AEO resources
Learn how AI search picks the businesses it names.
The signals AI weighs, the questions your buyers really ask, a 10-point readiness check, common myths and the vocabulary, all in plain language.
How it works
How AI picks an answer.
Each platform differs, but most AI search follows the same four steps when a question needs current information. You can influence every one of them.
Buyer asks
“Which payroll software is best for a 50-person company with staff in three states?”
Interpret
Splits the question into several smaller searches.
Retrieve
Searches an index: Google’s, Bing’s, or the assistant’s own crawler and search partners.
Select
Keeps passages that are specific, trustworthy and easy to quote, and checks them against other sources.
Answer + cite
Writes one answer, often naming two or three businesses, and links the sources it relied on.
Sample prompt set
What 60 buyer questions
actually look like.
An illustrative set for a payroll software company, grouped by where the buyer is in their decision. Yours is built with you, from your own sales and support conversations.
Buyers learning what kind of solution they need.
- “What payroll software do small businesses use?”
- “How do I run payroll for staff in several states?”
- “Do I need payroll software or an accountant?”
- + 12 more
Buyers weighing options side by side.
- “Best payroll software for a 50-person company”
- “Payroll with HR included vs separate tools”
- “Payroll that connects to our accounting software”
- + 12 more
Buyers checking cost, fit and switching effort.
- “How much is payroll software for 50 employees?”
- “Is Your Brand good for multi-state payroll?”
- “How long does it take to switch payroll providers?”
- + 12 more
Buyers looking for reasons to trust, or doubt, a pick.
- “Your Brand reviews from mid-size companies”
- “Your Brand vs Competitor A”
- “Common problems with Your Brand”
- + 12 more
We weight the set toward the stages that drive revenue for you. A local firm leans on discover and decide; a software company needs more compare and validate.
Industries
The questions your buyers ask AI.
Every category has its own prompts, and its own sources AI leans on. These are the kinds of questions we track, and what engines look for before they answer.
“Which car accident lawyer in Phoenix should I call?”
Engines look for attorney bios with bar details, clear answers on fees and timelines, and coverage in local media.
“Best family dentist in Plano taking new patients?”
Engines look for a page per location, insurance accepted, current hours and a steady flow of reviews.
“Who replaces roofs after hail damage in Denver?”
Engines look for service-area pages, licensing, storm-season answers and review volume.
“Best payroll software for a 50-person company?”
Engines look for public pricing, honest comparisons, review-site profiles and placement in category roundups.
“Fee-only financial advisor in Boston for doctors?”
Engines look for credentials, a plainly stated fee structure and pages for the niche you serve.
“Where can I buy a standing desk in Austin today?”
Engines look for store pages with hours and stock, Product and Offer markup and accurate merchant feeds.
Free self-check
Is your business ready for AI search?
Tick what is true today. Ten questions, two minutes. Your score updates as you go.
Your AI readiness
0 / 10
Mostly invisible to AI
AI tools may struggle to find, read or trust your site. The fixes at this stage are usually quick and technical, and they unlock everything else.
Common myths
Six myths about
AI search.
Most of what we hear on first calls comes down to one of these. Here’s the short version of each.
Myth 01AI search is a fad. Our customers still use Google.
What’s actually trueGoogle now puts AI Overviews and AI Mode in front of searchers itself. AI answers aren’t a separate channel any more; they’re part of Google.
Myth 02If we rank on page one, AI will mention us.
What’s actually trueRankings help, but AI picks passages it can quote and facts other sources confirm. Plenty of page-one businesses are never named.
Myth 03We need an llms.txt file or special AI markup.
What’s actually trueGoogle says its AI features need no special files or markup. Crawlable pages, consistent facts and clear answers do the work.
Myth 04Blocking AI bots costs us nothing.
What’s actually trueBlocking search and answer crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot can drop you from those answers. Training crawlers are a separate choice.
Myth 05You can’t measure AI visibility.
What’s actually trueYou can. Run the same buyer questions on each platform every month and record who’s named and cited. That’s what our scorecard does.
Myth 06AEO is only for big brands.
What’s actually trueLocal and niche questions are often easier to win. A small firm with clear answers and steady reviews can be named over a national brand.
Resources
Learn the ground rules
of AI search.
Free tools and references we use with clients. No sign-up needed for most of them.
How AI search decides who to recommend, what to fix first and how to measure it.
Download the AEO strategy guide Self-checkAI readiness checkTen questions, two minutes, with a live score.
Take the check ReferenceAI platforms explainedWhere each platform’s answers come from, and which crawler to allow.
See the table Free toolOne-question AI visibility checkPick a buyer question and a platform. We email you the answer.
Check a question GlossaryAEO terms in plain languageShare of answer, citations, entities and the rest, explained once.
Read the glossaryAEO terms
The vocabulary, in plain language.
An AI tool that writes one answer to a question instead of listing links, such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Mode.
The percentage of your tracked buyer prompts in which AI names your business.
A link to your page shown as a source inside an AI answer.
Your business as a distinct, recognizable thing, described the same way across sources.
Google’s AI-written summaries shown at the top of some search results.
Google’s conversational search for longer, multi-part questions.
When AI splits one question into several searches before it answers.
Machine-readable labels (schema.org) for facts already visible on a page.
Free AI visibility audit
Find out what AI
says about you.
We test 60 of your buyers’ questions across six AI platforms and send you a plain-language report, with the fixes ranked.