Search is changing again. For years website owners have concentrated on Google rankings, keywords, backlinks and the usual SEO work. Those things have not suddenly become useless, but people are now also asking questions directly in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and other AI powered search tools.
That creates a new question for website owners: How do you make your website more likely to be used as a source in an AI generated answer?
The first thing I would avoid is getting caught up in the hype. There are already plenty of articles promoting *“GEO,” *“AEO,” special AI files and other supposed shortcuts.
There is no magic tag that makes an AI search engine choose your website.
In fact, Google says its existing SEO, crawling, indexing and quality systems are still the foundation of its generative AI search features.
So rather than trying to trick AI, I think the better approach is to make your website easy to crawl, easy to understand and most importantly, worth quoting.
Write Something Worth Citing
This may be one of the most important parts of optimizing for AI search.
Traditional SEO sometimes encouraged website owners to write an article around a particular keyword. AI search makes originality and usefulness even more important because an AI system may have hundreds of pages available that all say basically the same thing.
If your page simply rewrites the same ten tips found on fifty other websites, why would an AI system need your version?
Add something that comes from you.
Use personal experience, examples from actual customers, original photographs, tests you have performed, local knowledge, screenshots, comparisons, problems you have solved or lessons learned the hard way.
Google now specifically recommends creating what it calls “non commodity content” and says first hand experience and a unique point of view can help content stand apart from pages that simply summarize information already available elsewhere.
In plain English, give the Internet something it did not already have.
Answer Real Questions Clearly
People do not always talk to AI the same way they type something into Google.
Instead of searching:
Campbell River web design
someone might ask:
What should a small business in Campbell River look for when hiring someone to build a website?
Your website should answer the kinds of questions real customers ask.
That does not mean stuffing dozens of questions onto every page. It means using descriptive headings and giving clear answers.
If a section is explaining what an SSL certificate does, tell the reader what it does near the beginning instead of making them read six paragraphs before getting the answer.
Good headings, paragraphs, lists, comparison tables and FAQ sections can make information easier to understand and reference. Microsoft currently recommends many of these same practices when improving content for citation in Bing and Copilot AI answers.
Show Who Is Behind the Information
An anonymous article with no author, no company information and no indication where its information came from is harder to evaluate than one connected to a real person or business.
Use a proper About page. Identify the author where appropriate. Explain your experience. Link to reliable sources when making factual claims that need supporting evidence.
Google's "people first" content guidelines specifically recommend providing information about the author or website and demonstrating first hand expertise.
For local businesses, also keep your Google Business Profile and Bing Places information accurate. Addresses, telephone numbers, services and business hours should agree with the information on your website.
Make Sure AI Crawlers Can Reach Your Website
This is easy to overlook, especially with todays websites using aggressive bot blocking, firewalls and security plugins.
Your important public pages still need to be crawlable.
Google's AI search features rely on pages available through Google's search and indexing systems. Normal technical SEO therefore still matters, ie: robots.txt, canonical URLs, internal links, sitemaps and making sure important pages can actually be indexed.
ChatGPT has another consideration.
OpenAI says public websites can appear in ChatGPT search and recommends allowing its OAI SearchBot crawler if you want your content available for summaries, citations and links.
Even if robots.txt allows a crawler, your firewall, CDN or bot-protection system could still return a 403 Forbidden response and prevent it from accessing the website.
That does not mean allowing every unknown bot onto your server. It means knowing which legitimate crawlers you want to permit and checking that your security system is not accidentally blocking them.
Use Structured Data, But Don't Expect Miracles
Schema markup is still useful.
Organization, LocalBusiness, Article, Product, Breadcrumb and other appropriate structured data can help search engines understand what a page represents and can make pages eligible for enhanced search features.
But I would not install every schema type available because someone claims "AI loves schema.”
Google specifically says there is no special structured data required for its generative AI search features. Structured data remains part of good SEO, but it is not a shortcut into AI answers.
The same goes for the increasingly discussed llms.txt file. Google currently says it does not use llms.txt for Google Search or its generative AI features.
It may become useful for other services, but I would not treat it as some new version of robots.txt or an AI ranking trick.
Keep Important Information Current
Outdated information has always been a problem, but it becomes even more noticeable when an AI system is trying to answer a current question.
Review important pages occasionally. Fix broken links. Update prices, business hours, product specifications, regulations and anything else that changes.
Don't simply change the published date to make an old article look new. Update the actual information.
Bing Webmaster Tools now includes an AI Performance report showing which pages are being cited across supported Microsoft AI experiences, along with citation activity and related grounding queries. This gives website owners a useful new way to see whether their content is actually appearing in AI generated answers.
Don't Forget the Human Visitor
The biggest mistake may be optimizing so aggressively for AI that the website becomes an unpleasant experience for people.
A fast, mobile friendly website with readable text, sensible navigation, descriptive headings and genuinely useful information is still the goal.
If an AI system sends somebody to your webpage, that page then has to convince the visitor to stay, trust the information and possibly contact you or buy something.
That part has not changed.
Summary - My Approach to AI Search Optimization
If I were optimizing a small business website today, I would not throw out its existing SEO and start over with a new “AI strategy.”
I would make sure the site can be crawled and indexed, improve weak or repetitive content, answer customer questions more directly, add first hand knowledge wherever possible, support factual claims with reliable sources and keep the technical side of the website clean.
Then I would monitor Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and website analytics to see what is actually happening. ChatGPT is awesome at explaining your data from these sources and providing directions based on that data.
AI search will continue to change and nobody outside the companies building these systems knows the exact formula they will be using a year from now. Chasing every new theory is probably a good way to waste a lot of time.
Build a website that contains information worth finding, understanding and citing.
That was good SEO before AI search arrived and based on everything the major search providers are telling us, it is still the best place to start in todays environment.
Sources and/or Further Reading
Google - Optimizing your website for generative AI features
Google - Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
Bing - AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools
OpenAI - Publishers and Developers FAQ
* Definitions:
GEO = Generative Engine Optimization
AEO = Answer Engine Optimization
GEO is aimed more specifically at improving visibility in AI generated answers from tools such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode and Copilot.
AEO is the broader idea of structuring content so search systems can easily extract and present a direct answer, including featured snippets, voice search and AI generated responses.
Photo Credits:
All the images on this article page were generated by AI (Midjourney).