Straight answers on SEO, AEO, GEO, AI search, technical SEO and pricing — including how SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO actually differ.
The question we're asked more than any other. Here's the short version.
| Dimension | SEO | AEO | GEO | AIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it optimises for | Ranking positions in classic search results | Being selected as the direct answer | Being cited as a source inside AI-generated answers | The speed and quality of your own marketing output |
| Where you appear | The blue-link results list | Featured snippets, answer boxes, voice results | Inside the answer text and its citation list | Nowhere — it's an internal capability, not a surface |
| Primary surfaces | Google, Bing | Google snippets, Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews | Your content workflow and internal tooling |
| Core signals | Technical health, relevance, authority, links | Concise answer formatting, structured data, question targeting | Extractable passages, entity clarity, third-party consensus | Grounded prompts, reusable workflows, human review |
| How success is measured | Rankings, organic sessions, non-brand revenue | Snippet and answer-box ownership rate | Citation share across a defined prompt set | Output volume, cycle time, quality consistency |
| Typical time to results | 3–9 months, compounding | 4–12 weeks where a snippet already exists | 2–6 months as sources and consensus build | Weeks — it's an operational change, not a ranking one |
| Who it's for | Anyone who needs to be found in search | Brands whose buyers ask questions before buying | Brands being researched via AI before a site visit | Teams whose strategy outpaces their capacity to publish |
Early wins (technical fixes, quick on-page gains) often show within 4–8 weeks; compounding ranking and traffic growth typically builds over 3–9 months depending on competition and your starting point.
Both — and off-page. We treat SEO as one system: a clean technical base, on-page relevance, authority building, and content working together.
Yes. We work with WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, custom stacks and more — implementing fixes directly or alongside your dev team.
SEO targets classic Google rankings; AEO targets answer boxes and voice; GEO gets you cited in AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. We cover all of them — start with a free audit to see where you stand.
SEO earns blue-link rankings; AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) structures your content so engines and assistants quote it directly — featured snippets, answer boxes and voice results. The two work together: a strong SEO base makes AEO wins far easier.
We find the questions that already trigger snippets in your space, then structure concise, well-formatted answers (paragraphs, lists, tables) plus the right schema so Google can lift your content into position zero.
Yes — voice assistants read from answer boxes and structured data. The same concise, conversational, schema-backed content that wins snippets is what gets spoken back on Assistant, Siri and Alexa.
AEO targets traditional answer surfaces (Google snippets, voice); GEO targets generative AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. They overlap on structure and authority — start with a free audit and we'll map both.
GEO optimizes your brand to be cited inside AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini — where a growing share of research now happens before anyone visits a website.
By building the signals these engines trust: authoritative, well-structured content, strong entities and references across the sources LLMs pull from. We research the prompts your buyers use and engineer content to be the quotable answer.
SEO earns Google rankings; AEO wins Google's answer boxes and voice; GEO gets you cited inside generative AI engines. They share a foundation of authority and structure — we cover all three.
Yes. We monitor how often and where your brand appears across AI engines for your target prompts, and report on citation share over time.
Classic SEO earns you a ranked position in a list of links. AI search optimization earns you a place inside the answer itself — AEO makes your content answerable (FAQ schema, question headings, lists), GEO makes it citable (authorship, dates, entity schema, sources). Different signals, and strong Google rankings don't automatically transfer.
No — and be wary of any tool that claims to. Assistant answers aren't a stable, measurable index. What we measure is your readiness: whether AI crawlers can access your site at all, and whether your content carries the structural signals assistants need to find, read and cite it.
llms.txt is an emerging convention — a plain-text file that tells AI systems what your site is about and which pages matter. It's cheap to add and an early-adopter signal; the audit checks whether you publish one.
We test your robots.txt against six: GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended (Gemini training), CCBot (Common Crawl) and Applebot-Extended. Any of them blocked means the corresponding assistants can't read — or cite — your site.
Yes. Create a free account (no credit card) and you get 3 full audits every month — each includes the complete SEO report alongside the AI-search scores.
Not necessarily. AI visibility depends on crawler access and machine-readable structure, not just authority. A top-ranking site with GPTBot blocked in robots.txt is invisible to ChatGPT browsing — and that's one of the most common findings in this audit.
AIO is about operationalizing AI inside your content and marketing — strategy, automation, chatbots and custom agents — so your team produces more, faster, with consistent quality.
Not when it's done right. We pair AI speed with human review, strong structure and original insight — engines reward helpful, accurate content regardless of how it's produced.
Anything repetitive and rules-based: drafting, research, internal data lookups, reporting, support triage. We scope agents to your workflows and data.
Yes — every workflow is human-in-the-loop with brand guidelines baked into prompts and review steps.
Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) are Google's official metrics for load speed, responsiveness and visual stability, and they factor into ranking. The audit reports both lab measurements and real-user (CrUX field) data where Google has it, with the exact values — not just a color.
Yes. The audit checks robots meta directives (noindex/nofollow), robots.txt rules, sitemap.xml presence and URL counts, canonical tag presence, meta refresh redirects, and how your site handles 404s — the usual suspects when pages silently drop out of the index.
It detects which JSON-LD types are present on your pages (Article, FAQ, HowTo, Organization and more) and flags pages missing structured data entirely. It reports presence and type coverage rather than validating every property against the schema.org spec.
We test whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, CCBot and Applebot-Extended are allowed or blocked by your robots.txt, and whether you publish an llms.txt. If AI assistants can't crawl you, they can't cite you — this is the newest visibility gap most audits ignore.
This version of the report leads with raw metrics and exact values for a technical audience. Every finding still carries a plain-English explanation, so it works as a shared artifact between marketing and engineering.
Yes — every report can be downloaded as raw JSON (the complete result object, every check and metric), alongside the print-friendly PDF view and a shareable read-only link.
It fetches your robots.txt and tests the rules against six AI crawlers — GPTBot (OpenAI), ClaudeBot (Anthropic), PerplexityBot, Google-Extended (Gemini), CCBot (Common Crawl) and Applebot-Extended — and checks whether you publish an llms.txt. Two requests, nothing installed, nothing stored on your site.
Assistants can only cite what their crawlers have read. Block GPTBot and ChatGPT's browsing can't see your site; block them all and you're invisible across AI search — regardless of how well you rank on Google.
Not necessarily — blocking is a legitimate choice, for example to opt out of AI training (Google-Extended, CCBot). The problem is inheriting a block by accident. Decide per crawler, deliberately.
Yes — this check is instant and completely ungated. The full AI Search Audit (AEO, GEO and AIO scores plus a prioritized fix list) needs a free account: 3 audits a month, no card.
Yes. Create a free account (no credit card) and you get 3 full audits every month at no cost.
On-page SEO, links, usability, performance (Core Web Vitals), social signals, and AI Search Readiness across AEO, GEO and AIO — plus an AI assessment with prioritized fixes.
No. Every finding is explained in plain English with a ready-to-use fix, and the AI assessment summarizes what matters most first.
Most audits finish in around 40–60 seconds. Re-running the same URL within 24 hours is served instantly from cache.
Search Console shows how Google already sees your indexed site. This audit actively crawls and grades your on-page, technical, performance and AI-search signals in one pass, with a prioritized action plan — no setup or verification required.
Usually not. Most small business sites have a handful of high-impact, low-cost fixes — a missing page title, a slow image, a page Google can't read. The report ranks fixes by impact so you (or your web person) can start with the ones that cost nothing but time.
The checks are the same rigorous ones we run for every site — the difference is how the report reads. Findings are explained in business terms (lost customers, trust, visibility) with plain-English fixes first and the deep technical detail collapsed underneath for your developer.
It checks the core signals that local visibility is built on: mobile experience, page speed, and whether your pages clearly say what you do and where. It doesn't audit your Google Business Profile directly — but a healthy, fast, clearly-labelled website is the foundation every local ranking sits on.
Monthly is plenty for most small businesses — or after any change to your site (new pages, a redesign, a new booking tool). You get 3 free audits every month, so a monthly check costs you nothing.
No. This version of the report leads with a plain-language summary and a prioritized action plan. Every technical term is explained, and you can hand the detailed sections straight to whoever manages your website.
The comparison scores both sites on the same rubric of on-page, technical, performance and AI-search signals — the measurable foundations rankings are built on. No one outside Google knows the exact algorithm, so we compare the signals you can actually act on.
No — this is an on-page and technical comparison. Backlink data requires third-party indexes and is out of scope for the free tool. That's stated plainly in the report so the gaps you see are gaps you can fix on your own site.
One competitor per comparison. To benchmark several, run a comparison per competitor — each run uses one of your monthly audit credits.
One. A comparison audits your site in full (including AI recommendations) and runs the same rule-based checks on the competitor's site, then computes the deltas.
Monthly, or whenever a competitor visibly redesigns or starts outranking you on a query you care about. Sites change slowly — the deltas matter more than the absolute scores.
We ask for a 3-month minimum. SEO compounds — a single month of work rarely moves rankings enough to judge ROI fairly, and it lets us do real strategic work instead of quick wins that don't last.
Yes — every prospective client gets a free AI-powered audit first, so pricing and scope are based on real findings, not guesswork.
Not as a standing package — but book a call. If your site is small and low-competition, a one-time audit plus a few add-ons might get you further than a full retainer.
Packages can be adjusted — swap content deliverables for extra link building or technical work at the same price tier.
A freelancer is one person's hours. This is a process — audit tooling, a strategist, a content system and a link-building pipeline running in parallel, refined over 4 years of client work.
Talk to us — depending on scope we can work behind the scenes for agencies. Book a discovery call and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a fit.
Start with a free audit, or book a call and we'll map the fastest path to position one — across Google and AI search.