Your customers are asking ChatGPT

Your customers are asking ChatGPT for recommendations before they ever open Google.

Is your business showing up when they do?

Here's what's changing: for years, "getting found online" meant one thing — ranking on Google. That's still true. But now there's a second front opening up, and most local businesses haven't noticed yet.

People are asking AI tools directly: "Who's a good plumber near me?" "Best roofing contractor in [London]?" "Reliable moving company for a local move?" And those tools — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews — are giving answers. Real business names. Real recommendations.

If your business isn't structured for that, you're invisible in a conversation that's actively happening about businesses like yours, right now.

This is called AEO — Answer Engine Optimization. It's not a replacement for SEO, it's the next layer on top of it. Think of it this way:

🔹 SEO gets you ranked when someone searches.

🔹 AEO gets you recommended when someone asks.

The businesses paying attention to this now are going to have a real head start. The ones that wait will be trying to catch up on a channel that already has established winners.

I've been working AEO into strategies for my clients alongside traditional SEO — structuring content, schema, and site data so AI tools have clear, accurate information to pull from when they're deciding who to recommend.

Curious if your business shows up in AI search results yet? Try asking ChatGPT or Perplexity a question a customer might ask about your industry in your city — see what comes back. I'd genuinely love to hear what you find. Drop it in the comments.

#AEO #AnswerEngineOptimization #LocalSEO #AISearch