SEO for AI: how to get into the answers of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

More and more people type a question to an AI assistant instead of searching in Google: “Who builds good websites in Bratislava?” or “Where to go for beauty treatments in Petržalka?”. AI does not show ten links, it shows one answer. And it mentions only a few companies in it. SEO for AI is about making sure you are one of them.

What SEO for AI (GEO) is

The technical name for it is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), that is, optimization for generative search engines. Generative because they do not return a list of links: they create (generate) the answer as continuous text. They include ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and the AI Overviews that Google shows above the ordinary results.

The goal is simple: for AI to find you, understand you and treat you as a trustworthy source. When someone asks about a service you offer, your company should appear in the answer, ideally with a link to your website.

How AI search engines look for answers

Put simply, an AI assistant works in two modes:

1. From what it has learned. A language model has “general knowledge” from the texts it learned on. Those are older, though, and it often knows nothing about smaller companies.
2. From what it finds right now. For questions about current matters or specific companies, AI searches for information on the web, reads a few pages and sums them up. It often adds links to the sources as well.

The second mode is the important one for you. In it, AI stands on classic search engines and on its own bots (programs that crawl websites). AI Overviews in Google draw on the ordinary Google index and Microsoft Copilot stands on the Bing search engine. Classic SEO is therefore the foundation, not the competition. If your website is not in good shape for Google, AI will probably overlook it too.

SEO and SEO for AI: what is the same and what is different

7 steps to improve the chance that AI mentions you

1. Let AI bots onto your website

Every website has (or should have) a robots.txt file: rules that tell bots where they may go. It happens that it blocks AI bots without the owner knowing: a security plugin, a hosting setting or a firewall. Check that you allow at least the bots that serve search, for example OAI-SearchBot (search in ChatGPT) and PerplexityBot (Perplexity). Other AI tools have similar bots. If you block them, AI will know about you only what other people write.

2. Answer customer questions directly

AI looks for answers to questions. It finds them most easily on pages where the questions and answers are written out directly: in an FAQ section, in a service description or in a blog. An important rule: the first sentence of the answer should be the answer.

• Weak: “For many years our company has been dedicated to providing quality services in the field of…”
• Good: “A women's cut with us takes about an hour. You can book online or by phone.”

3. State concrete facts

What you do, for whom, where, for how much and how long it takes. AI “pulls” facts from your site that can be quoted. Marketing phrases such as “we are the market leader” mean nothing. If you publish at least guide prices (“from … €”), AI can use them when it answers the question “how much does it cost”.

4. Add structured data

Structured data (schema.org) are “labels” in the page code that tell machines exactly what is what: that this is a company, what its address is, what services it offers, what the prices are and what questions customers ask. A person does not see them on the page, search engines and AI do. On the websites we build they are part of the SEO essentials included in the price.

5. Keep the same details everywhere

Your company name, address, phone number and opening hours should be the same on your website, in your Google business profile, in directories and on social networks. When AI finds three different phone numbers in three places, it does not know which one to trust. You will find a detailed guide in the article Local SEO: Google Business Profile step by step.

6. Get mentioned elsewhere too

AI trusts what others say about you more than what you say yourself. Reviews, articles in local media, mentions at partners, in trade directories or in discussions. All of these are signals that the company exists and is trustworthy. It does not mean buying links. It means doing good work and not being afraid to talk about it.

7. Add an llms.txt file

An llms.txt file is a short summary of the site for AI tools: who you are, what you do and where to find the most important things. We put it seventh and last on purpose, because by today's measurements it is the least effective item on this list: Ahrefs found across 137 210 domains that 97 percent of such files receive not a single request in a month, and Google's own guide says you need no new AI files to appear in AI features. It is neither mandatory nor magic, but it is cheap and does no harm. The full data and instructions for adding it are in our article What is llms.txt and does your site need it?

What does not work and what not to spend money on

• Hidden text “for AI”. Text that a person does not see but a bot does is treated by search engines as manipulation.
• Keyword stuffing. Text written for bots reads badly for people and for AI alike.
• Hundreds of AI articles with no value. Mass produced content that brings nothing new will not add to your credibility.
• Guaranteed placement. Nobody can guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend you. Answers change with the question, the user and the moment.

How to find out whether AI knows you

A simple test you can do in fifteen minutes:

1. Write down five questions your customer would ask. For example “Who does bathroom renovations in Žilina?”
2. Ask them in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
3. Write down whether they mentioned you, what they said about you and whether the details are correct.
4. Repeat the test once a month and compare.

In your traffic statistics, also watch the visits that came from addresses such as chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai or gemini.google.com. If those visits are growing, you are on the right track.

The technical side of this list is checked by our Free audit and you have the result within a minute, for mobile and desktop. What exactly it checks and how to read the result, we cover in our article Free website audit: how to read the results.

How we help you with it

The basics of SEO for AI are included in the price of every website we build. For companies that want to work on their visibility in the long term, there is our SEO Complete with SEO for AI. If you first want to know exactly where you stand, our Complete Audit for 350 € also includes an analysis of how ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity see you, and a comparison with three competitors.