AEO services: get your business recommended in AI answers

AEO services from Good At Marketing get your business named when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI features for a recommendation. We sell AEO and GEO as one service at $950 to $2,000 a month alongside SEO. We cannot guarantee that an AI tool will recommend your business or say when it might. A free AI-visibility audit shows where you appear today.

What AEO means at Good At Marketing

AEO stands for answer engine optimization. It is the work of making your business easy for an AI tool to find and to name when someone asks a question in your category. The tools involved include ChatGPT and Perplexity, as well as Gemini and the AI Overviews and AI Mode features inside Google Search. Our guide to getting recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews covers what each engine draws on and a one-week plan.

You will also see the term GEO, which stands for generative engine optimization. eMarketer wrote on April 2, 2026 that AEO and GEO describe the same underlying approach in practice. We agree with that and sell it as one service. Our earlier GEO page now lives here, so you only have one page to read.

This is the page where we try to be most careful about what we claim. AI answers change month to month, so we check them every month and do not predict when a business will appear.

What each month includes

The table lists the work areas in our AEO service. The scope inside each one is set with you before you pay, because a restaurant with one location and a manufacturer with a product catalog need different amounts of each.

Work area	What happens each month	What you receive
Measurement	We check AI referral traffic in GA4 and run buyer-style prompts in ChatGPT and Perplexity, plus Gemini, saving every answer and URL.	A monthly report showing where you were named, who was named instead and what changed.
Crawl access	We check that your site is indexed in Google and that your robots.txt and host do not block OpenAI’s search crawler or Perplexity’s.	A list of access problems and the fix for each.
Answer content	We write or rewrite pages so each section opens with a direct answer to a question your buyers ask. You approve every page before it goes live.	Pages for your review, then published.
Competitor comparison	We run the same prompts for you and for the competitors that appear in the answers.	A side-by-side of who gets named for which question.
Outside listings	We review the sites that AI answers cite for your category and fix or add your listings where it makes sense.	A record of listings checked, fixed or added.
Reporting	We go through the month’s results and set the next month’s priorities with you.	One report and a call if you want one.

What AEO services cost

AEO costs $950 to $2,000 a month and is sold alongside SEO. AEO is added to an SEO plan that costs $1,000 to $1,600 a month, or up to about $3,500 in highly competitive markets. Both prices are on our pricing page, reviewed October 2026.

See our guide to what AEO costs.

We sell AEO next to SEO because Google says the same basics apply to its AI features as to ordinary search. A page has to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet to be shown as a supporting link, according to Google’s AI features documentation (last updated December 10, 2025). If your site has indexing problems, SEO fixes them first.

Where you land in the $950 to $2,000 range depends on how many questions your buyers ask, how many competitors show up in the answers, and how much content has to be written or rewritten. We scope that after the free audit. Ad spend, a new website and Business Profile management are separate.

AEO compared with SEO, Business Profile and Google Ads

The four services below answer different questions. SEO gets your pages into Google’s results. AEO works on being named inside the answer an AI tool writes. Business Profile management covers Google Maps and the local map pack, and Google Ads buys placement on the results page.

Service	What it is	Where results show	Time to first movement	Our price
SEO	Ongoing work to make your site easy to crawl and a better answer to searches.	Google organic results.	Months, and longer for national terms.	$1,000 to $1,600 a month baseline, up to about $3,500 in competitive markets.
AEO	Work to get your business named in AI answers and to measure when it is.	AI tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, plus Google’s AI features.	No date promised. Cited sources change monthly.	$950 to $2,000 a month alongside SEO.
Business Profile management	Management of your Business Profile and the reviews and map listing that go with it.	Google Maps and the local map pack.	Varies by market.	$450 to $650 a month.
Google Ads management	Paid search campaigns managed for you.	Ads on Google results pages.	Starts when the campaign launches.	$600 to $1,000 a month plus ad spend paid to Google.

A local business that only needs to show up in the map pack can start with Business Profile management. A business that already ranks and wants to know whether AI tools name it can start with the audit. Our full price list has every service in one place.

How AI tools choose sources, according to their own documentation

We use only what each company publishes about its own tools. Here that means Google, then OpenAI, then Perplexity. Each item below carries the date we read it.

Google. Its AI features page, last updated December 10, 2025, says AI Overviews and AI Mode use “query fan-out,” which means issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources. It says there are no additional technical requirements beyond being indexed and snippet-eligible. It also says you do not need special markup, new machine-readable files or AI text files, and that inclusion is not guaranteed.

Google adds that visits from these features are counted in the Web search type of the Search Console Performance report. You can read your AI Overview and AI Mode traffic there without a separate tool, mixed in with your other Google traffic.

ChatGPT. OpenAI’s crawler documentation, which shows no date (we read it on October 15, 2026), describes three crawlers. OAI-SearchBot is for search. Sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, although they can still appear as navigational links. GPTBot is used for training generative AI models, and OpenAI says each setting is independent. ChatGPT-User handles actions that a person starts.

OpenAI’s Help Center article on ChatGPT search, read October 15, 2026, says ChatGPT rewrites a question into one or more targeted queries, ranks results using multiple factors and does not guarantee placement. It also says citations can be incomplete, outdated or incorrect.

Perplexity. Its bot documentation, read October 15, 2026 with no date shown, says PerplexityBot is designed to surface and link websites in search results and is not used to crawl content for foundation models. Perplexity recommends allowing it in robots.txt. A second agent, Perplexity-User, loads pages when a person asks a question and generally ignores robots.txt.

Put together, the documentation points to access first. We check crawler access before changing content, because OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers. None of the three companies publishes a formula for being named, and we do not claim to know one.

What AI referral traffic shows and what it misses

We measure AI visibility three ways each month: referral traffic in GA4, and live buyer-style prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, with every answer and URL saved.

Ahrefs reported in its February 4, 2026 update that an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page, across 300,000 keywords.

GA4 referral traffic measures referrals only. It says nothing about how often a business is named in an answer, and a buyer who reads an answer and searches your name later never appears as an AI session in GA4. That is why we also run prompts.

Where our clients appear in AI answers

These are snapshots from single days, and we label them that way. They show that both clients were named on those days. They do not tell you what will happen for your business next month.

On October 15, 2026 (a single-day check), ChatGPT and Perplexity both named MBMI first for buying a pre-engineered metal building in Florida.

On October 15, 2026, Komba Jiu Jitsu was the first recommendation on ChatGPT and Perplexity for a beginner looking for a jiu jitsu academy near Sunrise or Plantation, and second on Gemini for the best gym in Sunrise.

The Dallas outdoor kitchen maker case study and the Denver garage and ADU builder case study each pair a dated ChatGPT answer from October 15, 2026 with that site’s organic search sessions.

Why we give no citation guarantee and no timeline

eMarketer reported on April 2, 2026 that between 40% and 60% of cited sources change month to month. It attributes that figure to Search Engine Land and applies it to Google AI Mode and ChatGPT.

That number is why we do not sell a guarantee. A source named for your question this month can be replaced next month, and we cannot control which one the tool picks. What we can do is check whether your site can be reached and whether your pages answer the question directly, then report where you stand.

Our previous AEO and GEO pages quoted a time to first lift and a share of prompts you would win. We removed both. No source supports either figure, and the eMarketer number says a citation rate would not hold from one month to the next.

What the free AI-visibility audit shows

The free AI-visibility audit shows where your business appears in AI answers today. It is a snapshot, so we treat it as a starting point and not as a forecast.

The audit is free and comes first. If it shows gaps, the next step is a 15-minute call about scope and price.

For background before the audit, read What is answer engine optimization (AEO)? and How AI search engines choose their sources, compared.

Who AEO is not for

AEO is not the right first purchase if your website has indexing problems, because Google says a page must be indexed to be a supporting link. SEO comes first in that case, and our SEO services page covers it.

It is also a poor fit for anyone who needs a promised result. If you want a contract that guarantees citations in ChatGPT by a date, we are the wrong agency.

Who works on your account

Our founder, Donnie Strompf, leads AEO and SEO strategy and sets the priorities, and our team handles design, development and content. We are based in Boynton Beach, Florida. We work with local businesses across South Florida and national brands across the United States by Google Meet or Zoom. Our team page has their backgrounds.

Our legal marketing page shows how AEO applies to a law firm.

Where we do this: our digital marketing agency pages cover Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and West Palm Beach, and every city we cover is listed on our service areas page.

FAQ

What are AEO services?

AEO services are ongoing work to make your business easy for AI tools to find and name when a buyer asks a question. At Good At Marketing that means measuring where you appear, checking crawler access, writing answer-first pages and reviewing the sites AI answers cite. It costs $950 to $2,000 a month with SEO.

Is AEO the same as GEO?

They describe one body of work, so we run a single engagement and a single retainer. Splitting the terms into two products would mean billing two retainers for the same tasks. If a vendor quotes AEO and GEO separately, ask what differs between the two deliverables.

How much do AEO services cost?

The price is $950 to $2,000 a month, added to an SEO plan that starts at $1,000 to $1,600. The exact figure depends on your market, the number of competitors in AI answers and how much content needs writing. The audit is free and comes first. See the pricing page.

How long until ChatGPT recommends my business?

We cannot predict when ChatGPT will recommend your business. Cited sources change by 40 to 60% a month, according to eMarketer in April 2026, so any timeline would be a guess. We measure monthly and report what moved. MBMI’s SEO took 12 to 16 months to reach number one nationally, a figure that describes rankings only.

Can you guarantee a citation in ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google?

These platforms offer no way to promise one, so we make none. We commit to what we control: the monthly checks, the pages and the access fixes. The report then shows what the saved answers contained. A guaranteed citation is an outcome the platforms themselves decline to promise.

How do you measure AEO results?

Each month you get a report built from GA4 referrals and the saved answers from the prompts we run. It lists where your business was named, which competitors were named instead and what changed since last month. Referral traffic alone misses most of the picture, so the saved answers carry the weight.

Do I need SEO to do AEO?

AEO builds on a site that search engines can already find, so an unindexed site gets fixed first. With SEO in place, AEO adds the measurement and the answer-focused pages on top. That sequence is why we price AEO as an add-on to SEO and quote the two together.

Does schema markup help me appear in AI answers?

Google’s AI features page, last updated December 10, 2025, says there is no special schema.org markup you need to add to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. We still add FAQ and service markup where it matches visible page text, but we do not sell schema as an AI ranking lever.

Should I block GPTBot or allow OAI-SearchBot?

They are separate settings. OpenAI says sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, while GPTBot relates to training. Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot. Allowing or blocking training is your decision, and we check that your search access matches what you want before changing anything.

What does the free AI-visibility audit show?

It shows where your business appears in AI answers today: which tools name you, for which questions, and which businesses appear instead. It does not predict results. You can run it before talking to us, and the 15-minute call covers what the findings mean for your market and budget.

Next step

The audit shows where your business appears in AI answers today, and a 15-minute call covers your market and whether AEO belongs in your plan.

Get your free AI-visibility audit

Book a 15-minute call