AI SEO · GEO · AEO - the same job with different badges
AI SEO is the work of making sure that when someone asks Google, ChatGPT or Perplexity a question your business should be the answer to, your business actually appears in the answer. You'll see it called generative engine optimisation (GEO), answer engine optimisation (AEO) or LLM optimisation (LLMO). They're the same job with different badges.
I build websites and search systems for a living, from a studio in Ogbourne St George, Wiltshire. This page explains what AI SEO involves, what I do, what it can't do, and how long it takes. If you'd rather just ask me something, email gordon@firstideas.co.uk or WhatsApp me.
Ordinary search gives you a list of links. If you rank fifth, you still get visitors. AI search reads a handful of sources and writes one answer. Either you're cited in that answer or you don't exist. There's surprisingly little overlap between the two: studies put it at roughly 19% between sites ranking first on Google and brands cited most by AI models. Ranking well is no longer proof you're visible.
That changes the work. It's less about chasing a position and more about being the clearest, best-evidenced source an AI model can find on the questions your customers ask.
Most agencies selling AI SEO added the letters "AI" to their SEO page sometime last year. I'd rather show you what I actually run.
I operate a live AI search platform. ToolkitStack is an AI-assisted SEO and content system I built, running day to day across multiple healthcare websites - keyword alignment, content generation with human review, and Search Console measurement, in production, not in a pitch deck.
Every site I build ships AI-ready as standard. Before any site of mine goes live it gets a raw-HTML crawl audit and a keyword alignment check: can a machine that doesn't run JavaScript read every page, and does each page clearly answer a question people actually search? That's included at £30 a month on the small-business plan, not sold as an extra.
I check the thing almost nobody checks. While researching this page I fetched the websites of agencies ranking for web design and SEO in this part of the world, the way an AI assistant would. Several of them block automated visitors outright. Their own sites return an error to the AI systems their clients' customers now ask for recommendations. They are, in the most literal sense, invisible to AI search - while selling visibility. The first thing I test on any site is whether the machines can get in the door.
No mystery. The work is specific:
Some straight answers, because this corner of the industry has a hype problem.
Nobody can guarantee you a place in an AI answer. Anyone who promises a ranking inside ChatGPT is guessing, and charging you for the guess. The models change, the answers change, and no one outside those companies controls them.
AI SEO can't rescue a business with nothing to say. The models cite sources that add something: real expertise, real prices, real specifics. If every page on your site could belong to any competitor, the first job is better content, not better markup - and I'll tell you that in the audit rather than sell you a retainer.
And it isn't separate magic. It's done properly on the same foundations as ordinary SEO. If someone quotes you for "AI SEO" on top of "normal SEO", you're being charged twice for one job.
Three to six months to see movement you can trust, same as search work has always taken. Technical fixes show up faster; authority builds slowly. Anyone quoting results in a fortnight is measuring something that doesn't matter.
Here's an odd fact from my research for this page: of every UK agency I could find ranking for AI SEO, not one publishes a price. Everything is "book a call".
I quote fixed and in writing before any work starts, and the quote itself is free.
If you're on my £30-a-month plan, you already get the foundations: the crawl audit, schema, clean structure and Search Console setup are built into every site I make.
Straight answers, pulled from real search data. Something else on your mind?
Ask a questionYes, though it's younger and woollier than the people selling it admit. The real, checkable parts: making your site readable to AI crawlers, structuring pages so answers are easy to extract, building the evidence that you're a credible source, and measuring citations. The rest is weather.
GEO, AEO, LLMO and AI SEO are used interchangeably. Generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation are the two you'll see most. Don't pay extra because someone used a newer acronym.
It can help with the labour - drafts, metadata, research. It can't know whether your pages are actually being found, crawled or cited; that takes live data from your own site and Search Console. Using AI tools for SEO and optimising for AI search are two different things. I do both, and I'll tell you which one a given task is.
Ask me and I'll check. It takes minutes to find out whether your site blocks automated visitors, hides its content behind scripts, or describes itself so vaguely that a model can't tell what you do.
Same foundations, wider audience. The page that ranks and the page that gets cited are built with the same honesty: clear structure, real answers, real evidence. The differences are in emphasis - extraction-friendly structure, entity clarity, and measuring citations rather than just positions.
Me. The person who audits your site is the person who fixes it. First Ideas is one developer, 20+ years in, with the work to show for it.
Want to know where you stand? Send me your web address and what you'd want to be found for. I'll tell you honestly whether AI SEO is worth your money - including when it isn't. Anything worth doing after that gets a fixed written quote.
★★★★★
"As an SEO specialist, I relied on his expertise to make technical adjustments and resolve issues on our site, all of which he handled promptly and efficiently. Gordon's responsiveness and dedication were invaluable in optimizing our site for better ranking on Google."
Anna · 5.0 on Google
Your business name is enough to start a free preview. A rough brief is enough to start a quote.