AI Search Optimisation.

Your customers have started asking AI instead

A growing share of buying research now happens inside ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Someone planning a purchase asks a question in plain English and gets a synthesised answer naming a handful of businesses, and if yours is not one of them, there is no page two to rescue you. AI search optimisation, often called AEO (answer engine optimisation) or GEO (generative engine optimisation), is the work of making your business one of the names those answers cite and recommend.

How AI assistants choose who to mention

AI assistants do not rank ten blue links; they compose an answer from sources they can find, read and trust. In practice that means they favour content that answers questions directly and completely, sites that are technically easy to crawl, businesses whose details are consistent across the web, and brands that credible third-party sources mention. Google has been clear that there is no special trick for AI Overviews, and that the same fundamentals that earn search rankings feed its AI results. Independent studies of ChatGPT and Perplexity citations point the same way: clear, well-structured, authoritative content gets cited. Anyone selling you a secret hack for ranking in ChatGPT is selling you exactly that, a sales pitch.

What the work actually involves

AI search optimisation is real work with real deliverables. We audit how AI assistants currently describe your business and your competitors, then fix what holds you back: content restructured so each page answers the questions buyers actually ask, with direct answers an AI can quote; structured data (schema markup) so your services, prices, locations, reviews and FAQs are machine-readable; technical access so AI crawlers such as GPTBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended can reach and parse your content, deliberately allowed or blocked according to your strategy; entity consistency, so your name, services and locations read the same on your site, your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles; and digital PR, because mentions in credible publications and directories are one of the strongest signals AI assistants lean on when deciding who to recommend.

Built on classic SEO, not instead of it

AI search optimisation is not a replacement for search engine optimisation; it is built on top of it. A site that Google cannot crawl or does not trust will not be quoted by an AI assistant either. Where the two differ is emphasis: AI visibility rewards being quotable, being specific and being mentioned elsewhere, more than it rewards chasing a single keyword position. Because Webgel does both, your SEO and AI search work reinforce each other instead of competing for the same budget.

Honest measurement, honestly explained

This field is young and measurement is imperfect, and we would rather tell you that than invent certainty. What can be tracked: referral traffic arriving from ChatGPT, Perplexity and other assistants in your analytics; how AI assistants answer an agreed set of buying questions about your market, checked over time; your citation footprint; and, most importantly, leads. What cannot be tracked reliably yet: a neat position number, because AI answers vary by user and by day. We report what is real and label the rest as directional.

1. AI visibility audit

We start by asking the assistants your customers use the questions your customers ask, and recording who gets named, who gets cited and what is said about you. Alongside that we audit your content, structured data, crawler access and entity consistency. You get a clear picture of where you stand before we recommend anything.

2. Fix the foundations

Most businesses have technical and structural issues that cap their AI visibility: thin pages that answer nothing fully, missing schema markup, inconsistent business details, or robots rules that block AI crawlers without anyone having decided to. We fix these first because nothing else works until they are fixed.

3. Make your content the best available answer

We restructure and expand the pages that matter so each one answers a real buying question directly, with evidence, specifics and clear language an assistant can quote. This is not about stuffing pages with keywords; it is about being the source an AI would be sensible to cite.

4. Build the mentions that build trust

AI assistants lean heavily on what the rest of the web says about you. We identify the directories, publications and industry sources that matter in your market and work to earn accurate, positive mentions in them, honest digital PR rather than link schemes.

5. Monitor, report and adapt

We re-run the audit questions on a schedule, track AI referral traffic and citations, and report in plain English, including what changed in the platforms themselves, because they change often. The strategies that win in AI search are the ones that adapt.

What does AI search optimisation cost?

It depends on the state of your site, the competitiveness of your market and how much content and PR work is needed. For most clients it runs as part of a monthly SEO engagement rather than a standalone project, since the two share foundations. We will scope it against your situation and quote clearly, and if your site is not ready for this work yet, we will tell you what to fix first instead of selling it to you anyway.

Who this service suits

AI search optimisation makes sense for businesses whose customers research before buying: service businesses being compared against competitors, e-commerce stores whose products get recommended by name, and local businesses that want to be the answer when someone asks an assistant who to use nearby. If your buyers ask questions before spending money, this is where a growing share of those questions is being answered.

Why Webgel

We are an SEO and web design agency based in Taunton, working UK-wide and in Dubai. We build the websites, write the content, implement the schema and run the SEO campaigns this work sits on, so nothing is passed between three suppliers and lost in translation. And because we run AI automation and AI chatbot projects too, we work with these AI platforms daily rather than reading about them second-hand.