SEO, AEO and GEO:
how to make your business easier to find.

Four acronyms. One business goal.

A customer might find you through a search result, a map listing or an AI-generated answer. Each experience presents information differently. Your job is to help that person understand what you offer, whether it fits their needs and what to do next.

SEO Search engine optimisation

Making your website easier for search engines to discover and understand, and more useful to people looking for what you offer. It includes content, technical foundations and the links between pages.

AEO Answer engine optimisation

A term used for improving visibility in experiences that answer questions directly. Clear explanations can help readers, but a question-and-answer format does not secure a featured snippet or an AI citation.

GEO Generative engine optimisation

Work focused on visibility within answers created by generative AI systems. In this context, GEO means generative, not geographical. Local SEO is a related but separate discipline.

LLMO Large language model optimisation

A less consistently used industry label for efforts to improve how content or brands appear in large language model responses. It overlaps with GEO; it is not a universal technical standard or a separate ranking system.

These labels overlap. Google explicitly treats optimisation for its generative search experiences as part of SEO. The original GEO research paper explores visibility in generated answers, but its experimental results are not a forecast for your business. Google’s current guidance is a useful starting point for its own search products.

Start with the pages your customers need.

Before commissioning more articles, review your core service pages. Can a visitor quickly identify who the service is for, what is included, what affects the cost and how the process works? A polished article cannot compensate for an unclear offer.

For a website redesign, for example, useful questions include: Can we keep our existing content? What happens to our old URLs? Who will update the site afterwards? Answer these on the relevant page, with enough detail to help someone judge the fit.

Check that discovery is possible.

For pages intended to attract customers, check that they are publicly accessible, linked from the rest of the site and available to search crawlers. Review accidental indexing restrictions, broken links and important content that cannot be read reliably. Google’s SEO Starter Guide explains these foundations.

For Google’s AI features, check the site’s Search generative AI setting in Search Console as well. Inclusion and eligibility do not guarantee that a page will appear. Keep access restrictions on material that is meant to stay private.

Write answers with substance.

Give the reader a useful answer near the start of a section, then explain the conditions, alternatives and evidence. This is a reading choice, not a formula for winning an AI result.

The answer names a risk and gives the reader a useful next step. It is more informative than claiming a migration will be “seamless” without explaining what the work involves. Google’s site-move guidance covers redirects, mapping and monitoring in more detail.

Add evidence only you can provide.

A real project photograph, an explained design decision or a comparison based on your own experience gives an article a reason to exist. Use client examples with permission, distinguish demonstrations from delivered work and link to primary sources for claims readers may want to check.

Google’s people-first content guidance asks whether content adds original value and demonstrates experience. Review AI-assisted drafts with the same care as any other copy: check definitions, dates, examples and claims before publishing.

What not to spend your budget on.

FAQ markup as a shortcut.

A useful FAQ can still help customers. However, Google stopped displaying FAQ rich results from 7 May 2026 and removed the feature’s documentation in June. Adding FAQ markup is therefore not a route to those results. It also does not guarantee a featured snippet or a place in “People also ask”. Source: Google’s documentation updates.

Special files or copy written only for AI.

Google says it does not require special AI markup or an llms.txt file for generative search visibility. There is no required answer length or need to split every idea into a tiny page. Use relevant structured data where appropriate, ensuring it agrees with what visitors see. Read Google’s explanation.

Guaranteed mentions, rankings or traffic.

Being eligible to appear is different from being selected. Search and AI systems can show different sources for different questions, contexts and times. An agency can commit to defined work and reporting; it cannot reliably promise a permanent position in somebody else’s answer.

Likewise, changing a date without improving an article does not make it more useful. Review information when the subject changes. Treat engagement figures as clues to investigate, rather than proof that a lower bounce rate will improve rankings.

If you serve a local area, keep local SEO in the plan.

Use your actual business details, opening hours and service area consistently. Maintain an accurate Google Business Profile if your business is eligible, and explain location-specific services where the information is genuinely useful.

Google describes local ranking in terms of relevance, distance and prominence. Complete information helps it understand your business, but it cannot remove the effect of a searcher’s location or guarantee a leading map position. Source: Google Business Profile Help.

Avoid creating near-identical pages for every town you hope to reach. A location page should tell a customer something meaningful about the service available there.

Measure whether visibility leads somewhere useful.

Agree what success means before changing the website. For a service business, a relevant enquiry may matter more than a large number of visits from people outside its market.

• Search visibility: review relevant queries, impressions and clicks in Search Console.
• Google AI visibility: use the Generative AI performance report for impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. If it is absent, insufficient impressions may be one reason. It measures visibility, not a complete sales journey.
• Visits and enquiries: use appropriately configured analytics and enquiry records to understand which pages bring useful customers.
• AI answer spot checks: record the question, service, date and cited sources. Treat these as samples, not a universal ranking.

Google documents the scope and limitations of its Generative AI performance report. Across tools, distinguish a mention, a link impression, a visit and a conversion: they describe different outcomes.

A sensible first month.

1. Choose the opportunity. Identify one important service, the questions that delay an enquiry and the pages customers already visit.
2. Improve the main page. Clarify the offer, answer the key questions and add evidence you can substantiate.
3. Check the journey. Test reading, navigation and the enquiry step on a phone. Check discovery and indexing settings for public pages.
4. Record a baseline. Note what changed and compare useful traffic and enquiries over time. A month is a starting period, not a ranking deadline.

At OPEXPER, our approach to web design and website transformations starts with the business, the audience and the journey between them. A clear message, a thoughtful structure and trustworthy content give that journey a stronger foundation—wherever a customer first finds you.