Customers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI for a good local plumber, dentist or electrician - AEO is the work of being the business those engines actually name.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of making your local business the one AI engines cite when someone asks for a recommendation. It relies on the same fundamentals as local SEO - an accurate Google Business Profile, consistent citations, real reviews and content written as clear answers - because engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI lean on those signals to decide who to name. RankLocalToday runs it done-for-you for service businesses across the US, Canada and Australia, from $497 a month with no contract.
For years, local search meant a list of links and a Map Pack. Now a growing share of customers skip the list entirely and ask an assistant - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Google's own AI Overviews and AI Mode - to just tell them who to call. Answer engine optimization, or AEO, is the discipline of making sure your business is the one those engines name. It is the local-search version of a simple shift: instead of competing to be a link people click, you compete to be the answer people are handed.
Here is the honest mechanics. These engines are not pulling names from a secret directory. They synthesize what they can already find and trust on the open web and in local data - Google Business Profiles, review platforms, established directories, and pages that clearly answer the question. That is why AEO is not a separate discipline bolted onto local SEO. A business with a complete profile, consistent NAP citations, genuine reviews and content structured as direct answers is exactly the business an engine finds easy to cite. Weak fundamentals leave you invisible to both a human and a machine.
What changes is measurement. You cannot see AEO performance in a keyword rank report, because the result is a sentence an AI generates on the fly. Our free AI Visibility Radar checks whether the major engines mention your business for the searches that matter, and if you want the Google-specific angle, our guide to ranking in Google AI Overviews breaks down how the biggest of these surfaces chooses who to feature.
AEO is not a trick or a plugin. It is the same trust signals engines and searchers both rely on, structured so an AI can quote you cleanly.
We tune every field Google reads - categories, services, attributes, photos and posts - so your profile earns relevance and prominence.
Score your profileWe build and clean listings across the directories that feed Google and the AI engines, so your name, address and phone match everywhere.
Check your NAPWe turn happy customers into a steady stream of recent reviews - the volume, recency and reply signals that move the pack.
See review velocityWe track your map rank from dozens of points across the area, not one flattering spot, so you see real coverage and where to focus.
Run a free scanWe publish genuinely useful, location-specific pages that prove where you work and win the searches single generic pages miss.
Map your service areaWe add the structured data and page-experience fixes - LocalBusiness, FAQ and Core Web Vitals - that AI engines and Google reward.
Generate schemaWe check what the major engines already say about your business, and where you rank locally, so AEO starts from facts instead of assumptions.
We optimize your Google Business Profile, citations and NAP consistency - the trusted local data every answer engine draws from.
We restructure key content into clear, self-contained answers to the questions your customers ask, the format engines quote most readily.
We build listings and grow genuine reviews so third-party sources reinforce that you are a real, recommended local choice.
We re-check what engines say and refine, since AI answers change far more often than a page-one ranking does.
AEO without local SEO fundamentals is hype. We have 14+ years in Google Business Profiles, citations and reviews - the exact signals answer engines rely on.
There are no verified public numbers on how often engines cite any business. We will not sell you a fake AI score - we track what the engines actually say.
Run our AEO Check and AI Visibility Radar on your own business, no signup. See the reality before you decide to work with us.
From $497 a month with no lock-in, we do the profile, citation and content work while you run your business.
We do not publish invented citation rates. Here is the honest proof a service business actually gets from us.
The AI Visibility Radar shows whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google mention you now, so improvement is something you can see rather than take on faith.
Our AEO Check and 30+ free tools need no signup. Test our approach on your own business today, at no cost and no risk.
No contract means we earn the next month or we do not. That structure keeps us honest in a space full of overpromising.
The businesses winning local search right now are quietly becoming the ones AI hands to customers by name. That is not luck, and it is not a hack - it is the same local SEO foundation, structured so an engine can quote it. The first move is simply to see where you stand: whether the assistants your customers use already mention you, and what is holding you back if they do not. A free audit gives you that honest read and a clear plan to close the gap, without the hype or invented numbers that clutter this space.
Book a free audit and we will show you what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI say about your business today - and how to become the answer they give.