AEO

Your customer asked an assistant. Did it name you?

Search is moving from a page of links to one written answer. AEO is the work that makes your business legible to the systems writing that answer, so yours is among the names it cites.

Everything in writing. A written reply within one business day.
aeo / audit-run running
LB
Lena B. — bakery, “gluten-free wedding cake near me”
visibility audit · 3 answer engines · sample data
measuring
every step written to the audit trail step 0 / 6
One question, followed through

From the question typed to the fix measured again.

A sample audit for a bakery, following one of the questions its customers put to an assistant.

STEP 01customer

The question your customer types

We take the wording your customers use, such as “gluten-free wedding cake near me”, and put it to the answer engines the way they would.

query · real wording
STEP 02answer engine

The answer, and the businesses it cites

Each engine writes one answer and names a handful of businesses. We keep a screenshot and note who was cited, and for what.

cited · 2 competitors
STEP 03audit

Why you were left out

The engines read your site and your listings. Here the bakery had no entity markup, and its hours differed from one listing to the next.

cause · no entity data
STEP 04Lena B.

What gets fixed, then measured again

The fixes ship once the owner approves them. Next month the same question runs again to show whether the answer changed.

re-run · next month
What decides a citation

Facts, structure and entities an answer can trust.

There is no trick to it. An answer engine names the businesses it can read without doubt and quote with confidence.

Structured data on your pages

Schema markup that states what you offer, where and when, in a form a machine reads without guessing.

A clear entity

Your name, place and hours written the same way on your site and on every listing, so the engine knows which business is you.

Pages with facts an answer can quote

Pages that state what a customer asks about, such as the range, the area served and the lead time, in sentences an answer can lift.

A machine-readable site summary

An llms.txt file at the root of your site that says who you are and which pages matter most.

Page structure

Headings and sections arranged so each page answers one question, and the engine can see where the answer sits.

In step with classic search

The same fixes strengthen your ordinary search listing, so every change here helps both.

The three parts of the work

Audit, fixes, monitoring, and the ceiling on all three.

Each part is agreed in writing before it starts, and each ends with something you can read.

01

Audit

The questions your customers ask, run on the major answer engines. You against two competitors, with screenshots, the causes found and a fix list in priority order that you can act on with us or without us.

02

Fixes

Schema and entity markup, fact pages written to be cited, the site summary file and structure fixes. Each one is measured again after it ships.

03

Monitoring

The same questions re-run every month, competitor citations tracked, and a written report on what moved and what to do next. One month’s notice ends it.

04

The ceiling

Nobody controls what an AI answer says. We improve what the engines read, measure what they write and make no ranking promise.

What an answer engine reads before it names you

The answer is written from what it can read about you.

A customer’s question goes to an answer engine, which reads your structured data, your entity details, your citable pages and your site structure before it names anyone. Where you are missing is the gap we work on, and the same questions are measured every month.

A customer’s question, in their own words, goes to the answer engine, which writes one answer. What it reads about you: structured data, clear entity, citable pages and site structure. The answer shows who gets named; the amber card, not named, is the gap we fix. Along the bottom, measured monthly: same questions, same engines.
Why now

The questions that lead to a purchase are moving to assistants.

The shift is under way, and the businesses that work on it first are the ones the answers learn to name.

Buying questions are moving to assistants

A growing share of the questions that end in a purchase are put to an assistant. A business the answer leaves out loses those customers without seeing them.

Early movers hold the citations

Few businesses work on this yet, so the ones that start now become the names the engines grow used to citing.

It compounds with classic search

Clean structure and consistent entity details lift your ordinary search listing as much as the written answer.

We run it on our own site

Our site is built this way and measured monthly with real questions and screenshots. Ask an assistant about iHayz and read what comes back.

Every engagement

Four things you always get.

Whatever the size of the work, these come with it.

01

A written brief

What we agreed to build, in one document.

02

A fixed price

Set in the proposal, before work starts.

03

Staging + approval

You see it and approve it before it goes live.

04

Documentation

How it works and how to change it, handed over.

FAQ

Before the first audit.

Send any other question in writing; a written answer follows within one business day.

How is AEO different from SEO?

Same family, different judge. SEO works toward a place in a list of links; AEO works toward a mention inside a written answer. The measurement differs as well: we track whether you are cited, and how, across the same questions each month, rather than a position number.

Can you guarantee an assistant will recommend us?

No, and nobody can. No one controls what an AI answer says. We improve the inputs the engines read, measure the outputs every month and report what changed, without a ranking promise.

What does the audit include?

The questions your customers ask, in their wording, run on the major AI assistants and the search engine’s AI summaries. You receive a screenshot of each answer, how you compare with two competitors, the cause behind each gap and a prioritised fix list you can use with or without us.

How long before anything moves?

Weeks, not days. After a fix ships, each engine picks it up when it refreshes its index, on its own schedule. The monthly re-run on the same questions shows when that has happened.

Start

Not sure what you need? Ask in writing.

Describe the work in a few lines. We will reply in writing within one business day with what we would build and how.