Getting found · 15 October 2026 · 8 min read

Getting found in AI answers: GEO and AEO for UK local businesses, SaaS, apps and shops

Key takeaways

Short answer: make sure the search crawlers of the AI companies can reach your site, write pages that answer questions plainly in their first lines, and keep your facts consistent everywhere they appear. GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation) are new names, and most of what works under them is old-fashioned SEO done properly.

Start with what Google says

Google’s own documentation is unusually direct: the best practices for SEO remain relevant for its AI features, and there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. So the first step is the same as for ordinary search. If you haven’t done the basics, start with getting found on Google.

1. Let the right crawlers in

This is the one genuinely new technical decision. The AI companies run different crawlers for different purposes, and your robots.txt file can treat them differently:

So if you want to be found but would rather not contribute training data, you can allow the search agents and disallow the training ones. Read the small print, though: blocking Google-Extended also keeps your pages out of grounded answers in the Gemini apps. Whether to block training at all is a business decision, not a technical one. Check your robots.txt isn’t blocking everything by accident; that is more common than it should be.

2. Write answer-first pages

Assistants assemble answers from passages. A page whose first paragraph says what you do, who it is for, where you work and roughly what it costs is easy to quote accurately. A page that opens with “Welcome to our website” isn’t. We start most of our own posts with a one-line “short answer” for exactly this reason.

Put facts in text, not in images or PDFs. State who you are not for, too: assistants are often asked “is X right for me?”, and an honest “not if…” helps them answer.

3. Keep facts consistent everywhere

Your opening hours, prices, service area and product names should be identical on your site, your Google Business Profile, directories, marketplaces and app stores. An assistant that finds two different answers either picks one or hedges. Neither helps you.

4. Structured data

Structured data states your facts in a form machines read reliably. Google documents types for products, local businesses, organisations and FAQs. It only describes what is already on the page; it is not a way to add claims the page doesn’t make.

5. llms.txt, with expectations managed

llms.txt is a proposal for a plain-text file at the root of your site that gives language models a short summary and a list of your most useful pages. It takes ten minutes to write. It is not an official standard, and there is no guarantee any particular assistant reads it. We have one because it is cheap and it forced us to write down, in plain words, what we sell.

What that looks like for different businesses

A local business. Your Business Profile and reviews still do most of the work, because Google’s AI features build on Google’s results. Add a clear services page and an honest FAQ.

SaaS. Public pricing, public documentation and a changelog, all in plain HTML rather than behind a login or inside a PDF. Assistants are asked “how much is X?” and “does X integrate with Y?” constantly; if the answer isn’t on a public page, they guess or name a competitor.

Apps. App store listings are often the only text about an app, so treat them as product pages. Give each main feature its own page on your website as well.

Online shops. Product pages with full specifications in text, product structured data, and a Google Merchant Center feed so your products and prices are in Google’s systems directly. Keep stock and prices current: a wrong price quoted by an assistant is worse than no mention.

Measuring it

Honestly, this is still hard. Look in your analytics for visits referred from AI assistants, and in Search Console for what happens to your Google traffic overall. Ask the assistants yourself, every month, the questions your customers ask, and note whether you appear and whether what they say is right. If it is wrong, the fix is almost always on your own pages.

Frequently asked questions

Is GEO different from SEO?

Less than the name suggests. Google says there are no additional requirements to appear in its AI features beyond normal SEO best practice. The genuinely new parts are deciding which AI crawlers to allow and writing pages that answer questions in their first lines.

Should I block AI crawlers?

Block the ones you don’t want and allow the ones you do. OpenAI and Anthropic both run separate search and training crawlers, so you can stay findable in their search features while opting out of training. Google-Extended doesn’t affect Google Search, but blocking it also opts you out of grounding in the Gemini apps.

Does llms.txt work?

It is a proposal, not an official standard, and no assistant is obliged to read it. It costs ten minutes, so it is reasonable to add one, but don’t expect it to do the work of clear pages.

Why does ChatGPT get my prices or hours wrong?

Usually because it found an old or conflicting version somewhere. Make the facts identical on your site, Business Profile, directories and marketplaces, and put them in plain text on a public page.

Sources

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