To get your website recommended by ChatGPT and other AI search tools, make it easy for them to find, understand and trust you: allow AI search crawlers in your robots.txt, answer real customer questions directly in the first lines of your pages, keep facts like prices, location and services consistent everywhere, add structured data, and earn mentions on other trusted sites. This is called answer engine optimisation, or AEO. It builds on good SEO rather than replacing it.

How AI Search Chooses What to Recommend

AI assistants answer questions in two ways: from what they learned during training, and from live web searches they run while answering. For anything current, such as "best Framer agency" or "how much does a website cost", the live search matters most.

When an assistant searches, it pulls pages from a search index, reads the most relevant ones and writes an answer, usually citing a few of them. The pages that get cited tend to share the same traits: they answer the question directly, they are clearly structured, they are consistent with what other sources say, and they come from sites the wider web already refers to.

That means AEO is not a trick. It is making your site the clearest, most trustworthy answer to the questions your customers ask.

Step 1: Make Sure AI Crawlers Can Read Your Site

Check your robots.txt file. It should not block search crawlers, including the ones AI tools use to find live pages, such as OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, alongside Googlebot and Bingbot. Some sites block these by accident through a security setting or plugin. You can choose separately whether to allow crawlers that collect content for model training; blocking those does not stop you from appearing in AI search answers. Our free AEO checker tests this for you, including firewall settings that quietly block AI bots.

Also make sure your site is indexed in both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and that your sitemap is submitted to both. Several AI tools rely on these indexes.

Step 2: Answer the Question in the First Two Sentences

AI tools quote the clearest answer they can find. If your page spends three paragraphs on background before getting to the point, a competitor's page that answers immediately will be quoted instead.

For every important page and article, start with a short, complete answer: the price, the timeline, the recommendation, the definition. Then explain. This article opens that way for a reason.

Step 3: Write for the Questions People Actually Ask

People ask AI tools full questions, not keywords. "How much does a website for a dental clinic cost in Dubai?" rather than "dental website price". Collect the questions your customers ask on calls and in emails, and answer each one on your site, in their words.

• Add a FAQ section to service pages with four to six real questions.

• Write articles around comparison and cost questions, which AI tools are asked constantly.

• Use specific numbers, timelines and examples instead of "it depends".

Step 4: Structure Pages So They're Easy to Quote

Clear headings that match questions, short paragraphs, lists, steps and comparison tables are easy for an AI to extract and cite. Long walls of text are not. Each section should make sense on its own, because the AI may only quote that section.

Step 5: Keep Your Facts Consistent Everywhere

AI tools cross-check. If your homepage says one price, a directory says another and an old article says a third, the assistant has no reliable answer to give, so it may skip you. Make sure your services, prices, location, founding details and credentials match across your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories and social profiles.

Step 6: Add Structured Data

Structured data, written in schema.org format, tells machines exactly what a page is about: your organisation, your services, your articles, your FAQs, your reviews. It does not guarantee citations, but it removes ambiguity. Most modern platforms, including Framer, let you add it through page settings or custom code.

Step 7: Earn Mentions Beyond Your Own Site

AI tools give more weight to businesses that other sources talk about. Useful places to be mentioned include:

• Your Google Business Profile, with real reviews.

• Industry directories and review platforms relevant to your field.

• Partner, client and supplier websites that link to you.

• Podcasts, guest articles, local press and community discussions.

Step 8: Show Who Is Behind the Content

Put a real author on your articles, with a short bio and credentials, and show when content was last updated. Expertise that is visible and dated is easier for both people and machines to trust.

How to Measure AEO

• Run a free AEO check on your site to see what AI crawlers can and can't read, with a fix for each gap.

• Watch your analytics for referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sources.

• Once a month, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google the questions your customers ask, and note who is cited.

• Ask new leads how they found you. "ChatGPT recommended you" is becoming a common answer.

What Not to Bother With

Stuffing pages with keywords, publishing dozens of thin AI-written articles, or hiding text for bots does not work and can hurt you. AI tools are built to find the most useful answer, so being genuinely useful is the strategy.

At Off/Mode, AEO basics are built into every site we launch: fast pages, clean structure, metadata and FAQ-ready layouts. Our Full Website package includes technical SEO, and our Care plan keeps content and facts up to date after launch.

FAQ

What is AEO? Answer engine optimisation: making your website the source that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers quote when people ask questions in your field.

Is AEO different from SEO? It builds on SEO. Crawlability, good content and authority still matter; AEO adds direct answers, question-based structure and consistent facts across the web.

How do I get ChatGPT to recommend my business? Make sure search crawlers can read your site, answer real customer questions clearly, keep facts consistent everywhere, add structured data and earn mentions on other trusted sites.

Should I block AI crawlers? Don't block the search crawlers AI tools use to find live pages if you want to be recommended. Blocking training crawlers is a separate choice.

How long does AEO take to work? Technical fixes can take effect within weeks once pages are re-crawled. Authority and mentions build over months.