answers in its first lines, that your details match off your site and that other sites talk about you. The foundation doesn't change: if your site has no page for a service, no AI tool has anything to pull from.

We start with the questions people ask before they ring an accountant: “accountant for self assessment in Norwich”, “how much does a sole trader pay for an accountant”, “accountant near me who does Making Tax Digital”. Between 50 and 100 of them, depending on what you offer and how many towns you cover.

We put them to ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, and Perplexity, and keep every answer.

Google is explicit about its side: there are no extra requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special file or schema to add; a page just has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet (AI features and your website). Google also says these features may run several related searches to build one answer, which rewards pages that cover a topic's follow-up questions.

ChatGPT searches with OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot, and OpenAI says sites that block it won't be shown in ChatGPT search answers (its crawler docs). Perplexity uses PerplexityBot to surface and link sites in its results (its docs). Copilot runs on Bing, so your site needs to be in Bing too.

What's known to help: a site search engines can find and OpenAI's search crawler can reach, pages that say plainly what you do, where and for whom, and other sites (reviews, directories, local press) that back it up. What isn't known is the exact weight of each piece, because nobody has published it.

For local questions (“photographer near me who does elopements”), answers lean heavily on Google Business Profiles and their reviews, so local SEO matters as much as your site. We walk through it step by step in how to get your business on ChatGPT.

Google counts visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside the Search Console Performance report, mixed in with the rest of your web search traffic. Since February 2026, Bing shows how often Copilot cites your site in its AI Performance report. ChatGPT and Perplexity don't offer any report.

That's why we track the same questions every week: it shows whether you come up more, get cited more and whether what's said about you has changed. Answers vary by day and by who's asking, so we show you the trend, not a single snapshot. Visits from chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai are counted in your analytics.

A serious AI SEO agency does things you can check: questions saved before and after, pages rewritten, details fixed on other sites and AI referrals measured in your analytics. What it shouldn't sell you is a magic file, a list of tricks or a promise that ChatGPT will recommend you.

If your site has technical problems that stop Google from reading it, an SEO audit comes before any work for AI. And if you don't have a page for each service yet, we start with your website.

It's a fixed monthly fee set in your plan after the audit, because it depends on your firm: how many questions need tracking, how many services and towns you cover, and how much needs putting right on your site and elsewhere. That covers the set-up (the starting audit and those fixes) and then each month: new questions answered on your site, listings and mentions kept current, weekly tracking and the report. No set-up fee and no minimum term; 30 days' notice to stop.

The first invoice comes once the set-up is live and you've checked it. If we also look after your SEO, the audit shows what the two share and your plan sets it out. How each plan is priced is on our pricing page.