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Get Found Playbook · The basics

What is AEO? (The new way people find you.)

More customers are asking an AI where to eat and who to call. Here's how the AI decides who to name, and how to make sure it names you.

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A person at a kitchen table asking a chat app on their phone for a recommendation, with a short answer naming local businesses on the screen
In plain words
  • AEO means getting named when someone asks an AI for a recommendation.
  • The AI reads your Google listing, reviews, and website, then sums you up.
  • Thin or mixed-up facts get you skipped. Plain, matching facts get you named.

Don't want to read? Let an AI walk you through it.

Tap the button, then paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. It becomes your coach for this one fix.

You're a patient, friendly coach helping a small business owner show up in AI answers. This is called AEO, which just means getting named when someone asks an AI like you for a recommendation. Talk to me like I'm brand new to this. Give me one short step at a time, and wait for me to say "done" before the next one.

First, ask me two questions and wait for my answers: (1) What is my business called, what do I sell, and what town am I in? (2) Am I on my phone or on a computer right now?

Then walk me through it. Step 1: tell me everything you know about my business, honestly, and say "not sure" for anything you don't know. That's my report card. Step 2: explain in plain words what was missing or wrong, and where it should live: my Google Business Profile, my reviews, my website, or mentions around the web. Step 3: ask me the true facts (what I sell most, hours, phone, what customers like), then write me a two-sentence description in customer words, ready to paste into my listing (Google Maps app, tap my profile picture, then Your Business Profile, then Edit profile, then Description; on a computer, search my business name on Google and use the "Your business on Google" panel). Step 4: write five real questions customers ask me, each with a short full-sentence answer, for my website or my listing's questions section. Step 5: give me a once-a-month routine: ask you the same question again and fix whatever changed.

Ground rule: use only true facts I give you. Never invent a review, an award, or a detail to fill a gap, and only give advice that follows Google's rules for Business Profiles.

Open ChatGPTOpen ClaudeOpen Gemini

AEO, in one sentence

AEO stands for answer engine optimization. Here's what it means in plain words. When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, or Google's AI "where's a good place for barbacoa on Sunday" or "who can fix my AC today," the AI doesn't show ten links. It writes an answer and names two or three businesses. AEO is getting named. You'll also hear GEO, generative engine optimization. Same idea, different name.

Do this: ask someone in your family if they've asked an AI where to eat or who to call this month. You may be surprised.

Where the AI gets its facts

The AI isn't guessing. It reads. It reads your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your website, and mentions of you around the web, like the chamber's directory or a local news story. Then it sums you up in a few sentences. If those sources are thin, it has nothing to say, so it skips you. If they contradict each other, say your website shows old hours and Google shows new ones, it may describe you wrong, with total confidence.

Do this: check that your hours and phone match on Google, on Facebook, and on your website. Fix the odd one out.

What the AI likes

  1. Plain descriptions in customer words. "Birria tacos, menudo on weekends, catering for quinceañeras" beats "quality food and great service." The AI matches questions to plain words.
  2. Reviews that mention specifics. "The brake job took an hour and they showed me the old pads" is a sentence an AI can quote. "Great place" is not. When you ask for a review, it's fine to say "mention what you had."
  3. Question-and-answer text. An FAQ on your website, or in the questions section of your listing. "Do you take walk-ins?" "Do you deliver?" That's the shape an AI answer already has.
  4. The same facts everywhere. Name, phone, address, and hours that match on Google, your website, and Facebook. The AI cross-checks, and mismatches read as "not reliable."
  5. Fresh facts. Holiday hours, a new service, a menu change. Old facts get repeated as if they were true today.

Do this: pick the one on this list you're weakest on and fix it this week.

Try it yourself: your AEO report card. Open ChatGPT and ask "what do you know about [your business] in [your town]?" Read what it says. Wrong hours? Missing your best seller? Nothing at all? Every gap is a fix on the list above. Do it once a month and watch the answer get better.
It's the same work as SEO. Everything the AI reads is the same thing Google reads: a complete listing, real photos, honest reviews, a working website. If you're already working on your SEO, you're already doing AEO. For the full step-by-step, see Show up in AI answers.

The short version

AEO isn't a new job. It's the same listing, kept honest and complete, written in the words your customers use. The AI reads what's there. Make sure what's there is true, specific, and the same everywhere.

Do this: write down the two sentences you wish the AI would say about you. That's your new description.

Would an AI name your business today?

Run the free 60-second checkup. It measures the same signals the AI reads. Your EDC coaches local businesses through the fixes, free.

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