Cited where your buyers ask.
Your customers are asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity for recommendations. When they do, your business should be in the answer — not buried behind competitors who prepared for this shift earlier.
Four pillars of
AI search visibility.
AI search optimisation is not a repackaged SEO service with a new label. It is a distinct discipline with its own methodology, its own measurement framework, and its own set of technical requirements.
Here is what we actually do, broken into the four pillars that determine whether a model cites you or your competitor when a buyer asks.
AI Visibility Audit
BaselineWe query every major AI model — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot — with the exact questions your potential customers are asking. We document where you appear, where you do not, and which competitors are being cited instead. The audit covers brand mentions, citation frequency, answer accuracy, and the specific content on your site that models are pulling from or ignoring. This is the baseline that tells you exactly where you stand in the AI search landscape before we change anything.
AI Citation Build
AuthorityOnce we know where you are absent, we build the content and authority signals that earn citations. This means creating answer-ready content that directly addresses the questions AI models are fielding from your audience. We structure pages so that models can extract clean, quotable answers. We build topical authority through comprehensive coverage of your subject area. We establish your entity presence across authoritative third-party sources so models recognise your brand as a credible source worth citing. Methodical, sustained work — not a one-time content dump.
Schema & Structured Data
FoundationalAI models do not read websites the way humans do. They parse structured data, semantic HTML, and machine-readable markup to understand what your business is, what services you offer, where you operate, and how you relate to other entities. We implement comprehensive schema — Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQ, HowTo, Product, Review, and domain-specific types — that gives models unambiguous, structured information about your business. Clean structured data is not optional for AI visibility. It is foundational.
Per-LLM Optimisation
Per-modelDifferent AI models have different training data, different retrieval mechanisms, and different citation behaviours. ChatGPT with web browsing behaves differently from Claude with its knowledge cutoff, which behaves differently from Perplexity with its real-time search grounding, which behaves differently from Google AI Overviews pulling from the search index. We optimise for each model individually, track citation behaviour per model, and adjust strategy based on how each platform selects and presents sources. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work when the models themselves are fundamentally different.
Traditional SEO, in concert
Linked serviceAI search and traditional search are complementary channels, not replacements for each other. Traditional search still drives most web traffic, and many AI models rely on traditional search signals — backlinks, domain authority, content quality — as inputs for their citation decisions. A strong SEO foundation makes AI search optimisation more effective, and vice versa. Click through for our dedicated SEO service.
Entity first.
Schema always.
Measured per model.
This discipline goes by several names — Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO), AI Search Optimisation. The labels matter less than the underlying reality: the way people find businesses is changing, and the strategies that worked for traditional search alone are not sufficient.
Why traditional SEO is not enough
Traditional SEO optimises for a search results page — ten blue links ranked by an algorithm. AI search replaces that page with a direct answer synthesised from multiple sources. The user never sees the results page; they see an answer that cites specific businesses or it does not. Ranking on page one of Google still matters, but it no longer guarantees visibility when half your audience is asking a model instead.
How models choose what to cite
AI models select citations based on entity clarity, content authority, information structure, and source reputation. A model needs to understand unambiguously what your business is, what it does, and where it operates. It needs content that directly answers the questions being asked, structured in a way the model can parse and extract. None of this happens by accident — it requires deliberate, technical work.
Entity clarity and knowledge graphs
Before a model can cite your business, it needs to recognise your business as a distinct entity. Consistent name, address, phone, and service information across every platform. Structured data on your site that explicitly declares your entity type and relationships. Presence in the knowledge sources models draw from — Wikipedia, Wikidata, industry directories, government registries. Entity clarity is the foundation; without it, everything else is wasted effort.
Structured data as the common language
Schema markup is the machine-readable language that bridges the gap between your website content and a model’s understanding of your business. When you tell a model your page contains a FAQ with specific questions and answers, the model can extract those answers directly. We implement schema comprehensively and keep it accurate, because stale or inaccurate structured data is worse than no structured data at all.
Businesses that want
to be found in the
next generation of search.
If your revenue depends on new customers finding you — through search, through recommendations, through research — AI search is a channel you cannot afford to ignore. The shift from traditional search to AI-assisted search is not a future prediction; it is happening now.
Our AI search clients tend to share one trait — their buyers research before they decide.
- i Service-based businesses in competitive marketsLaw firms, accounting practices, medical clinics, consulting firms, agencies. When someone asks ChatGPT “who is the best immigration lawyer in Vancouver”, the businesses cited capture attention that no amount of advertising can match.
- ii E-commerce and product businessesAI models are increasingly used for product research and purchase recommendations. Cited products and brands receive direct buyer attention at the moment of highest purchase intent — and that channel is largely uncontested today.
- iii SaaS and technology companiesTechnical buyers use AI models for vendor research, feature comparisons, and integration questions. Being cited as a recommended solution drives qualified leads with high intent and low acquisition cost.
- iv Professional services with strong subject expertiseConsultancies, advisors, specialised practitioners. If you have genuine expertise but weak online visibility, AI search is the channel that rewards depth over advertising spend.
- v Any business that depends on being discoveredModels build authority and citation patterns over time, not overnight. Businesses that establish their AI search presence early have a compounding advantage over those that wait until it becomes obvious.
If your competitors are showing up in AI answers and you are not, you are losing leads to a channel you may not even be monitoring. The good news is that this discipline is young — methodical work compounds quickly when the field is still being defined, and there is real ground to be claimed before the obvious players catch up.
Curious how Google sees your site?
Send us your URL. We’ll send back a Premium SEO Report, prepared by hand, within 48 hours — domain authority, keyword rankings, backlinks, competitor gap, and the quick wins worth chasing first. The same report doubles as your starting point for AI search visibility, because the foundations are shared.
No sales call required.
The buyer’s question is the new front door. We make sure the model that answers it knows your name.— The Aureole Practice —
Everything we
get asked about AI search.
AI search optimisation is a young discipline and the questions are honest ones. If a question is missing here, the contact link at the foot of the page goes straight to the person who would answer it.
i What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)?
ii How is AI search optimisation different from traditional SEO?
iii Which AI models do you optimise for?
iv How do you measure AI search visibility?
v How long before we start seeing AI citations?
vi Do we still need traditional SEO if we do AI search optimisation?
vii What is schema markup, and why does it matter for AI search?
viii Can you guarantee AI citations for our business?
AI search works best
connected to these.
Citation visibility is one part of a larger system. The services and industries below multiply the return on your AI search investment when engaged together.
Related services
Industries that benefit most
Find out where AI
search sees you today.
We’ll run an AI visibility audit across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — and show you exactly where you stand. No obligation, no sales department, no funnel.