PLAIN-ENGLISH GUIDE
What is AI SEO? (And GEO, and AEO…)
The marketing industry has minted half a dozen acronyms for one idea: showing up when AI answers your customer's question. Here's what each term actually means, what Google itself says about all of them, and the short list of moves that matter for a small business — without the agency fog.
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"AI SEO" means two different things — and both matter
When people say AI SEO, they mean one of two things. The first is using AI tools to do SEO work — drafting page titles, writing descriptions, generating alt text, checking technical health. The second is optimizing your business to appear in AI-generated answers — so that when someone asks ChatGPT or Google's AI for "the best plumber near me," your name is in the answer.
The first meaning is about your workflow. The second is about your visibility — and it's the one this guide is really about, because it's the one that puts your name in front of customers who never see a traditional list of ten blue links. When an AI assistant answers directly, there's no page two. You're named, or you're not.
The acronym decoder: AI SEO vs GEO vs AEO vs LLMO
Four labels, one discipline. Here's the decoder ring:
- AI SEO. The umbrella term — everything about search in the AI era, covering both AI-assisted workflows and visibility in AI answers.
- GEO — Generative Engine Optimization. Coined in a 2023 research paper: optimizing to be cited and named in generative answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI). The academic-turned-agency term.
- AEO — Answer Engine Optimization. Optimizing for engines that answer directly instead of listing links. The term predates ChatGPT (it grew out of featured snippets and voice search) and now covers AI answers too.
- LLMO — Large Language Model Optimization. The same idea again, named after the models themselves. You'll see it in vendor decks; it has the least traction.
Here's the part the acronym sellers skip: Google's own AI-search documentation calls AEO and GEO "still SEO." Its guidance for appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode says there are no additional requirements and no special optimizations — the AI features are built on Google's core search ranking systems. Different invoice line items, same underlying work.
THE PRACTICAL VERSION
What AI SEO actually means for a small business
Strip the acronyms and the discipline is five habits — most of them the same local-SEO fundamentals that already win Google Maps, with sharper stakes.
- Answer the question on the page. AI systems extract direct answers. A page that plainly says what you do, where, for whom, and for roughly what price gives them something to quote — one that hints and hedges doesn't.
- Keep your structured data and technical health clean. Machine-readable page structure, meta tags, sitemaps, and open crawler access. Modern builders emit all of this automatically — it should cost you zero thought.
- Build entity authority — which for a local business means your Google presence. A complete Google Business Profile, steady reviews, and identical name-address-phone everywhere are how the systems become confident you're real and good.
- Be the evidenced answer, not the loudest. AI answers favor specifics: services listed in plain words, real reviews, credentials stated. Adjectives don't extract; facts do.
- Check where you stand, with dates. AI answers change week to week — so measure by asking the actual questions and keeping the dated answers, never by a vendor's invented "AI score."
What you can safely ignore
The gap between what's sold and what works is wide right now. Three things you can skip without losing sleep:
- "Guaranteed AI placement" packages. Nobody controls what the models say, so nobody can promise you a spot in an AI answer. Anyone who does is guessing with your money.
- Magic AI files. The most-hyped is llms.txt — a proposed text file that no major AI assistant currently reads. Google has said flatly it doesn't use it. We wrote up the evidence in our plain-English llms.txt guide.
- A separate "GEO strategy" bought alongside your SEO. Google's documentation is explicit that its AI features ride the same ranking systems as search. If an agency quotes you for both as separate line items, they're charging twice for one job.
What's left after the fog clears is refreshingly small: a complete Google Business Profile, steady reviews, a website that answers the question in plain text, and a dated record of what the assistants actually say about you. That short list is the whole game — and every item on it is checkable. The step-by-step version lives in our guide to getting your business recommended by ChatGPT.
Skip the acronyms — see the actual answers.
We ask ChatGPT and Google's AI the question your customers ask, and show you what comes back, word for word, with the date on it. That's your real AI SEO baseline.
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Common questions about AI SEO
The mechanical layer, largely yes: page titles, meta descriptions, alt text, structured data, sitemaps, and technical health checks are exactly the work AI does well, and modern website builders automate most of it on every publish. What AI can't do for you is the evidence layer — running a business worth recommending, earning reviews, and deciding what you actually offer and where. Zarla's approach is to automate the first layer completely so your time goes into the second.
Pick your acronym: GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization), or plain "AI search optimization" — the industry hasn't settled, and vendors coin variants faster than anyone adopts them. The most honest name comes from Google's own documentation, which calls AEO and GEO "still SEO." If you remember one thing, remember that: the names are marketing; the work underneath is one discipline.
It can draft — titles, descriptions, page copy, FAQ answers — and it's genuinely useful for that. It can't implement across your site, measure results, fix technical issues, or earn a single review. And AI-drafted copy still needs your facts: services, suburbs, phone number, prices. The practical division of labor: let AI handle wording and structure, keep the facts and the follow-through yourself.
Two different families share the label. The first uses AI to help you do SEO — content drafting, technical audits, keyword research. The second measures your visibility in AI itself — asking the assistants real questions and recording whether you're named. Both are legitimate; just know which one you're buying. Zarla's free AI Visibility Checker is the second kind: it shows you what ChatGPT and Google's AI actually say about your business, dated, with no score theater.
Start with the primary source most agencies won't show you: Google's own guide to appearing in its AI features, which says plainly that there are no special requirements beyond solid SEO fundamentals and people-first content. Then learn by doing: ask ChatGPT the question your customers ask, read who gets named and why, and work the gaps — Business Profile, reviews, readable pages. A month of that teaches more than any course, and the source material is free.
No — and Google's own documentation is the cleanest evidence, since it describes AI Overviews and AI Mode as built on the same core ranking systems as search. What has genuinely changed is where the clicks go: AI answers resolve more questions without a visit, which makes being the named answer matter more and being result #7 matter less. SEO isn't dead; the consolation prizes are. The fundamentals now compete for fewer, more valuable slots.
Three moves, in order. First, check where you stand — ask the assistants your customers' question, or run Zarla's free checker and get the answers word for word with dates. Second, complete your Google Business Profile and restart your review ask — the entity signals behind most named businesses. Third, make sure your website answers the question in plain text: every service on its own page, your area stated, your details matching everywhere. That's a month well spent; everything else is refinement.
The technical half of AI SEO, handled on every publish.
Zarla sites ship clean structure, meta tags, structured data, and open AI-crawler access automatically — so your effort goes where machines can't: the business itself. Free to build and preview.
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