AI Search Optimisation: How to Get Your Business Found in AI Answers

AI search optimisation is the work of making your business easy for AI-powered search tools, such as Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity, to find, understand and cite when they answer a question. In practice it rests on the same foundations as good SEO: a crawlable website, clear answer-first content, a consistent brand presence across the web and real signals of trust. The difference is mostly in how answers are shown and how hard the results are to measure.

What is AI search optimisation?

When someone types “best way to fix a leaking shower” into Google, they may now see an AI Overview at the top: a written summary with links to the pages it drew on. When someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity “who are good accountants in Maitland for small businesses?”, they get a conversational answer that may name businesses and link to sources.

AI search optimisation (you will also see it called AI SEO, generative engine optimisation or answer engine optimisation) is about being one of those sources or named businesses. Interest is growing in Australia. According to Semrush (Australian database, October 2026), “ai seo” is searched around 2,400 times a month, “generative engine optimization” around 390 times, “answer engine optimization” around 210 times and “how to optimise for ai search engines” around 50 times.

How AI answers are put together

Most AI search tools work roughly like this:

1. They read the question and often break it into several smaller searches.
2. They retrieve pages from a search index (Google’s own index for AI Overviews; other tools use their own crawlers, partner search engines or both).
3. They write a summary from what they retrieved, drawing on what the model already “knows” from training.
4. They cite or link to sources that support the answer.

The key point is step two. If your pages cannot be crawled, are not indexed, or do not clearly answer the question, there is nothing for the AI to retrieve. That is why AI visibility starts with ordinary SEO. Google’s own documentation on AI features says the same: the usual SEO best practices apply, and to be shown as a supporting link a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. There is no special “AI Overview markup” to add.

GEO vs AEO vs SEO: mostly the same foundations

New labels appear every year. Here is what they usually mean, and how much really changes.

In short, roughly the same things help with all of them: crawlable pages, helpful content written by people who know the subject, a well-known and consistent brand, and trust signals. If someone sells you “GEO” as a completely separate discipline that ignores your website’s basics, be wary. If you want the fundamentals first, start with our search engine optimisation guide.

How to optimise for AI search engines

These are the steps that make the biggest practical difference, in rough order of priority.

1. Let AI crawlers in (on purpose)

Your robots.txt file tells crawlers what they may access. Many sites block AI crawlers without realising it, often because a security plugin, CDN or hosting setting did it by default. Check your robots.txt (yourdomain.com.au/robots.txt) and any bot-blocking settings in services like Cloudflare.

Common user agents you will see:

• Googlebot: crawls for Google Search, which includes AI Overviews and AI Mode. Block this and you disappear from Google entirely.
• Google-Extended: this is a control token, not a separate crawler. It lets you choose whether your content can be used to train and ground Google’s Gemini models. It does not affect whether you appear in Google Search, and Google says it is not a ranking signal. Blocking it does not remove you from AI Overviews.
• OAI-SearchBot: used by OpenAI for ChatGPT search results. GPTBot is OpenAI’s separate crawler for model training.
• PerplexityBot: used by Perplexity to find and link to pages.
• Bingbot: Bing’s crawler. Bing powers Microsoft Copilot answers, so being indexed in Bing matters too. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools; it is free.

You can allow search-style crawlers while blocking training crawlers if you prefer. That is a business decision about your content, not an SEO trick. Just make sure whatever you block, you block deliberately. Our technical SEO checklist covers robots.txt, indexing and sitemaps in more detail.

2. Write clear, answer-first content

AI tools pull out passages that answer a question cleanly. You make that easier by:

• Putting a one to three sentence direct answer at the top of a page or section, then the detail.
• Using question-style headings that match how people ask (“How much does a hot water system cost to replace in Newcastle?”).
• Including specifics: prices or price ranges you are comfortable publishing, suburbs you service, turnaround times, what is and is not included.
• Keeping important text as HTML text, not only inside images or PDFs.

Example: a Brisbane cafe that wants to show up for “gluten-free breakfast near South Bank” should have a menu page in plain HTML that says which dishes are gluten-free, the opening hours and the address, not just a photo of a chalkboard menu. Our guide to SEO copywriting goes further into writing pages that work for both readers and search engines.

3. Build your entity: be a clearly defined business

Search engines and AI models think in “entities”: things like a business, a person, a place or a product, and the facts connected to them. The clearer and more consistent the facts about your business are across the web, the more confidently an AI can mention you.

• Use the same business name, address and phone number on your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
• Have a proper About page that says who runs the business, where you operate and what you do.
• Get mentioned on other reputable sites: local news, industry associations, supplier pages, podcasts, community sponsorships.
• Be specific about what you are known for. “Emergency plumber for the Lower Hunter” is easier to associate with a query than “quality service”.

4. Add structured data where it fits

Structured data (schema markup) is code that labels facts on your page, such as your business type, address, opening hours, products, prices and FAQs. Google says it uses structured data to understand page content, and it can make you eligible for rich results. It is not a requirement for AI Overviews and it will not rescue a weak page, but it removes ambiguity. Useful types include LocalBusiness, Organization, Product and Article. Make sure the markup matches what is visible on the page.

5. Earn reviews and show trust

When people ask AI tools for recommendations (“best electrician in Maitland”), the answers often draw on review platforms, Google Business Profile information and third-party lists. Steady, real reviews on Google and relevant industry sites help, as do responses to reviews that show how you handle problems. Never buy or fake reviews: it breaches platform rules and Australian Consumer Law. Trust is also the centre of Google’s quality framework, which we explain in our guide to E-E-A-T. If your Google Business Profile needs work, see our Google Business Profile package.

What does not work (or is unproven)

• Mass-produced AI content. Google’s spam policies target scaled content created mainly to manipulate rankings, however it is produced.
• Hidden instructions to AI tools in page text. This is manipulation and can be treated as spam.
• Special files that promise AI rankings. Proposals such as llms.txt exist, but Google has said you do not need new machine-readable files to appear in its AI features. Treat them as optional experiments, not a strategy.
• Guarantees. No one controls what an AI model says.

How to track AI visibility (and why it is hard)

Measuring AI visibility is the weakest part of this field, and it is worth being clear about the limits.

• Google Search Console: clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in your normal Web search performance data. They are not currently broken out as a separate report, so you cannot see exactly how much came from AI features.
• Google Analytics 4: visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Gemini often show up as referral traffic (for example from chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai). Create a simple report or segment for these sources. Some AI traffic arrives with no referrer and appears as “direct”, so the real figure is likely higher than what you see.
• Ask your customers: add “How did you hear about us?” to your enquiry form, with an option for ChatGPT or another AI tool.
• Manual prompt checks: keep a list of 10 to 20 questions customers might ask and check them monthly in a few tools. Record whether you are mentioned or linked.
• AI visibility tools: several SEO platforms now track brand mentions across AI answers. They are useful for trends, but AI answers vary by user, location, wording and time, so treat the numbers as indicators rather than precise measurements.

The most reliable measure is still the one that pays the bills: enquiries, calls and sales. If AI visibility is improving, you should eventually see it in leads, not just in a dashboard.

Quick AI search optimisation checklist

• ☐ robots.txt and CDN settings allow the crawlers you want
• ☐ Key pages indexed in Google and Bing
• ☐ Answer-first opening on service and guide pages
• ☐ Consistent name, address and phone everywhere
• ☐ Schema markup that matches visible content
• ☐ Steady flow of real reviews
• ☐ AI referrals tracked in GA4 and on enquiry forms

AI Search Optimisation FAQs

Want help getting found in AI answers?

Fuelled SEO is an Australian SEO agency run by Darren Franklin from Kurri Kurri in the Hunter Valley, working with businesses in Newcastle and right across Australia. Our AI SEO service covers crawler access, content, entity building and transparent reporting, with no lock-in contracts and no guaranteed-rankings promises. Call Darren on 0478 928 857 or send a message through the contact page.

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