How to get your business to show up in AI search: a step-by-step plan

What it is called

GEO (generative engine optimization), AI search optimization, AI SEO, AEO (answer engine optimization) and LLMO all describe the same thing: your business’s visibility in AI assistant answers. See what is GEO for the basics and GEO vs SEO for how it differs from regular SEO.

Step 1. List customer questions and check AI answers

Write down 10–20 questions customers ask before buying: “where can I order … in [city]”, “how much does … cost”, “which company should I choose for …”. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot in every language your customers use. Record the date, the answer, whether you and your competitors are mentioned, and which sites the AI links to. This is your baseline; without it you cannot tell whether the work paid off.

Step 2. Check indexing in Google and Bing

• Google says that to appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Search with a snippet.
• OpenAI says ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers, including Bing; Copilot also works through Bing.
• Set up Google Search Console (which Google calls a free service) and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap and check which pages are not indexed.

Step 3. Let AI search crawlers in

Check robots.txt and your CDN or hosting settings: OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot and Bingbot must not be blocked. Google specifically reminds site owners that crawling must be allowed not only in robots.txt but also by any CDN or hosting infrastructure. Crawlers that collect training data can be blocked separately; see which AI crawlers to allow.

Step 4. Make company facts identical everywhere

Name, address, phone, opening hours, prices, lead times and the list of services must match on your site, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, directories and social profiles. In our experience, when two sources show different figures, AI repeats the mistake or leaves the business out. In its guidance for AI features, Google specifically advises keeping Business Profile and Merchant Center information up to date.

Step 5. Add schema.org markup

Organization or LocalBusiness, Service, Product and FAQPage markup describe your business in machine-readable form. Google says no special markup is needed for AI Overviews, but structured data must match the visible text on the page. More in schema markup for AI search.

Step 6. Publish pages with direct answers

• for every important customer question, a page or section where the answer comes in the first two or three sentences;
• specifics: prices “from”, lead times, service areas, what is included;
• figures and cited sources: in the GEO study (KDD 2024), quotations, statistics and sources raised visibility in generative engine answers the most, while keyword stuffing barely helped;
• key content as text, not only in images: Google asks for important content to be available in textual form.

Step 7. Earn reviews and mentions on other sites

AI builds its answer from several sources, so what others say about you matters: industry directories, local media, partners, reviews. For local search, Google names prominence, including links, review count and rating, as one of its ranking factors. Do not buy reviews or mass-produce mentions: Bing classes manipulation of language models as a violation of its guidelines.

Step 8. Measure the result every month

• repeat the check from step 1 on the same question list and compare the share of mentions;
• look at the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools: Microsoft says it shows citations of your site in Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations, plus the queries AI used to find your pages;
• filter your analytics by utm_source=chatgpt.com, which ChatGPT adds to its links;
• keep in mind that Google includes AI feature traffic in the overall “Web” traffic in Search Console without reporting it separately.

How long it takes

Steps 2–5 are usually done in the first few weeks. How fast AI answers change depends on how often each model refreshes its sources: assistants with web search pick up changes sooner than answers based on training data. That is why the trend across monthly checks matters more than any single date. See our AI case studies for what this looks like in practice.