AI search optimization services
AI search optimization is the work that gets your business cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Google's AI Overview who to call. It is largely ordinary good practice applied more precisely.
It is not billed as a separate retainer, because it is the same work as search.
- Not sold as a separate retainer
- It is the same work as SEO, so it is not billed separately.
- We will show you the answers
- We ask the assistants your buyers' questions and record what comes back.
- Honest about measurement
- Reporting on this is immature, and we label our figures accordingly.
The diagnostic takes two minutes
Type the question your customers would type — "who should I call for a leaking water heater in Brentwood" — into an assistant and read what comes back. It will usually name three or four businesses and cite a handful of pages.
If you are not among them, it is usually because someone else wrote a page that answered the question directly and yours did not, or because your details disagree across the web enough that a model will not rely on them.
Most AI search optimization work is also the work that gets you ranked, so this sits inside SEO rather than beside it. If you want an assistant of your own rather than a mention in someone else's, that is chatbot development, and AI consulting is where to start if you are not sure which.
We record what the assistants say now
Before changing anything we run your buying questions through the major assistants and record the answers verbatim: who is named, which pages are cited, and what is said about you. That document is the baseline for judging whether the work moved anything.
It is a spot check rather than a metric, and the report labels it as one. There is no established "AI visibility score", and any dashboard showing one has invented it.
The four things AI search optimization changes
All four also make the page better for a human reader.
Answer the question in the first two sentences
Page structureAn assistant quotes a direct answer. A page that takes eighty words to reach the point gives it nothing to quote.
So every page states the answer at the top and explains underneath. That is also better for the person reading it, which is the pattern across this work.
Real questions as real headings
FAQ blocksA question written the way a customer would ask it, with a complete answer underneath, is the format these systems quote most readily, and it is cheap to add.
The answers go in the page markup rather than behind a script. Collapsed answers still count; answers loaded only after a click do not.
Be specific enough to be checkable
Named places, real numbers“We serve Middle Tennessee” performs worse than “We serve Franklin, Brentwood and Nolensville.” Named places, real numbers and prices where you can publish them. Vague copy contains nothing for a model to repeat.
It is the change most marketing copy resists, because it removes the room to generalise.
Structured data and a consistent record
Schema · your profile · citationsStructured data gives a machine the facts directly: what you do, where, when you are open, what a service costs. We generate it from the same content that renders the page, so the two can't drift apart.
Consistency matters as much. Assistants draw on your Google profile, directory listings and reviews alongside your site. A business whose phone number differs across three sources is one a model has low confidence in, and it will name someone else.
The scope, written down before you pay
Short, because this runs alongside search work rather than replacing it.
Month one
- We ask the assistants the questions your buyers ask, and record the answers
- A list of who is getting cited instead of you, and why
- Page structure fixed so answers sit at the top
- FAQ blocks written per service, from real questions
- Schema generated from the page content
Ongoing
- New question pages as they come out of your sales calls
- Profile, listing and review consistency kept correct
- Spot checks re-run and recorded each month
- Referral traffic from assistant domains watched in analytics
- The pages and the tracking stay yours
Not included
- A separate AI retainer on top of SEO — it is the same work
- Reporting that implies precision nobody has
- Paying to be included in an AI answer, which is not a thing you can buy
- An llms.txt file sold as a service
Want to know who is getting named instead of you? We will check and send you the answers.
Three things you can check yourself
- Ask an assistant now
- Type your own buying question into ChatGPT and see who it names.
- Check this site's markup
- View source on this page. The FAQ answers are in the HTML and the schema is generated from the same data.
- Ask us what we can't measure
- Ask how this is measured. Reporting is the weakest part of this work and we will say so.
Questions we get on the first call
What is AI search optimization, in plain terms?
Making your business the one an assistant names when someone asks it who to call. It is close to ordinary SEO — useful pages, clear structure, specific facts, correct structured data — weighted more toward answering questions directly and keeping your details consistent everywhere they appear.
Is this a different service from SEO?
No. The work overlaps almost completely with SEO. It is listed separately because people search for it, not because it is billed separately.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend us?
No, and nobody can. There is no placement to buy and no ranking to check. What we can do is make you the most quotable option for the questions your buyers ask, then test it and show you the results.
How do you measure it?
Partly, and we would rather say that up front than oversell it. Google counts AI Overview impressions inside your normal search data, so there is no way to pull them out separately, and the assistants publish nothing at all. Three things we can do: count the visits that arrive from assistant domains, watch whether more people search for you by name, and ask the assistants your buyers’ questions each month and save what comes back. That last one is a spot check rather than a metric, and the report says so.
Does an llms.txt file help?
Possibly. It is a proposed convention pointing crawlers at your preferred content. It costs almost nothing and no major assistant has committed to honouring it. We add one and do not bill for it.
Is SEO dead now that AI answers questions directly?
No, but the outcome is changing. Fewer people click through to read a page that answers a simple question, and more arrive already knowing your name because something recommended you. Both follow from being the clearest and most specific source on the question.
How long does it take?
The page work takes a few weeks. When it changes what an assistant says is unpredictable, because these systems refresh on their own schedule. Any specific timeline here is a guess.
Related: SEO · Google Ads · Websites · Marketing overview
The structured data we emit is checked against the rich results test, and the vocabulary comes from schema.org.
Find out what ChatGPT says when someone asks who to call
Send us the question your buyers actually ask. We run it across the assistants, record what comes back, and send you the answers. Free, and yours to keep.