AEO / GEO

Get Cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.

Answer Engine Optimisation for Australian businesses. We make your content the source AI engines quote when your customers ask their questions. Engineering-led, measurable, and built on infrastructure we run for our own properties — not a recycled SEO playbook.

+41%

Citation lift from quotation

+31%

Citation lift from statistics

+27%

Citation lift from sources

30–40%

Schema density uplift

Why AI search has changed the game

In 2024, more than 60% of Google searches ended without a click — the answer was generated directly on the search results page. ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews together now resolve the majority of informational and many commercial queries before the user ever reaches a website. The traditional SEO objective — "rank in the top three" — has been replaced by a new one: be the source the AI engine quotes.

This is not a marginal shift. Peer-reviewed research from Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024 (Princeton and the Allen Institute for AI) measured exactly which content techniques cause LLMs to include or exclude a source. The findings are now the operating doctrine of any serious AEO programme: direct quotation +41%, statistics +31%, fluency +28%, citing sources +27%. Combined and applied systematically, these techniques multiply citation rate by 2–3× on most websites.

The six layers of AEO

Schema density. Add Service, FAQPage, HowTo, Article, BreadcrumbList, Organization, and Person markup. JSON-LD only — never microdata for new builds. A 30–40% lift in citation eligibility on this layer alone.
Citable-chunk rewriting. Restructure prose so each paragraph reads as a self-contained answer. Score every chunk 0–100 on quotation, statistics, fluency, citation, and structure.
Statistics injection. Replace vague claims ("saves time") with specific, sourced numbers ("saves 18 hours per week, measured across 12 ORCA Cleaning bookings, March 2026").
Source citation. Add outbound links to authoritative references inside the body — not just the footer. Citing peer-reviewed research, government statistics, or named industry bodies signals credibility to LLMs and humans alike.
Freshness rhythm. Refresh commercial pages every 30–90 days with meaningful updates (new statistics, new examples, dated "last updated"). Pages untouched for >6 months lose citations roughly 3× faster.
Entity consistency. Align Organization sameAs, Wikidata QID, Knowledge Graph entries, LinkedIn, and Crunchbase to the same canonical entity. Inconsistent signals cause AI engines to hedge or omit citations.

Our infrastructure (which we use on iverel.com itself)

Citable-Chunk Grader

Scores every paragraph on a 0–100 scale across quotation density, statistic density, fluency, source citation, structure, and schema coverage. Flags pages below 80 for rewrite.

Query Fan-Out Simulator

Models how Google AI Mode decomposes a complex query into sub-questions, so we can ensure each fan-out has a citable answer on your site.

Striking-Distance Tracker

Monitors keywords ranked positions 4–20 — the ones one solid optimisation away from page-one or AI-citation status. Pulls weekly from Google Search Console.

Entity Audit

Crawls Organization, Person, and Service entities across the site and external profiles (Wikidata, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, Google Business Profile) to detect sameAs gaps and identifier mismatches.

AI Citation Monitor

Polls ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on a fixed seed-query list weekly. Records every citation, its position, and the surrounding answer text in Supabase.

Closed-Loop Auto-Refresher

Detects content decay via GSC click-loss, drafts a refresh via Claude, sends a Telegram approval card, atomically swaps on approval, and auto-reverts after seven days if engagement drops. Human-in-the-loop, fully audit-trailed.

What we deliver in a typical engagement

Audit (week 1). Full site scan: schema coverage, citable-chunk scores per page, entity consistency, content freshness, AI citation baseline. Delivered as a written report with prioritised remediation.
Schema buildout (weeks 2–3). Add and validate JSON-LD across all commercial pages. Verify against Google Rich Results Test and Schema.org validator.
Citable-chunk rewrites (weeks 3–6). Highest-priority pages first — typically homepage, service pages, top-traffic blog posts. Every rewrite is scored before and after.
Measurement instrumentation (week 4). AI citation polling live, GA4 referral segments configured, monthly Supabase report scheduled.
Ongoing programme (month 2 onward). Monthly refresh batch, quarterly schema audit, monthly written report with citation rate, referral traffic, and recommended next actions.

Pricing

One-off audit + remediation (20–40 pages)From $4,500 AUD

Ongoing AEO programme — small site$1,800 AUD/mo

Ongoing AEO programme — large / publisher$4,500 AUD/mo

Tooling + API costs (passed through)$50–$200 AUD/mo

All prices ex GST. We do not buy links, run PBNs, or use any technique that puts your domain at risk. Every dollar goes into content quality, schema infrastructure, or measurement.

Who this is for

AEO delivers the strongest ROI for businesses where customers research before they buy: B2B services, professional services, considered-purchase products, and any business whose competitors already rank for informational queries. If your customers ask Google or ChatGPT questions before contacting you, AEO is the highest-leverage marketing investment available in 2026.

It is a poor fit for purely transactional businesses where customers know exactly what they want and arrive via brand or paid search. For those, traditional conversion-rate optimisation will outperform AEO.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimisation is the practice of structuring web content so that AI answer engines — ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Microsoft Copilot — quote and cite it when answering user questions. Unlike traditional SEO which optimises for ranked links, AEO optimises for being included in the generated answer itself. The core techniques are direct quotation-friendly phrasing, dense factual statistics, authoritative source citation, fluent prose, and machine-readable schema markup. Peer-reviewed research from KDD 2024 (Aggarwal et al., Princeton & Allen Institute for AI) shows that adding direct quotations to content increases LLM citation rate by 41%, statistics by 31%, and citing sources by 27%.

How is AEO different from Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and traditional SEO?

AEO and GEO are used interchangeably in the industry — both describe optimising for AI-generated answers. Traditional SEO targets the classic ten blue links on Google. AEO/GEO targets inclusion in the synthesised paragraph that an AI engine produces in response to a question. The two are complementary, not competing: an AI answer engine still relies on a retrieval layer (often Bing or Google), so good traditional SEO is the foundation. AEO is the layer on top that turns retrievable content into citable content. Sites with strong technical SEO but no AEO get crawled but rarely quoted; sites with strong AEO but no technical SEO never get crawled in the first place.

Which AI engines actually drive citations to Australian businesses?

As of 2026, the four engines worth optimising for are: Google AI Overviews (largest reach, most conservative citations), ChatGPT Search (high-intent buyer queries, frequently cites Wikipedia and Reddit at 47.9% combined), Perplexity (citation-first by design, references Reddit at 46.7% of answers), and Microsoft Copilot. Claude is currently a smaller share but growing. For Australian B2B and service businesses, Perplexity tends to deliver the highest-intent referral traffic per citation, while AI Overviews delivers the most volume. Anthropic Claude historically cited very narrow sources but is broadening as Anthropic rolls out Web Search. We track citation rate by engine in Supabase and report it monthly.

How do you measure whether AEO is working?

We track three first-party metrics. (1) Citation rate per engine: how often iverel.com or your domain appears in AI-generated answers for your target queries. We poll ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on a fixed list of seed queries weekly. (2) Referral traffic from AI engines: measured in Google Analytics 4 via the explicit referrer (chat.openai.com, perplexity.ai, google.com with the AI Overview source parameter). (3) Citable-chunk score: an internal grade we run on every page using our own scoring tool, measuring quotation density, statistics density, fluency, source citation, and schema completeness. We aim for a score of 80+ on every commercial page.

How long does AEO take to show results?

For existing pages with established crawl frequency, we typically see citation-rate improvements within 4–8 weeks of optimisation. For new pages, expect 6–16 weeks: the first month is indexing and discovery, the second is the engines learning the page is authoritative, and from month three onwards citations stabilise. Google AI Overviews tends to be slowest to integrate new sources; Perplexity is fastest, often within 2–3 weeks. The single largest variable is content freshness — pages untouched for more than six months lose citations roughly 3× faster than pages updated every 30–90 days.

What does AEO actually involve at a technical level?

A typical AEO engagement covers six layers. (1) Schema density: adding Service, FAQPage, HowTo, Article, BreadcrumbList, Organization, and Person markup to relevant pages — a 30–40% lift in citation eligibility on its own. (2) Citable-chunk rewriting: reshaping prose into self-contained, quotation-ready paragraphs that LLMs prefer. (3) Statistics injection: replacing vague claims with specific, sourced numbers. (4) Source citation: adding outbound links to authoritative references inside the content body, not just the footer. (5) Freshness rhythm: a calendar-driven refresh cadence on commercial pages every 30–90 days. (6) Entity consistency: ensuring sameAs, Wikidata, and Knowledge Graph signals all point to the same entity. We deliver each layer as auditable infrastructure you own.

Do I need to replace my existing website to do AEO?

No. AEO is a content and schema discipline, not a CMS migration. We work on top of your existing stack — WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Next.js, custom — by adding schema, refining copy, and instrumenting measurement. The only situation where we recommend a rebuild is when the existing site cannot serve fully-rendered HTML (i.e. heavy client-side rendering with no server-side fallback), because most AI engines do not execute JavaScript when crawling.

How much does AEO cost in Australia?

A one-off AEO audit and remediation project for a 20–40 page site starts at $4,500 AUD. A full ongoing AEO programme — monthly content refreshes, quarterly schema audits, citation tracking, monthly reporting — typically ranges from $1,800 to $4,500 AUD per month depending on site size and publishing cadence. Tooling and API costs (SERP scraping, AI engine polling, analytics) are around $50–$200 AUD per month and are passed through at cost. We do not buy links or run private blog networks — every dollar goes into content quality, schema infrastructure, or measurement.

Why hire Iverel rather than a traditional SEO agency?

We run our own AEO infrastructure for our own websites and clients, not a recycled traditional-SEO playbook. Our internal toolchain includes a citable-chunk grader, a query fan-out simulator (modelling how Google AI Mode decomposes a question), a striking-distance keyword tracker, an entity audit script, and a closed-loop content auto-refresher with human-in-the-loop approval. Most agencies were structured around Google rankings and have not retooled for the answer-engine era. We were built for it from day one. Every recommendation we make is something we already do on our own properties.

Find out where you currently stand

Book a free 30-minute AEO audit. We'll run your top 10 pages through our citable-chunk grader, check your current AI citation rate on three real queries, and tell you exactly where the highest-impact wins are.

Book a Free AEO Audit →