AI SEO services: be the business the answer names.
Your customers have started asking AI who to hire, and it answers with two or three names. We find out whether yours is one of them, tell you what the engines are pointing at when it is not, and work the list until that changes. Start with a free scan.
What is AI SEO?
AI SEO is the practice of getting a business named inside the answers AI assistants give, rather than ranked in a list of links. It covers how consistently a business is described everywhere the models read — reviews, directories, trade listings, its own site — because those descriptions are what get repeated back.
Also sold as AEO, GEO, and answer engine optimization
Four names, one job. Which one an agency uses tells you when they started, not what they do.
| Term | Also sold as | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| AI SEO | Also sold asAI search optimization | What it meansGetting named in AI answers. The phrasing the market has settled on, and the one we use. |
| AEO | Also sold asAnswer engine optimization, AEO services, AEO agency | What it meansThe same work, named after the answer the assistant gives instead of a list of links. |
| GEO | Also sold asGenerative engine optimization, GEO agency, GEO services | What it meansThe same work again, named after the generative models doing the answering. |
| LLM SEO | Also sold asLLM optimization | What it meansThe same work, under a name that is falling out of use. Listed so you know it is not a different service. |
These are the same service. Nobody has agreed on a name yet because the work is about eighteen months old. If someone quotes you separately for AEO and GEO, that is a pricing decision, not a technical one.
Why your Google ranking does not protect you
A business can rank well and be invisible here, and a business that ranks poorly can get named constantly because of what has been written about it elsewhere.
| Search engine | AI assistant | |
|---|---|---|
| What your customer gets back | Search engineA ranked list of links to choose from | AI assistantOne answer, naming two or three businesses |
| Where you can still be found | Search enginePage two, page three, further down | AI assistantNowhere. You were either named or you were not |
| What decides it | Search engineRanking signals pointed at one page | AI assistantHow consistently the whole web describes your business |
| How you check where you stand | Search engineType the keyword, count the positions | AI assistantAsk it, and read the answer. That is what the free scan does |
What we actually do
Three steps, in this order. The first one is free and takes a minute.
Measure
FreeWe put the questions your customers actually ask — who is the best, who should I hire — to Perplexity and Gemini, live, while you wait. You get a score and the full answer from each engine, including which businesses got named instead of you. About a minute, no account, no card.
Diagnose
$99 / monthThe monthly audit adds the two engines your buyers name most, grades what is holding your business back, and turns it into a list of steps you can work through in an order that makes sense. The first month is the full audit.
Work the list, then measure again
IncludedEvery month after the first re-scans you against the same questions, so the number either moved or it did not. That is the part most of this industry will not show you, and it is the only honest way to tell whether any of it worked.
What the research actually says
Researchers at Princeton found that writing a page for how generative engines read it can raise how visible that page is inside AI answers by up to 40%.
GEO: Generative Engine Optimization — Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024
We do not have a number of our own yet, and we are not going to invent one. We have run a single scan we can verify end to end. When there are enough of them to say something true about how the average small business scores, we will publish it with the sample size attached.
The free check tells you where you stand. The audit tells you what to do.
The first month is the full audit — the wider engine set, a grade on what is holding you back, and the list of steps. Every month after re-scans you against the same questions so the number is checkable rather than claimed.
Start with the free checkCommon questions
What do AI SEO services actually do?
Three things. Measure whether AI assistants name your business when somebody asks for a recommendation in your trade and your town. Work out what those engines are pointing at when they name a competitor instead. Then give you an ordered list of what to change, and measure again the following month.
Is AI SEO the same thing as AEO and GEO?
Yes. Answer engine optimization, generative engine optimization and LLM SEO all describe the same work under different names, and the industry has not finished arguing about which one wins. If an agency presents them to you as separate products with separate prices, ask what is actually different about the work.
Is AI SEO the same as regular SEO?
No. A search engine hands your customer a ranked list and lets them choose, so ranking eleventh still puts you on page two. An AI assistant hands back one answer naming two or three businesses, and everyone else is left out entirely. There is no page two to be on.
How much do AI SEO services cost?
The check is free — one live scan per email every 30 days, no card and no sales call. The monthly audit is $99 a month. The first month is the full audit, and every month after that re-scans you so you can see whether the work moved the number rather than taking our word for it.
Can you guarantee my business will be recommended?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. Nobody controls what these models say. What we can do is tell you exactly where you stand today, show you the answers word for word, and tell you what the engines are pointing at when they name somebody else instead of you.
Do you work with businesses outside Madison, Wisconsin?
Yes. The scan and the audit are national — the engines get asked about your city, whatever city that is, and the questions are the ones your customers would type. Consulting is delivered by video, so where you are does not change what you get.
Nathaniel Crowell
Founder, AIA
I built the scanner this page links to. It asks live AI engines about a business and reports what they said, including the parts an owner would rather not read.
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