SEO helps search engines discover and understand useful pages. AEO and GEO are terms used for work aimed at visibility in AI-generated answers. For a small business, the buying decision is which discovery or credibility problem needs fixing, and how the provider will prove the work.
Start with a question a buyer really asks
Choose a service and an audience: for example, an electrician comparing call-answering options or a shop deciding whether to replace its website. Write down the questions the buyer needs answered: suitability, cost drivers, limits, alternatives and what happens after an enquiry.
Find the page that answers each question. If the answer only exists inside a sales call, a screenshot or an unsupported slogan, make it understandable in the page’s text and connect it to the appropriate evidence.
What overlaps with ordinary SEO?
Pages still need to be accessible, useful and connected by internal links. Google says its AI search features do not require special AI schema or new machine-readable files. Accurate business information and visible evidence belong in the foundations. See Google’s guidance for AI search features.
For ChatGPT search, OpenAI identifies OAI-SearchBot as its search crawler. Search access and permission to use content for model training are separate settings. Allowing a crawler does not guarantee a recommendation. See OpenAI’s crawler documentation.
What does AI visibility measurement add?
Run a fixed sample of unbranded buyer questions and save the exact prompt, engine, date, response and cited URLs. Repeat the sample because answers vary. Track whether the business was merely mentioned, recommended for a particular need or cited with a link.
Keep engine results separate. A search API response is not a measurement of the consumer app unless that is explicitly the surface being tested. An engine that could not be tested belongs in the report as untested, not as zero appearances.
Then track attributable website visits and enquiries separately. Some people read an answer and later search for the brand, so referral analytics cannot capture every influence.
Three sensible buying options
- Do the foundations yourself. Best when the site is small and the main gaps are unclear service descriptions, missing proof or inconsistent profiles. Keep a dated baseline.
- Buy a focused audit and repair. Best when a specific access, indexing or content issue blocks useful pages. Require the affected URLs and a live verification of the repair.
- Commission ongoing search and evidence work. Best when there is enough customer demand and commercial upside to justify regular improvements, credible third-party visibility and repeated measurement.
Our recommendation: fix the demonstrated limiting step first. A reporting subscription will not compensate for an offer nobody can understand, and a large article quota will not substitute for first-hand evidence.
What should the scope and report contain?
Ask for the target audience and buying questions, the pages being changed, evidence sources, content ownership, approval process and measurement schedule. Costs depend on the starting condition, services covered, integrations and ongoing work. The scope should distinguish setup from monthly management.
A useful report separates shipped work, crawl and indexing observations, search clicks, AI citations, qualified enquiries and completed sales. Ask to see the underlying dated records behind any result claim.
What does BBL’s evidence currently establish?
Our Walk On The Wild Side case study contains dated website and Google Search figures with limitations. Those figures do not prove AI recommendations or AI-generated sales. The same distinction should apply to any agency’s portfolio.
Today, choose one buyer question and inspect the service page and evidence it leads to. For help with that work, compare our SEO service and AI search visibility service.