Citation baseline
See exactly which of your target prompts you get cited on, and which ones your competitors own. Screenshots included so nothing is ambiguous.
Answer Engine Optimization for businesses
Be the answer when your customers ask AI.
Your customers are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews for recommendations. Your business needs to be the one they cite. We audit your site, tell you exactly what to fix, and hand you a 30-day plan.
Get the AEO Audit for $297 →
Grab the free playbook
5-day turnaround. Fully async, no calls. Delivered as a written audit + PDF + 30-day sprint plan.
Data from 10,000 URLs across 8 engines
No retainers, no calls
Built by an operator
Get cited on
ChatGPTPerplexityGeminiGoogle AI Overviews
SearchGPTCopilotClaudeGrok
ChatGPTPerplexityGeminiGoogle AI Overviews
SearchGPTCopilotClaudeGrok
The AEO Audit
See why ChatGPT skips your site. Fix it in 30 days.
A URL-by-URL Answer Engine Optimization audit. We test your site against the signals that actually predict AI citations. Then we hand you a prioritized fix list ranked by expected lift, plus a 30-day sprint plan.
- 1Citation baseline across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for your top 10 buyer prompts. With screenshots.
- 2On-page AEO score per URL for your top 10 pages, against the 5 signals that predict citations.
- 3Prioritized fix list ranked by expected lift, tied to real correlation data. No busywork.
- 4Off-site plan: which of Reddit, LinkedIn, or YouTube to own next, and the angle to test first.
- 530-day sprint plan, day by day. You hand it to your team and they run it.
The data behind the shift
The SEO playbook does not carry over.
Three findings from an analysis of 10,000 URLs across 8 AI engines. If your team is still running 2020 SEO on 2026 goals, this is why they are stuck.
~0
Correlation between backlinks and AI citations. Across all 8 engines, the range was -0.04 to +0.06. Statistical noise.
Source: HubSpot AEO study, 10,000 URLs
0%
Of AI citations happen at the evaluation stage. Bottom of funnel wins. Top-funnel "what is X" content only earns 12%.
Source: buyer journey citation breakdown
0lift
AI Overview citations from FAQ schema alone. Question H2s add another +28. Visible last-updated dates add +8. These stack.
Source: on-page signal correlations
How it works
Five days from order to a plan you can run.
No calls, no discovery decks, no retainers. You send us your URL and your target prompts. We do the audit. You get the report.
1
You send the inputs
Your URL, your top 3 competitors, and the 10 questions your customers would type into AI. If you do not know the questions, we help you find them.
Day 02
We run the audit
Citation baseline across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. On-page scoring for your top 10 pages. Competitor citation gap analysis. Off-site presence review.
Days 1 to 33
You get the report
Written audit + scored spreadsheet + 30-day sprint plan. Shared doc plus PDF. Reply with questions any time. Book an optional walkthrough if you want it.
Days 4 to 5What you walk away with
Everything your team needs to run the sprint themselves.
The audit is the diagnosis and the prescription. Your team runs the implementation. Or point us at the sprint retainer if you want us to do that too.
Signal scorecard
Your top 10 pages scored against the 5 signals that actually predict AI citations. Question H2s, FAQ schema, external links, freshness, off-site presence.
Prioritized fix list
Ranked by expected lift, not by ego. Each fix carries an estimated impact tied to real correlation data. Ship the top five and move the needle.
Off-site authority plan
Which of Reddit, LinkedIn, or YouTube to build on first, and the exact content angle to test. Pick one, own it, watch citations follow.
30-day sprint plan
Day by day. Prompt tracking, article refresh, use case pages, off-site cadence, re-measure. Hand it to a writer and they run it.
Everything as PDF + doc
Shared editable doc for your team, plus a print-ready PDF for stakeholders. All screenshots and spreadsheets bundled in one place.
Who this is for
If your customers ask AI before they buy, you need this.
The AEO Audit works across categories. Anywhere a customer might type "best X near me" or "which X should I pick," the same signals decide whether AI cites your business or your competitor.
Local service businesses
Contractors, dentists, medical practices, boutique agencies. "Best plumber in Austin" is now an AI query.
SMB and DTC brands
Retailers, e-commerce, subscription boxes. If reviewers list your category, AI is starting to source those lists.
SaaS and B2B tools
You already know: 55% of AI citations happen at the evaluation stage. Miss those and you miss the pipeline.
Agencies serving clients
Sell AEO as a service without building the delivery. Buy an audit for your client and pass on the plan.
Prefer to run it yourself?
Grab the AEO Playbook. Free 30-page PDF.
The full 30-day sprint we ran on Growth Pigeon to go from zero AI citations to a compounding curve. Nine chapters, based on real correlation data, plus every off-site play we tested. Instant download.
Instant PDF delivery. Occasional AEO updates. Unsubscribe any time.
Questions we get
The short answers.
What is Answer Engine Optimization?
AEO is the practice of structuring your website and off-site presence so that AI engines cite your business when they answer customer questions. SEO targets ranking in search results. AEO targets being the source AI uses to build its answer. In 2026, that second one drives more decisions.
How is this different from an SEO audit?
SEO audits look at backlinks, rankings, and crawlability. AEO audits look at question-style H2s, FAQ schema, external link density, visible last-updated dates, and off-site presence. Recent research shows backlinks correlate at essentially zero with AI citations, so an SEO audit will miss the signals that matter most for AEO.
How long until I see citations?
Perplexity picks up changes in 2 to 4 weeks. Gemini takes 1 to 3 months. ChatGPT base model updates take 6 to 18 months, though browse mode is faster. Plan on partial wins in month one and compounding gains after that.
Do you implement the fixes, or do I?
The $297 audit is diagnosis plus prescription. You or your team implement the fixes. If you want done-for-you implementation, ask about the AEO Sprint retainer at the end of the audit.
Does AEO work for a local business, not just SaaS?
Yes. The signals are the same whether you sell software or serve a metro area. What changes is which prompts you target: "best plumber in Denver" and "best CRM for logistics" both surface citations. We tailor the audit to your category.
What if I already do SEO?
Keep the parts that still work: technical basics, bottom-funnel comparison content, product implementation guides. Stop the parts that are dead: generic informational content, thin programmatic pages, aggressive backlink chasing. The audit tells you which is which for your specific site.
Ready to be the answer?
The team that starts a sprint this month has a three-month head start on the team that starts next month. Perplexity citations show up in weeks. Compounding starts in month three.
Also from Growth Pigeon
Positioning is upstream of AEO. If your homepage is unclear, no amount of schema will save you.