How to Get Your Website Found on Google and Cited by AI Assistants

SEO, AEO and GEO in plain words

Three acronyms come up a lot in conversations about search. They overlap far more than the names suggest.

In practice, one well-built site with clear, useful pages serves all three. You do not need three strategies or three agencies. You need solid foundations and content that genuinely answers what your customers ask.

Technical basics that have to be right

If search engines and AI crawlers cannot reach and read your pages, nothing else matters. Check these first:

• Indexable pages: important pages are not blocked by robots.txt or a noindex tag.
• An XML sitemap listing your real pages, submitted in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
• One address per page: a canonical URL, HTTPS everywhere and no duplicate versions of the same page.
• Unique titles and meta descriptions that describe each page honestly.
• A real heading structure: one main heading per page, with subheadings that outline the content.
• Text in the HTML: key content should not depend on scripts or images to appear.
• Internal links between related pages, using descriptive link text rather than "click here".
• Mobile-friendly layouts: Google mainly uses the mobile version of a page to understand and rank it.

Make it obvious who you are

Search engines and AI systems try to understand businesses as distinct entities: a named organization with a location, services and a presence across the web. The clearer and more consistent your signals, the more confidently they can describe and recommend you.

• Use exactly the same business name, address and phone number everywhere: your site, Google Business Profile, social profiles and directories.
• Add Organization structured data, or LocalBusiness if you serve a local area, with your name, logo, website, contact details and links to your official profiles.
• Publish a clear About page that states what you do, who you serve and where.
• Give each service its own page rather than listing everything on one.
• Encourage genuine reviews on the platforms your customers already use. Reputation is part of how both search engines and AI systems judge trust.

Structured data is a small block of code that describes your business in a standard format. It is usually added once during the build, which is why it belongs in website development rather than being bolted on later.

Write answer-first content

People and AI systems both look for the answer quickly. Put it at the top, then add the detail.

• Open each page or section with a direct one or two sentence answer.
• Use headings phrased the way customers ask, such as "How long does installation take?"
• Be specific: name your services, the areas you serve, typical timelines and price ranges where you can.
• Keep one main topic per page, so it is clear what each page is about.
• Show who wrote or reviewed the content and when it was last updated.

Vague, generic copy is the main reason pages get ignored. A paragraph that could appear on any competitor's site gives a search engine or an AI assistant no reason to choose yours. Specific, checkable details do.

Use FAQs the right way

A good FAQ section collects the real questions customers ask by email, by phone or in sales calls, and answers each one in a short, direct paragraph. That format is easy for readers to scan and easy for answer engines to quote. Put topic-specific questions on the pages they relate to, such as pricing questions on your pricing page, and keep a central page, like our own FAQ, for general ones.

FAQ structured data can still help machines read the page, but do not expect it to produce expandable FAQ results in Google. Since 2023, Google has shown those mainly for well-known government and health sites. Write FAQs for people first.

Page speed and Core Web Vitals

Google measures real-world page experience with three Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): how quickly the main content appears. Aim for 2.5 seconds or less.
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): how quickly the page responds to taps and clicks. Aim for 200 milliseconds or less.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): how much the layout jumps around while loading. Aim for 0.1 or less.

The most common fixes are compressing and correctly sizing images, removing unused scripts and plugins, limiting third-party widgets and using reliable hosting. You can check your scores in the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console or by running a page through PageSpeed Insights. A fast site also keeps more visitors on the page, so this work pays off twice.

What not to bother with

Some popular tactics waste time, and a few carry real risk:

• The meta keywords tag. Google ignores it.
• Keyword density targets. Write naturally for the reader and cover the topic properly.
• Buying links or joining link schemes. It risks penalties and the benefit rarely lasts.
• Mass-produced pages that swap a city or keyword into the same text.
• Hundreds of low-quality directory listings. A handful of relevant, accurate profiles is enough.
• Chasing every new AI search trick. Clear, accurate, well-structured pages are what last.

You may also hear about llms.txt, a proposed file that summarizes a site for AI tools. It is harmless to add, but treat it as optional. Support for it varies, and it is no substitute for clear, well-structured pages.

A simple monthly routine

1. Check Google Search Console for errors and for pages that dropped out of the index.
2. Review which searches bring people to your site, and improve the pages that answer them.
3. Add or update one genuinely useful page or guide.
4. Confirm your business details are still consistent across your profiles.
5. Test your key pages for speed on a phone.
6. Ask a few AI assistants the questions your customers ask, and note whether and how your business appears.

If you are planning a new site, building these foundations in from the start costs far less than fixing them later. Our guide to website costs in 2026 explains what a solid launch typically includes, or you can start a project and talk it through with us.