AEO knowledge base
Understand what gets measured. Know what to ask.
A practical reference for service business owners exploring AI search. Start with the terms, check your website, then learn to assess the evidence.
Our editorial approach: link to provider documentation for platform rules, label our own recommendations, and keep examples separate from customer results. Publishing a guide does not establish ranking or citation gains.
01 / Understand the basics
Get comfortable with the language before buying the service.
AEO, GEO and SEO: a glossary for service business owners
Understand the terms in an AI visibility proposal, with practical examples and separate definitions for mentions, citations and customer inquiries.
Read the guideSearch basicsWhat is AI search visibility? A plain-English guide for service businesses
What it means when ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI answers mention or cite a service business, what actually influences those answers, and which sales claims to ignore.
Read the guide02 / Prepare your website
Find out what can be edited, and give your developer a concrete brief.
An AI search website checklist you can give your developer
Check public access, readable answers and accurate markup before buying special AI infrastructure. Includes a practical handoff and acceptance checklist.
Read the guideWebsite ownershipCould you edit your own website tomorrow?
A practical website ownership checklist for service business owners: domain access, website editors, hosting, maintenance and the person who approves changes.
Read the guide03 / Judge the evidence
Know what a useful report can tell you—and where its conclusions stop.
How to evaluate AEO claims before paying for them
A practical evidence checklist for AI visibility scores, citation growth claims, crawler traffic and promises of recovered search traffic.
Read the guideSearch measurementA mention is not a customer: how to measure AI visibility
A practical guide to repeatable AI search measurements: relevant questions, full answer evidence, explicit citations, incomplete results and separate inquiry tracking.
Read the guideHiring helpHow to choose an AEO agency for your service business
Questions to ask about website edits, evidence, ownership, fees and AI search claims before hiring an agency.
Read the guideRead the original sources
The research behind the guidance.
Explore 26 annotated sources from search platforms, academic researchers, universities, Ahrefs, Semrush and Pew. Each entry explains what it supports and where its conclusions stop.
Browse the AEO research libraryStart with a useful question.
Which service do you want more customers for—and how do they find you today?