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Is your website visible to AI answer engines?
14 questions. Under 5 minutes. Find out exactly how citable your site is to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Bing Copilot — and what to fix first.
100-point scoring
Actionable fix for every gap
Built for UK small businesses
Your score
0
/ 100
Do your key pages include JSON-LD structured data (schema.org markup)?
Add JSON-LD structured data. Schema.org markup is the single highest-impact AEO action you can take. At minimum, add Organization schema to your homepage, FAQPage schema to any FAQ section, and Article schema to blog posts. Google's Rich Results Test can verify it's working. Without it, AI answer engines have to guess at your content — they often get it wrong or skip you entirely.
Expand your structured data coverage. You have some schema in place, but there are likely gaps. Check that every key page type (home, about, services, blog posts, tools) has relevant schema. A FAQPage schema on your FAQ section is especially powerful for AEO.
Do you have FAQ sections that directly answer common customer questions in plain language?
Add FAQ sections to your key pages. AI answer engines are essentially FAQ-matching machines. When someone asks ChatGPT "what does [your service] cost?" or "is [your business] right for me?", it looks for a page that directly answers that question. Write 4–6 real customer questions per key page and answer each in 2–4 clear sentences. Wrap them in FAQPage JSON-LD for maximum impact.
Expand your FAQ coverage. You have some FAQ content but consider adding it to more pages — especially pricing, services, and contact pages. Each FAQ answer should be self-contained (answerable without reading the rest of the page) so AI can extract and cite it cleanly.
Does your content lead with the direct answer first, then expand on the detail (inverted pyramid writing)?
Restructure your content to answer first. AI models extract answer snippets by finding the first clear, relevant sentence in a section. If your paragraphs bury the answer after a long intro, you'll be skipped. Rewrite each section so the very first sentence could stand alone as a complete answer. "Membership costs from £49 per month" beats "We offer a range of flexible plans to suit every business size."
Audit your page intros for buried answers. Some of your content answers first, but inconsistency means AI misses the pages that don't. Especially review your homepage hero, service descriptions, and pricing page — these are the most-cited sections.
Do you have an llms.txt file at your domain root that summarises your business for AI assistants?
Create an llms.txt file. An llms.txt at
yourdomain.com/llms.txt gives AI language models a machine-readable briefing on your business — who you are, what you do, your key pages, and your unique expertise. Think of it as a CV written for AI, not humans. It takes 20 minutes to write and significantly improves how AI assistants represent your business in their answers. See the open standard at llmstxt.org.
Enrich your llms.txt. You have an llms.txt in place, which is ahead of most small businesses. Now improve it: add more specific facts about your methodology, typical client results, pricing signals, and the geographic areas you serve. The more precise it is, the more accurately AI will represent you.
Does your robots.txt explicitly allow AI crawlers — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended?
Update your robots.txt to allow AI crawlers. If your robots.txt has a blanket
Disallow: / or doesn't explicitly permit AI bots, most AI systems will not crawl or cite your content. Add explicit Allow: / rules for: GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, Claude-Web, anthropic-ai, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and Bingbot. This is a 10-minute fix with significant GEO impact.
Check your full list of allowed AI bots. You allow some AI crawlers but not all. Make sure your robots.txt covers all major ones: GPTBot (ChatGPT), ClaudeBot (Anthropic/Claude), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), Google-Extended (Google AI Overviews), and Bingbot (Bing Copilot).
Do you have an About or Team page that verifiably demonstrates your experience and credentials (E-E-A-T signals)?
Build a credible About/Team page. AI models are trained to favour content from verifiable experts (Google calls this E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Your About page should name real people, include their specific professional background, mention years of experience and industries worked in, and if possible link to external profiles (LinkedIn, Companies House, professional bodies). Anonymous businesses score poorly for AI citations.
Add more verifiable credentials to your About page. You have an About page, but boost it with specifics: mention industries served, number of clients helped, notable past roles or achievements, and any external recognition. The more verifiable the claims, the more AI will trust and cite your content.
Does your content use specific facts, statistics, dates, and cited sources rather than vague generalisations?
Replace vague claims with specific, verifiable facts. AI models strongly prefer factually grounded content. "We have years of experience helping businesses grow" is invisible to AI. "We have helped over 40 UK small businesses increase turnover by an average of 23% within 12 months of joining" is citable. Review your homepage, about, and service pages and inject real numbers, timeframes, and source links wherever possible.
Push for more specificity across all content. You have some factual content, but go further — every key claim should have a number or timeframe attached. "Members typically see results within 90 days" is better than "Members see results quickly." Specificity is the currency of AI citations.
Do all pages have unique, descriptive meta titles and meta description tags?
Write unique meta titles and descriptions for every page. Meta tags are not just for Google — AI crawlers use them to understand what a page is about before deciding whether to index its content. Keep meta titles under 60 characters and meta descriptions under 160 characters. Each should clearly name the page topic and the business. Duplicate or missing meta tags are a common crawl-time red flag.
Complete your meta tag coverage. Some pages are missing unique meta descriptions. Prioritise your homepage, services/mentoring page, pricing, and any blog content. Even a simple, honest description beats a missing one.
Is your entire website served over HTTPS (secure connection)?
Move your site to HTTPS immediately. HTTP sites are flagged as insecure by all major browsers and are systematically deprioritised by AI crawlers. Most hosting providers (including Cloudflare) provide free SSL certificates. This is a non-negotiable baseline — without HTTPS, almost nothing else in this checklist matters.
Ensure all pages redirect correctly to HTTPS. Mixed content (some pages HTTP, some HTTPS) confuses crawlers and browsers. Set up a global HTTP→HTTPS redirect at the server level, and check that all internal links, image sources, and script URLs use HTTPS.
Does your website load in under 3 seconds on a mobile connection?
Improve your page load speed. Google's PageSpeed Insights (free at pagespeed.web.dev) will give you a full report. Quick wins: compress images (use WebP format), enable caching, minimise unused JavaScript, and use a CDN (Cloudflare's free tier works well). Slow-loading pages are crawled less often, which means staler content in AI indexes.
Optimise your slowest pages. Run PageSpeed Insights on your highest-traffic pages and address the top 2–3 recommendations. Pay particular attention to image sizes and render-blocking scripts, which are the most common causes of slow loads on small business sites.
Do your pages include Open Graph tags (og:title, og:description, og:image) for rich social sharing previews?
Add Open Graph meta tags to all pages. Open Graph tags signal to AI crawlers and social platforms what a page is definitively about. Add
<meta property="og:title">, og:description, og:image, og:url, and og:type to every page. Many AI tools read OG tags during crawl to build their understanding of page purpose.
Complete your Open Graph coverage. Make sure every page — not just the homepage — has a unique og:title and og:description. Also check og:image is set and points to a real, relevant image, as this appears in AI-generated content previews and social shares.
Do you publish new content or meaningfully update existing pages at least once per month?
Establish a content publishing cadence. AI models are trained on the most recent, most frequently updated sources. A site that hasn't published anything in 6 months is treated as potentially stale — which means lower citation likelihood. Even one 800-word blog post per month can meaningfully shift your crawl frequency. Prioritise topics your customers are already asking AI assistants about.
Increase your publishing frequency. You publish occasionally, but monthly is the minimum floor for consistent AI crawl attention. Build a content calendar with 4–8 topics per quarter and block time each month. Repurposing — turning a FAQ answer into a blog post, or a client question into an article — makes this easier to sustain.
Do your internal links use descriptive anchor text that explains what the linked page is about?
Replace "click here" and "read more" links with descriptive anchor text. Links like "click here" or "find out more" give AI crawlers zero context about the destination. Replace them with descriptive phrases: "explore our business mentoring plans" or "see how the UK VAT calculator works". Descriptive anchors help AI map the relationship between your pages, which improves topical authority signals.
Audit your anchor text for vague phrases. You use descriptive anchors sometimes, but do a full audit across your site. Any "click here", "here", "more", or "read more" links should be updated. Pay particular attention to navigation CTAs and in-blog links, which are most often vague.
Do all pages include a canonical <link rel="canonical"> tag pointing to the preferred URL for that page?
Add canonical tags to every page. Canonical tags (
<link rel="canonical" href="https://yourdomain.com/page">) tell search engines and AI crawlers which URL is the "true" version of a page. Without them, duplicate or near-duplicate content (e.g. your page appearing at both www and non-www URLs, or via URL parameters) can confuse crawlers and split your authority signals. Add a canonical tag to every page — it belongs in the <head> section.
Complete your canonical tag coverage. Some pages are missing canonical tags. Check especially your blog posts, tool pages, and any pages accessible via multiple URLs (with/without trailing slash, with URL params, etc.). A missing canonical is a small issue but it compounds at scale.
Full question breakdown
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What is AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of structuring your website content so that AI-powered answer engines — like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Bing Copilot — can accurately understand, summarise, and cite your business in their responses. It focuses on structured data, FAQ content, direct answers, and credibility signals.
What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising your website so that large language models and AI search tools actively choose to reference or cite your content when generating answers. It overlaps with AEO but places extra emphasis on authority signals, factual specificity, fresh content, and allowing AI crawlers access via robots.txt.
How is AEO/GEO different from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO focuses on ranking web pages in a list of search results. AEO and GEO focus on being the source that AI assistants draw from when they summarise an answer directly — bypassing the list entirely. A business can rank well in Google but still be invisible to AI-generated answers if it lacks the right signals.
What score should a small business aim for?
A score of 80 or above is considered strong for a small business website. Scoring 60–79 means you have the foundations in place but gaps worth fixing. Below 60 means your site is largely invisible to AI answer engines and needs structural work before AI tools will reliably cite or reference it.
What is an llms.txt file?
An llms.txt file is a plain-text file placed at the root of your website (e.g. yourdomain.com/llms.txt) that gives AI language models a concise, machine-readable summary of who you are, what you do, and where your key content lives. It is the AI-era equivalent of a sitemap.xml, designed to help AI assistants understand and correctly represent your business.