How to show up when people ask ChatGPT and Google's AI

Think about the last time you needed a recommendation. Did you scroll a page of ten blue links, or did you just ask? More and more, people ask. They type "best wood-fired pizza near me" into ChatGPT, or Google answers them directly in an AI Overview before the normal results even start.

That's a real shift, and it changes what "showing up online" means. You're no longer only trying to rank a page. You're trying to be the business the AI mentions when it writes the answer. People have started calling this GEO, generative engine optimisation, which is a clunky name for a simple idea: make your content easy for an AI to quote.

Here's the reassuring part. Most of what gets you cited by AI is stuff good SEO already asks for. You don't have to throw anything away.

Answer the question in the first two lines

This is the big one. AI tools love a page that answers the question right at the top, in a sentence or two, before any throat-clearing. If someone asks "how much does a website audit cost," the page that wins starts with "A basic website audit is usually free to a few hundred pounds, depending on depth," not three paragraphs about the history of the internet.

So lead with the answer. Put the 40-to-60-word version up front, then expand underneath for the people who want detail. It helps your normal Google snippets too, so there's no downside.

Use FAQ and Article schema

Structured data is a bit of code that labels your content so machines aren't guessing. "This is an article. This is the author. These are the questions and answers." AI tools read it to understand your page quickly and quote it with confidence.

For most small businesses, two types do the heavy lifting: Article schema on your blog posts and FAQPage schema on any page with a question-and-answer section. Every article on this blog uses both, which is partly why we're comfortable preaching it. If your site runs on WordPress, a plugin like Yoast or Rank Math can add this for you without touching code.

Get mentioned where AI looks

Here's something that surprises people. When AI tools build an answer, a huge share of what they cite isn't polished company websites at all. It's Reddit threads, Quora answers, forum posts and the like. One 2026 analysis of over a million AI citations found community platforms made up more than half of the sources quoted across the main AI search tools.

You can't fake your way into that, and you shouldn't try. But you can be genuinely present. Answer real questions in your field on Reddit or in industry forums. Get listed in the directories and "best of" roundups that cover your area. When several trusted places mention your business, the AI starts treating you as a real answer rather than a guess.

Let the AI bots in

This one's technical but quick. AI companies use their own crawlers to read the web: GPTBot from OpenAI, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, and others. If your robots.txt file blocks them, you've quietly opted out of being quoted. Some sites block them on purpose, which is a fair choice. Just make it a choice, not an accident.

# robots.txt — allowing the main AI crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
Allow: /

User-agent: PerplexityBot
Allow: /

While you're in there, make sure your sitemap is listed and your pages actually load fast. An AI crawler that times out on your slow homepage learns nothing about you.

Is any of this worth the effort?

Honestly, for a lot of small businesses, the answer today is "a little, and growing." AI search is still a slice of your traffic, not the whole pie. But the work it asks for, clear answers, clean structure, a decent reputation, is the same work that's made websites rank for twenty years. You're not gambling on a trend. You're doing the fundamentals, and getting a head start on where search is heading.

Start with the first tip. Go to your three most important pages and make sure each one answers its main question in the opening two lines. That alone puts you ahead of most of your competitors.