Ask an assistant for somebody in your line of work. Be the one it names.
Take your phone out and ask ChatGPT for a decorator, a salon or a garage near you. It will name three or four. Somebody is going to be on that list, and it is decided by what is written on your website. Google now writes an answer at the top of its own results page as well, to people who never opened an assistant at all.
SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO in plain words, and what decides it inside an ordinary Google search as well as inside ChatGPT. Every figure carries the day it was read.
What happens when somebody asks an assistant for a business like yours?
An assistant does three things in order, and each one is something that can be won. Here they are. Google's own AI answer works the same way, and the same three decide whether you turn up in the map results as well.
The assistant goes and reads real pages
It runs several searches at once and pulls back live pages. Google calls this grounding, and it uses the same ranking systems as ordinary search. A page that cannot be found normally is not in the pile at all.
The assistant looks for a straight answer
It lifts one passage out and reads it on its own. A page that answers the question in its first line gets lifted. A page that warms up for four paragraphs gets skipped, however good paragraph five is.
The assistant decides whether to name you
It matches what somebody described against what your pages actually say. What you charge, what you cover, and the size and type of job you want. Facts stated plainly, in text, on a page.
Is your website worth anything now that people ask AI instead?
Yes, and more than it was. An assistant is a new front door onto the same building. It hands somebody your name and then sends them to your own site to make their mind up. So a site with nothing worth reading behind it still loses the job, and one that answers the question wins it twice.
- 36.7% of UK consumers used AI to look for a local business in the past month. Yext, "2026 Consumer Search Behaviours", published 16 June 2026, from 600 UK respondents.
- 43% then went to that business's own website, and 37% clicked the sources the assistant gave them. Same survey, same day.
- Almost half went and checked on Google or Bing afterwards. Being named is the introduction. Your site and your listing are what they check it against.
- That survey names its sample and its date. That is why it is the only figure on this page.
Google says the same thing in its own words: optimising for its AI features is optimising for search, and is still SEO. So this is not a new discipline you have been left behind on. It is the website doing its job, judged by something new.
What people ask us about AI search
Seven questions, answered in the first line, with the source beside anything checkable.
What do SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO actually mean?
They are four names for one job: being found. Search engine optimisation is Google. Answer engine optimisation is being the answer somebody's assistant reads out. Generative engine optimisation is the tools that write you a paragraph. AI optimisation is Google's own word for the lot.
- AIO is not a marketing coinage, which is worth knowing before somebody charges you for it. Google's own guide to this work lives at an address ending ai-optimization-guide.
- Google's own words, read on 29 August 2026: optimising for generative AI search "is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO".
- So anybody quoting you four prices for four sets of initials is charging four times for one piece of work.
- It is in your monthly with us, on every plan. What changes higher up the plans is how much of it gets done each month, never whether it happens.
Is this only about ChatGPT, or does Google do it too?
Google does it too, and for most people it is the half they actually see. You do not have to open an assistant to get an AI answer any more. Google writes one above the blue links on an ordinary search, and it names businesses in it.
- Google calls its two AI surfaces AI Overviews and AI Mode. AI Overviews is the written answer at the top of the results you already use. AI Mode is the tab where you ask it a question and it answers instead of listing pages.
- The same work covers both, and that is Google's own position rather than ours. Their guide, read on 29 August 2026: the best practices for search "continue to be relevant because our generative AI features on Google Search are rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems".
- So a page written to be quoted by an assistant is the same page that gets quoted by Google. Nobody has to buy this twice, and there is no separate Google AI product to sell you.
- There is one setting that can shut a site out of Google's AI answers completely, with no other symptom at all. Your ordinary rankings look perfectly normal. Google is still rolling the control out and it does not appear on every account yet. We look for it on yours, and where it is there we make sure you are in.
Am I blocking the AI robots without knowing?
Almost certainly not, and this is the scare story of the moment. A UK firm selling this work opens its home page by saying 74 out of 100 small businesses are shutting these crawlers out. We went and checked, because a number with nobody behind it is worth nothing.
- We tested 28 real electricians and plumbers around Sudbury and Colchester on 29 August 2026. Not one of them blocks any AI search crawler. Three mention them by name and let all of them through.
- That is 28 sites in two towns and it is not a national figure. It is what we can actually stand behind, which is more than the people quoting 74.
- It is still worth a look, because when it IS true there is no other symptom at all. Our free check answers it on your own address in under a minute and shows you the line it read.
What actually gets you into the AI answers?
Real questions on the page with the answer underneath. Google’s own words are that "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, markup, or Markdown to appear in Google Search."
- An llms.txt file takes a minute and it does no harm, and it never appears on a bill of ours.
- FAQ markup is the same answer. Google switched off FAQ rich results on 7 May 2026 and removed the reports in the months after. So the work goes into the questions themselves, and they still matter enormously.
What actually decides whether an assistant names me?
Facts, written in text, on a page that loads. An assistant is matching what somebody described against what your pages say. It cannot match a fact you never wrote down, and it cannot read one that only exists inside a picture of your price list.
- What you do, what it costs, and the size and type of job you want. That last one wins more work than people expect, and it is the easiest one to leave off.
- The questions you get asked all day, each one a heading with the answer underneath it. That is what gets lifted out and read aloud.
- Your Google listing and your Bing listing, both kept current. Microsoft's own guidance says a page it cannot read properly may not be picked for the answers Copilot writes. The Bing listing is free to claim.
- A site an assistant can actually read. Real labels on your form, headings in order, proper buttons. The same work that lets somebody blind book you is the work that lets an assistant do it.
How would I ever know if it is working?
Through your own Search Console and your own Analytics, and we show you the screen. Not a score out of ten from a tool nobody can audit. Google says plainly that no third party has access to its ranking or AI systems, so any dashboard claiming otherwise made the number up.
- Traffic from AI answers is already counted in your search figures, in Google's own words. Nothing is invisible while everybody waits for a better report.
- The number in your monthly report is enquiries, which is the only one that pays anybody, with the searches that brought them underneath it.
- Ask an assistant the same question twice and it answers differently, because the reply is personalised to whoever asked. Your own figures do not move like that.
Is this something I have to buy on top?
No. It is in the monthly on every plan, including Starter. It cannot honestly be sold separately, because it is the same work as being found on Google and Google says so on its own guidance page.
- On every plan: your listings kept working, a plain monthly report of what people actually searched for, and at least one real improvement guided by it.
- Higher up: the report gets acted on in full, then new pages and answers get written, then your Bing listing is kept level with your Google one.
What this work actually gets you
Four things, and every one of them is something you can check for yourself.
- The work itself, done and shown to you. What gets promised is the work: the pages written, the answers added, the listing filled in, and a report you can read.
- Something that keeps building after you stop paying attention to it. It starts the day the site goes live and it grows from there, which is the same slow half getting found has always been. Paid advertising is the honest way to buy that waiting time back while it does, and it has its own price.
- Your own knowledge, finally written down. Most of what moves this is the stuff you already know and have never written down. What you do, the size and type of job you want, how far you travel, and what you charge to come out. Once it is on the page, an assistant can only send you people who actually want it.
- The fastest win first. A properly filled in Google and Bing listing and a few real reviews move more for some businesses than anything else. That work is on every plan from £99 a month.
This work earns its keep the moment somebody is out there asking for what you do and getting somebody else's name back. If you are not sure whether that is happening to you, the free check is the fastest way to find out.
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
AI implementation for UK businesses
We build AI into how UK businesses actually work: quoting, chasing, scheduling and reading documents. Scoped first, fixed-quoted before any build.
Websites for electricians that bring in work
A website for an electrician, the back office it feeds and the app your engineers use on site. Published prices, no lock-in, and you own it all.
See what an AI assistant makes of your site.
Put your address in and the check reads your site the way a crawler does, including whether anything is shutting the AI ones out. No card and no phone call.
This work is in the monthly, never a separate bill. What sits inside each plan is on the prices page, and the listing work it rests on is on its own page.