Latest news with #AnswerEngineOptimization
Entrepreneur
6 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How to Get Your Business Recommended by AI Tools Like ChatGPT — and Win More Clients
AI tools like ChatGPT are now recommending businesses — here's how to make sure yours gets picked. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. A few weeks ago, I got a message from a company I'd never heard of. They'd found us through ChatGPT — not through Google, not from a referral, but by literally asking an AI tool who they should work with for data consulting and Power BI reporting. And ChatGPT named us. That one prompt led to a booked meeting. And it confirmed something I'd been seeing: search is changing. We've entered the era of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — and if you're not showing up in AI tools, you might not be found at all. From SEO to AEO Search used to be about ranking on Google. The goal was to appear high enough in the list that people would click through. But AI agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Copilot don't present lists. They give answers. Sometimes just one. That means your beautiful website and clever copy don't matter if AI tools don't recognize or recommend you. Being visible in this new era means rethinking how you present your business online — not just for people, but for machines that decide what people see. Related: How I Went From Side Hustle to 7 Figures Using These 4 AI Tools (No Tech Skills Needed) Make your business understandable to AI AI agents rely on structured data to interpret what your business actually does. Without it, your site is just a wall of text. With it, you become context-rich, credible and easier to recommend. That doesn't mean you need to learn code. Tools like Merkle's Schema Generator can help you create the right markup for your services, team, reviews and more. A developer can add it to your site in minutes. Even more important? Explain clearly on your homepage what you do, who you help and where you operate. No jargon. No fluff. Just clarity. Think in questions and answers AI agents prioritize content that's structured like answers. So write for the kinds of queries your customers actually ask. Not just "Power BI consulting," but "How can I automate my business reports without hiring a full team?" Answer that directly. Break it down simply. Structure your content so AI can lift a clean response from it. This isn't about keyword stuffing or SEO tricks. It's about being the best, clearest answer to a real question. And when you are, AI will notice. Be consistent across platforms AI pulls from your entire online footprint, not just your website. If your business description says one thing on LinkedIn and another in a directory, that inconsistency weakens your credibility. Make sure your name, services and contact info match everywhere you show up online. Link between profiles where it makes sense. Every platform is a signal, and when those signals align, AI can connect the dots. Test it for yourself If you want to know how you're showing up, just ask. Open ChatGPT or Perplexity and type: "Who's the best [service] provider in [your city]?" or "Which company helps with [pain point] for [industry]?" See if you're mentioned. If not, consider what's missing. Is your "About page" too vague? Is your content actually helpful? Is your business clearly connected across platforms? That one missing link might be the reason AI isn't recommending you. Related: 7 AI Tools to Build a Profitable One-Person Business That Runs While You Sleep AEO isn't optional — it's now the front door More and more, people are asking AI tools for help making decisions. If you're not visible to them, you're not even part of the consideration set. You don't need to trick the system. You just need to teach it who you are and why you're a great fit for the people you serve. And when you do that well, AI doesn't just notice — you become the answer. Ready to break through your revenue ceiling? Join us at Level Up, a conference for ambitious business leaders to unlock new growth opportunities.
Time Business News
07-07-2025
- Business
- Time Business News
How AI Engines Are Changing The SEO Landscape Forever
The AI is not a special tool used in the field of technology anymore, which can be employed in some experiments; it is the basis of contemporary digital interactions. The sudden emergence of artificial intelligence-driven services such as ChatGPT, Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), and Bing AI Co-pilot has dramatically transformed the way individuals utilize information. Just to give this transformation a perspective: These figures support a single trend: the search patterns are changing radically, moving away from keyword-based search to the immediate answers powered by artificial intelligence. This blog examines the ways in which AI engines are changing SEO- forever changing the ways websites are ranked, the ways in which people access the content online and the ways in which businesses will have to change. Also Read: 7 Game-Changing Ways AI is Transforming Digital Marketing Among the most noticeable shifts that the AI search engines have introduced is the rise of direct answers. As opposed to the traditional search engines that merely display the relevant web page, the AI engines now deliver synthesized answers within the search interface. This change significantly decreases organic click-through rates on a lot of sites. AI engines summarize the information on the spot instead of luring users to visit external pages. In the case of SEO professionals, this equates to optimizing to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) which means you need your content to be structured and authoritative enough to be included in these AI summaries. In this case, success will not only rely on the usual ranking criteria but it will also rely on how well your content responds to the user queries. Properly organized data, brief summaries, and professional insights have become a prerequisite to being visible. Keywords that used to be the foundation of SEO are not enough anymore. Algorithms based on AI like Google Multitask Unified Model (MUM) and BERT are more concerned with context and meaning of queries rather than word matching. This semantic change lays more emphasis on user intent rather than keyword density. Search engines are not as much interested in what people are typing as they are in the reason as to why one is searching. This leads to the fact that SEO strategy should shift towards topic authority: Creating content clusters based on core themes. Explaining topics in detail and in various aspects. Responding to particular user intentions, namely informational, transactional, or navigational. In this way, websites specially those providing data and AI solutions will be able to optimize their pages in accordance with how AI engines sift and rank data, significantly boosting their potential of being included in the answers created by AI. Artificial intelligence has transformed content creation. ChatGPT, Jasper, and Surfer AI platforms can create product descriptions, social posts, and articles in a few minutes. Although this has opened up impressive efficiencies, it is threatening as well. The search engines are also becoming more advanced in identifying low-value generic AI-generated content especially following Google algorithm updates in 2025 to identify thin and unoriginal content. Marketers should not be the final consumers of the AI-generated content to succeed. Fact-checking, expert knowledge, and human editing are essential to build credibility and be compliant with the EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness) requirements by Google. Even in the AI world, originality and authenticity are still potent ranking factors. Another area that AI is at the center is voice search. Voice-based queries are getting increasingly popular with the popularity of smart assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri. The difference in voice search is that it is conversational. Users talk in a normal language, and pose questions in the same manner they would do in their daily life. This alters the SEO game. Voice search optimization strategies: Writing in a conversational style. Clear and concise answer to frequent questions. The usage of structured data, especially FAQ schema. Also, voice search is closely related to local search- which is particularly important to businesses that focus on local clients. AI engines not only transform the way search results are displayed, they transform the way they are ranked as well. Back in the day, such elements as backlinks and keyword density were the main signs of the authority of a page. These traditional signals are still important, but they no longer have the monopoly as they are joined by user experience metrics that include: Dwell time (the duration that users spend on your site). Interactions (engagement rate), page views per session. Clarity and design of the content. Search engines have come up to test whether a page really meets the needs of a user- not just the presence of some keywords. In order to respond, the websites need to be content-deep, readable, and usable. The pages that provide complete, properly organized, and interesting information have much better chances to rank high in the AI-based ranking systems. Local SEO has also been changed by AI. Nowadays, search results are hyper-personalized, taking place not only location into account, but also browsing history, preferences, and even behavioural patterns. What this implies is that businesses should optimize on: New Google Business Profiles. Uniform NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information. Authentic customer reviews. Also, the local content should be contextualized to search intents. Such queries as best coffee near me frequently result in AI-powered, map-based suggestions that utilise the data generated by people, its relevance, and proximity. Companies that have strategized to maximize their local SEO presence such as schema markup, local landing pages, and review management will gain tremendously in this new environment. In order to survive in this changing landscape, marketers and SEO specialists should adopt some of the key changes in their approach: Make AEO the priority by developing well-organized and simple to comprehend texts that respond to user requests directly. Go beyond keywords and develop topical authority by writing on a topic in detail. Use AI to be efficient and never stop enhancing with human editing and new originality. Create pages and content that can maximize the dwell time, interaction, and access. Make the site voice search and hyperlocal query-optimized and make your business shine in local recommendations. The AI engines have altered the game of search optimization- forever. The times when it was enough to rank on keywords is gone and we are now in the era of intent, experience, personalization, and AI-powered answers. In order to thrive in this environment, brands should change their old-fashioned SEO thinking into the holistic, user-focused one: Be short, precise and straight to the point. Be reliable and profound. Write with search engines and people in mind. Be ready to change with the changing AI-powered search technology. In the end, the individuals who accept these changes will not just survive, but prosper, being on top of visibility, traffic, and authority in the new world of AI powered search. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
Cision Canada
23-06-2025
- Business
- Cision Canada
WebMax Co-Founders Log 4,200 KM to Hear Directly from Small Business Owners
VICTORIA, BC, June 23, 2025 /CNW/ - As AI reshapes how Canadians search online, one Canadian digital agency is marking its 10-year milestone with a message: small business owners don't need to navigate this alone. | founded in 2015, celebrates a decade of building affordable, fully managed websites and helping businesses stay visible online. Based in Victoria, British Columbia, the company supports clients across Canada and the U.S., blending trusted web expertise with modern AI-aware tools. To mark the milestone, Co-Founders Susan Jones and Mike Rothe travelled over 4,200 kilometres across Canada to hear firsthand from business owners. "From building contractors to family-run shops, the message was consistent—they're overwhelmed," said Jones. "They don't want more platforms or tools. They want someone to handle the website, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), and AI." Their road trip reaffirmed a growing concern: as search engines prioritize AI-generated and voice search content, many websites risk falling out of view. In response, WebMax is strengthening its human-powered, fully managed model—focused on reducing workload for Canadian small businesses while keeping them visible across new and emerging search formats. WebMax's Human-Led, AI-Aware Model Includes: Affordable, custom mobile-ready websites built in Canada Strategic SEO, AEO, and GEO for local and AI-driven search Ongoing diagnostics using WebMax's in-house tools Fully managed services—no DIY required Clients have reported up to 22% improvements in local visibility, with WebMax-written content already appearing in Google AI Overviews—all without any added effort on their part. "This isn't just about websites anymore," said Rothe. "It's about ensuring hardworking small businesses are still found online—no matter how the tech changes." The company thanks its clients and supporters, including the Better Business Bureau, local Chambers of Commerce, Vancouver Board of Trade, and the Vancouver Regional Construction Association. About | Founded in 2015, | is a Canadian-owned agency offering fully managed websites and SEO services tailored to small businesses. Headquartered in Sooke and Victoria, BC, WebMax blends AI-ready tools with human insight to help clients stay competitive online. Contact: Susan Jones, Co-Founder Western Canada: 604-670-7796 | 250-217-5340 Eastern Canada: 647-930-6996 | TF: 800-478-1030
Forbes
20-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO— What Brands Need To Know
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 17, 2018: A passenger waiting to board his plane walks in ... More front of a sign advertising Twilio at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California. Twilio is a cloud communications platform based in San Francisco. (Photo by) We studied that traffic from ChatGPT-style experiences converts up to 9x better than traditional search. Why? Because LLMs behave more like trusted advisors than search engines. This shift is already transforming how consumers discover and buy — and if your brand isn't showing up in these conversations, you're invisible. In this article, I'll break down what Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) means, how brands can train LLMs to recognize them. Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring content so that large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can understand, reference, and recommend your brand in response to user questions. To get picked up by an LLM, you need to understand how these models learn from content. LLMs get trained to complete sentences. Like: 'Life is like a box of chocolate'. During training the machine would just mask a word at random and then try to predict it. To show up in an LLM's response, your content needs to become part of the training data of LLM. Here are a few tips for businesses: You can't just dump your product catalog into the web and hope LLMs use it. It will scrape it, but it won't use it. Marketing copy won't cut it. LLMs learn through natural dialogue — not taglines. Brands need to shift from static, keyword-based content to dynamic, conversational material. Think less like a brochure, and more like a smart rep answering real customer questions. This is where SEO breaks down — it was built around isolated keywords. LLMs require context. LLMs skip over what they already know. If your content says 'The earth is round,' it won't register — the model already has that data. You need to find in your data something that new or less known about your brand, product, or category. The most valuable content is the stuff the model hasn't seen yet — helpful, real, and grounded in authentic conversation. Some things don't change. Just like in the SEO world, credibility still matters. High-quality content that gets linked, quoted, and validated across sources builds authority. Spam doesn't work. If your brand voice isn't trusted — or doesn't exist — LLMs won't echo it. Every time a new tech trend takes off — AEO is one — Silicon Valley races to build tools around it. AEO is no exception. The latest wave includes dashboards designed to track your brand's presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other platforms. A few examples are Profound, Daydream and Goodie. All Track brand mentions across AI platforms. But here's the problem: LLMs don't behave like search engines. They remember. This was not the case in the search era. Google, for example, did not remember your searches. When I worked on Google Health, this was a common complaint from doctors: Google would always return the same results, even if you had already clicked those links before. Every new session was a reset. There was no context. That's no longer true. Ask ChatGPT what it knows about you — you'll see. These models build context. They recall prior interactions. And that memory shapes future recommendations. That however means that monitoring any LLM answers miss the point. As the LLMs memory evolves, and so do the outputs. To fully understand how your brand is being represented, you'd have to know the personalized memory of every single user — an impossible task for any dashboard. So what's the smarter approach? You want to know the traffic. Just watch your traffic. Look at what's actually coming in from ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity. It's cheaper, more reliable — and shows you what really matters. Measurements are just half the rent. To impact the LLMs trainings data, you need new brand content. The old SEO playbook does not work anymore. Your brand has unique knowledge. It has a vision. Don't hide it behind generic product listings. Let's say someone searches for a 'retirement watch.' Don't just list five SKUs. Explain what makes a great retirement watch. Legacy? Legibility? Sentimental value? Engage the customer into an authentic conversation. That's the kind of context LLMs are trained to pick up. In short: show the real conversations you're already having. Look at your site search queries, your sales team scripts, your support chats. That's gold. LLMs thrive on the kind of content that sounds like a helpful human. Here's how to approach it: Some brands already have this content out in the open — in community forums, Reddit threads, or customer discussions. They'll naturally surface in LLM results. Others have great content buried in customer service logs or internal tools. That needs to come out. Structure it. Publish it. Make it discoverable. Many tools can help you here: Google's Vertex, Meta's LLama, or fine-tuned industry specific approaches like r2decide, a company I am involved with. AEO is just the beginning. Two even bigger shifts are on the horizon — and both will deeply impact how brands show up in the age of AI. LLMs will soon integrate advertising directly into their answers. Google, Perplexity, and OpenAI have all confirmed this. When exactly? Probably by early 2025 — if not sooner. But don't expect just ads or sponsored results. These models will deliver recommendations, at the end you pay for the service of ChatGPT, thus the dynamic is changing. To do that, new supply-side bidding platforms will emerge — ones that can feed LLMs with conversational ad snippets tailored to the user's prompt. The focus won't be on 'selling,' but on helping. That means brands will need their own brand-side LLM — a layer that can speak for the company inside these conversations and provide the right product at the right moment. The next wave is even bigger: agents that manage full transactions inside the LLM interface. OpenAI has already introduced Model Context Protocols (MCPs) — a new layer that allows ChatGPT to do more than chat. It can check stock, answer personalized questions, even schedule deliveries. Sam Altman has said the goal is to create personal AI companions that can act — not just inform. For brands, that means building an agent layer of your own — a system that can plug into these conversations, respond with tailored info, and complete the customer journey without sending the user back to your website. To stay relevant, brands need their own discovery layer: content that speaks the language of LLMs — conversational, helpful, and ready to be recommended. This isn't theory. The shift is already underway. If you want to dive deeper, ping me on LinkedIn.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Lily AI Launches Solution to Optimize Product Content for Algorithmic and Generative Engine Discoverability
Solution boosts brand visibility across classic search engines and emerging AI-driven discovery platforms, ensuring content reaches consumers wherever they search Lily AI Launches Solution to Optimize Product Content for Algorithmic and Generative Engine Discoverability MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lily AI ('Lily' or the 'Company'), a retail technology company specializing in AI solutions for retailers and brands, announced today the launch of a new solution designed to empower marketers to enhance their product content for optimal visibility and discoverability within traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and emerging Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) contexts. The introduction of new content optimization capabilities ensures products are not only found in Google search but also deeply understood by modern search engines such as Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, driving unprecedented eCommerce performance. In an increasingly competitive digital landscape, product discoverability is paramount. Traditional content lacks the granular detail, semantic richness, and structured data formatting required to leverage the capabilities of sophisticated search algorithms and emerging generative AI experiences. Compounding this challenge, much of today's product content is saturated with industry terminology and marketing jargon rather than the natural, conversational language everyday shoppers use. As a result, retailers and brands miss critical opportunities to resonate with high-intent consumers, leading to suboptimal organic traffic and conversion rates. For example, a retailer's product page FAQ [e.g., 'Does every seat recline?' 'Yes, all three seats feature independent power recline'] should be augmented with FAQPage schema to convert on-page Q&As into machine-optimized data that increases your chances of appearing in rich search results, featured snippets, and AI-generated citations. By failing to create content that is both technically robust and consumer-informed, marketers limit their reach in both traditional and AI-driven search environments and, more importantly, miss out on sales. Lily AI's 2025 consumer research revealed the sales impact of sub-optimized content, with ~80% of consumers saying they've abandoned a search because they couldn't find what they wanted. In the same research, 40% reported using an AI-powered search engine for online shopping. Supporting this insight, Bain & Company found 80% of consumers rely on 'zero-click' results 40% of the time when using AI search engines, highlighting the rapid adoption of these platforms. Lily AI's new offering addresses the challenge of 'Being Found to Be Sold' by leveraging its proprietary AI and deep understanding of product data assets and consumer intent. The solution automatically enriches, standardizes, and optimizes product content across ecommerce websites, ensuring product listings are not only comprehensive but also precisely aligned with how consumers search and how AI interprets product information for personalized recommendations, conversational commerce, and relevant search results. 'As the retail landscape evolves, especially with generative AI, the way products are discovered is fundamentally shifting,' said Purva Gupta, Co-founder and CEO, Lily AI. 'Our SEO and GEO content optimization solution directly addresses this evolution. After a successful soft launch with early clients, we're excited to make this solution available to all retailers and brands. We're proud to equip our customers with the tools they need to ensure their products are truly understood and matched with consumer intent, driving new levels of discoverability, engagement, and growth.' Key features and benefits include: AI-Ready Structured Data: The PCO platform audits each SKU and delivers enriched JSON-LD fields (Product, FAQPage, ImageObject, etc.), plus optimized alt-text and on-page content (meta titles, description, PDP copy). This creates a machine-optimized knowledge graph for every product, boosting visibility across Google, Bing, and AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. Full-Funnel Query Intelligence & Bulk Content Refresh: PCO analyzes shopper searches and long-tail queries, maps intent insights to the product catalog, and updates product titles, descriptions, and attributes in real consumer language, at scale. Instantly closes keyword gaps and keeps catalogs fresh and aligned with changing search trends, all without manual effort. Shopper-Friendly Language: Proprietary algorithms turn product data into clear, benefit-driven copy, boosting SEO authority, powering concise AEO answers, and providing LLMs with rich context for GEO citations. 'As someone who has spent her career in AI, I believe we're in a pivotal moment for digital advertising and commerce,' said Sowmiya Chocka Narayanan, Co-founder and CTO, Lily AI. 'It's one thing to connect machines to content, but the real breakthrough is using AI to first understand people: how consumers think, speak, and search. By translating 'consumer-speak' into structured, machine-optimized product data, we're optimizing both for algorithms and for intuitive shopper experiences. This launch bridges human language and machine logic, and I'm proud of Lily AI's role in shaping this new era.' Connect with Lily AI at Cannes Lions (June 16–19) or at CommerceNext 2025 in New York City (June 24–26) to discover how Product Content Optimization is redefining SEO and GEO for retailers and brands. About Lily AILily AI is the leading AI-powered Product Content Optimization platform that bridges the gap between consumers, merchants, marketers, and machines. The Lily platform is transforming advertising and eCommerce by converting nuanced consumer language into precise product understanding, helping people navigate millions of products to find the perfect item for their unique context. Leveraging a suite of AI, fueled by high-quality, human-verified proprietary data, Lily structures and optimizes product content, enabling retailers to understand complex search behaviors and improve product attributes, titles, descriptions, metadata and schema markups, resulting in improved paid ad performance, organic search visibility, operational efficiency and increased sales. Learn more at Media Contact:Julie A photo accompanying this announcement is available at in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
