How to Get Your Business Found by AI Search

Introduction

It's now time to acknowledge the elephant in the room: the way AI has evolved in the past few years. From generative AI answering questions to AI search engines such as Perplexity, the way AI answers questions has changed a lot in the past few years.

What used to be potential AI misinformation quickly turned into AI responses that then cited Google and Bing as sources. Does this type of innovation favor the brevity of information shared online? I think so. The internet is a vast space of information (and misinformation), and AI does a great job of cleaning this up.

So, in this article, I will introduce AI Search Optimization (or AEO). I will talk about different ways you can benefit by letting AI search engines crawl your website. There is an old saying: "Bad news is good news." This can be applied to search engine traffic as well. I think the more precise the traffic, the more likely one is to make a conversion. In the context of AI search, if you can get your business suggested by it, then you stand in the top 1% of converting traffic.

Simply put, AEO allows for a new "AI search gold rush," where, if you can get mentioned by an LLM, there is a high chance that this traffic will convert because of how descriptive LLM queries are.

What Is AI Search Engine Optimization?

AI search engine optimization, also known as AEO or GEO (Answer Engine Optimization or Generative Engine Optimization, respectively), is the process of optimizing your on-page and off-page SEO strategy so potential customers can find you when searching LLMs for their desired query. There are many AI search engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, to name a few.

The advancements in LLMs in the past few years have led many to wonder: how do you get cited by ChatGPT (and other engines)? In this article, I will go over several important factors that lead to being found by AI search engines, all of which I have been implementing on my new blog.

How to Let AI Crawlers Access Your Site

In ordinary SEO, there is a robots.txt. This is usually set up to allow Googlebot and Bingbot to crawl one's site. In AEO, it is exactly the same. So, use the following code snippet to allow LLM crawlers like GPTBot and PerplexityBot to access your site.

User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /
User-agent: OAI-SearchBot
Allow: /
User-agent: ClaudeBot
Allow: /
User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Or, more simply:

User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Most sites have the latter as their robots.txt. If this is the case for you, just leave it and go on to the next step.

Add Structured Data to Your Blog Posts

The next step is to add structured data (schema markup for AI) to your blog posts or any page you want AI search engines to recommend. It looks like this:

type JsonLdProps = {
  data: Record<string, unknown>;
};

export default function JsonLd({ data }: JsonLdProps) {
  return (
    <script
      type="application/ld+json"
      dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{
        __html: JSON.stringify(data).replace(/</g, "\\u003c"),
      }}
    />
  );
}

Here is how this component looks when used in a blog post:

import JsonLd from "@/components/JsonLd";

const person = {
  "@type": "Person",
  name: "Your Name",
  url: "https://www.yourdomain.com/about",
  sameAs: ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/your-profile"],
};

export default function BlogPost() {
  const schema = {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@graph": [
      {
        "@type": "Article",
        headline: "How to Show Up in AI Search Results",
        datePublished: "2026-11-03",
        dateModified: "2026-11-03",
        author: person,
      },
      person,
      {
        "@type": "FAQPage",
        mainEntity: [
          {
            "@type": "Question",
            name: "What is AI search engine optimization?",
            acceptedAnswer: {
              "@type": "Answer",
              text: "AI search engine optimization is optimizing your website so AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity cite it in their answers.",
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  };

  return (
    <article>
      <JsonLd data={schema} />
      {/* your post content */}
    </article>
  );
}

These are the basics of using structured data in a blog post for AEO purposes. If you are confused at this step, you can book a meeting with me, and I can do a full website audit for SEO and AEO.

Write in Quotable Chunks

If you are optimizing your site for AEO, it is important that your posts or pages completely answer questions in 40–60 words. This is an important strategy for anyone doing Generative Engine Optimization. It lets AI easily crawl your site and pull your answer into its response to a query, which is key for AI search visibility.

Work on Your llms.txt File

Next up, we have the llms.txt file. It should be structured like so:

# Your Business Name

> One or two sentences on who you are and what you do.

## Services

- [SEO Services](https://www.yourdomain.com/services): SEO audits and AI search optimization.
- [About](https://www.yourdomain.com/about): Background and experience.

## Blog Posts

- [How to Show Up in AI Search Results](https://www.yourdomain.com/posts/ai-search): A guide to AEO.

GEO Is Just Like SEO

The final step in LLM SEO, whether you're working out how to rank in Perplexity or how to win at ChatGPT SEO, is off-page SEO. When it comes to AEO vs SEO, this part is the same: just like in regular SEO, off-page SEO is a big piece of the puzzle. Showing up in search results requires a lot of off-page work, but I think it is worth it considering how targeted LLM search traffic is.

Conclusion

That was "How to Get Your Business Found by AI Search." Thanks for reading, and if you want me to help you get your website found with traditional SEO or AEO, please follow this link: https://www.brendansblog.xyz/portfolio and book a meeting!