Guides

Answer engine optimization, explained properly

Practical, sourced guides on getting brands named and cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews — what the work consists of, what it costs, how to measure it without overpromising, and how agencies resell it. Every figure we publish comes from our own audit runs or from a linked source, and the methodology is stated either way.

Start here

What answer engine optimization actually is

How AI engines decide what to cite, what genuinely moves those decisions, what does not, and how the practice overlaps with and differs from SEO.

AEO vs GEO vs LLM SEO: same practice, three names

Why the vocabulary is unsettled, what each name emphasises, what is genuinely different between the engines, and which term to use when writing, hiring or buying.

How to track your brand in ChatGPT and AI Overviews

The method, step by step: building a prompt set that reflects real buying questions, running it so the numbers mean something, what to record, how to read it, and the traps that produce false readings.

Buying and selling it

What AI search optimization costs

Real price bands across tools, agency retainers, direct done-for-you providers and white-label wholesale — what drives the number up or down, what a fair contract looks like, and the red flags in a quote.

How agencies sell AI search visibility to their clients

The service end to end: the five kinds of work, why 92% of cited sources are third-party pages, resale pricing, and the scoreboard to agree with a client before month one.

White-label answer engine optimization: how it works

What the provider does, what stays with the agency, how margin works at each tier, and nine questions to ask before you resell a provider to a client.

A note on our numbers. Where we cite our own measurements, they come from audit runs we performed ourselves and the methodology is described in the guide. Where we cite third-party research, the source is linked. We publish figures that work against our own sales case as readily as ones that help it, because a number you cannot check is worth nothing to you.

See it on your own brand

Everything described in these guides is what we do — see a real audit report. We will run a full audit on one brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews and send you the prompt set, the answers, the citation log and a prioritised fix list.

Apply for a free AI visibility audit

One brand, no cost, no card, no obligation.