SEO services · AI search and GEO · Freelance consultant, UK

AI search optimisation, with a citation to show for it.

AI search optimisation for UK small businesses: the work that gets a site named when a customer asks ChatGPT, Google's AI Mode or Gemini who to hire. Answer-first pages, the schema and llms.txt the engines read, the directory each engine trusts for your sector, reviews, and the same buyer prompts re-run every month so you can see whether you are named. From £500 a month, rolling. I have one citation with a date on it and a count of 1,253 firms to show what the problem looks like. No ranking promises; those are guesses with your money.

ChatGPT's sources panel listing 1weeksites.com's guide, How much does a website cost in the UK? 2026 price guide, dated 23 April 2026, between sorttheclicks.com and johnhitchens.co.uk
ChatGPT's sources panel, 15 May 2026, listing this site's cost guide. Published 23 April 2026. The page it cited.
From £500 a monthThe same month as the SEO service. The AI layer is in the fee, not bolted on.
Cited in 22 daysOne page, published 23 April 2026, in ChatGPT's sources by 15 May.
1,253 firms countedSuffolk, six sectors, three engines. 76% never named. The study is public.
Measured, not promisedThe same buyer prompts re-run monthly. You see the count, not a dashboard.

What AI search optimisation includes here.

The things that decided who got named. Nothing with a trademark on it.
  • Pages that answer the exact questionOne page per question your buyers ask, with the answer in the first paragraph, the figures dated, and a source for every number. It is what got the cost guide cited: an answer engine lifts what is easiest to lift and easiest to trust.
  • The engines can read the siteThe search crawlers, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, allowed in robots.txt; they are what let an assistant cite you, and plenty of sites block them by accident along with the training bots. Blocking GPTBot for training stays your choice and costs you nothing. An llms.txt kept current. FAQ, Article, Service and LocalBusiness schema that matches the visible text. Pages that work without JavaScript, because most crawlers do not run it.
  • Named authorship and facts to quoteA real person on every page, with a Person entity the engines can connect across the site. Figures, dates, prices and comparisons written as sentences a model can cite whole. Vague copy is invisible to an AI for the same reason it is to a customer.
  • The directory your engine readsEach engine leans on one or two sources per sector. In Suffolk, ChatGPT reached for Legal 500 for solicitors, GetAgent for estate agents, Agency Central for recruiters and RIBA Suffolk for architects. A listing there, complete and consistent with the site, is worth more than fifty generic directories.
  • Reviews, because the engines count themThe single strongest signal in the study. Named accountants averaged 29 Google reviews; the unnamed averaged 2. A way of asking for reviews that clients actually use is part of the month, not a tip in the report.
  • The monthly prompt panelYour buyers' questions, run against ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode ten times each, every month, with every firm named written down. Named or not, how often, which page was cited, who took your place. One page, plain English.
  • Not includedAI-generated filler at volume, which the engines learned to ignore before most agencies learned to sell it. Paid ads. And any promise of being named by a date.

Cited by ChatGPT inside thirty days.

On 23 April 2026 I published the website-cost guide on this site: dated, sourced, answer-first, with the estimator in it. By 15 May ChatGPT was listing it as a source for "how much does a website cost in the UK", between two sites that had been publishing on the subject for years. One page, three weeks, no agency, no link campaign.

It is not cited today, and I would rather tell you that than crop the date off the screenshot. I stopped working on that page over the summer to build client sites, and the citation went with it. That is the whole argument for a rolling month rather than a one-off project: in AI answers the visibility is the work, and it stops when the work stops.

The method that got it there is the one every month runs on. What it looks like when nobody has done it, across a whole county, is below.

What invisible looks like, counted.

Suffolk, 6 sectors, 120 runs per sector, 2026-09-18

I asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode for the best accountants, solicitors, recruiters, IT support firms, architects and estate agents in Suffolk, 120 times per sector, and matched every firm named against every firm on Google Maps. 304 of 1,253 were ever named. 98 were named by all three. 949 — 76% — never were, and 1,060 of them have a website.

The engines do not spread it around. In IT support companies, five firms took 75% of everything AI Mode said. The named firms have three things in common: review volume several times the rest, a listing in the one directory their sector's engine reads, and a site that says what they do and where in its first sentence. None of the three is luck. All three are the month.

Read the study, sector by sector

SEO or GEO? Same month, second reader.

Search engine optimisation gets a page chosen by a person scanning ten results. Generative engine optimisation gets it chosen by a model assembling one answer from three or four sources. The reader changed; most of what it rewards did not. A fast page that answers the question plainly, with real figures, from a named person, on a site with reviews behind it, wins with both.

What GEO adds is narrower than the agencies make it sound: make sure the engines can read the site at all, write the facts so they can be lifted whole, and be in the one directory each engine leans on. That is a few days of work in month one and a habit after. It is why there is no separate GEO price on this site. The same month covers both, and the report shows both: Search Console for Google, the prompt panel for the answers.

One month, pointed at the answers.

AI search optimisation is not a separate product here with its own price list. It is the same month as the SEO service, scoped for a business whose customers ask an AI who to hire: more of the month goes on the directory, the reviews and the answer-first pages, and the report leads with the prompt panel. The figure is set on the call and written down before the first month. How the pricing works.

AI search and GEO, monthly
from £500a month, rolling
A small site in an ordinary market. A crowded sector costs more, and you hear the figure on the call, not on the invoice.
  • Answer-first pages, one question eachIncluded
  • Crawler access, llms.txt, schemaIncluded
  • The directory your engine readsIncluded
  • Review system and repliesIncluded
  • Monthly prompt panel, three enginesIncluded
  • Search Console watched, one-page reportIncluded
  • ContractNone
Book the 30-minute callWhat a month looks like

Questions people ask about AI search.

What is an AI SEO agency, and are you one?An AI SEO agency sells the work that gets a business named in AI answers: ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity. I am not an agency. I am one freelance consultant in Ipswich who does the same job for UK small businesses, from £500 a month, and shows you the measurement rather than a framework with a trademark on it.
What is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?Generative engine optimisation is making a site the source an AI answer cites, where SEO is making it the result a person clicks. Most of the work is shared: fast pages, clear answers, structured data, real reviews. GEO adds three things: facts and figures written so a model can lift them, an llms.txt and crawler access so the engines can read the site at all, and a listing in the directory each engine actually reads for your sector. That is why I sell them as one month, not two.
Can you do SEO with AI, or is this SEO for AI?This page is about the second. Getting named by the AI engines is the goal; how the work gets done is a separate question. I use AI tools for research and drafts and never for the facts, the figures or the final copy, because the pages that get cited are the ones with something true in them that nobody else has written down. AI-written filler is the fastest way to be ignored by an AI.
Is SEO still worth it in 2026, if people are asking ChatGPT instead?For a small business, more than it was, because the answer engines have a shorter list. Google shows ten results; an AI answer names a handful of firms. I counted it in Suffolk: across six sectors, one firm in four was ever named by any engine, and one in thirteen by all three. If your customers ask an AI who to hire and you are not on that short list, you do not exist to them. Getting on it is the job.
How do you measure it?The same panel of buyer prompts, the questions your customers actually ask, run against ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode every month, ten times each, with every firm named written down. You get the count: named or not, how often, which of your pages was cited, and who took your place. It is the method from the Suffolk study, applied to your business.
How long before an AI engine names us?The one hard number I have: this site's cost guide was published on 23 April 2026 and was in ChatGPT's sources by 15 May, 22 days later. That was one page answering one question exactly. A whole business being named for a buyer prompt takes longer, usually three to six months, because it needs reviews and directory listings as well as pages, and those compound rather than switch on. Anyone quoting a date is guessing.
How much does AI search optimisation cost?It is the SEO and GEO service, from £500 a month, rolling, cancel any month by email. The AI layer is in the fee, not an add-on. A crowded sector or a bigger site costs more, and the figure is written down on the call before the first month. There is no separate GEO package because there is no separate GEO; it is the same pages, listings and reviews, pointed at a second kind of reader.
What are the reputable AI SEO agencies in the UK?I do not keep a list, and the pages ranking for that phrase are mostly agencies naming themselves. What I would check with any of them: whether they can show a citation with a date on it, whether they measure with a repeated prompt panel or a dashboard, and who does the work. If you want an agency, choose one that answers those three. If you want one person who does and shows both, that is this page.
Start with the site

Find out whether the AI engines can read your site at all.

One URL in. The audit checks whether the AI search crawlers can reach the page, separately from the training ones, whether there is an llms.txt, whether the schema matches the page, and the SEO basics underneath. If the AI visibility line is red, that is month one, and you should know before the call.

About 60 seconds. The whole report, fixes included, renders on the page.
AI search and GEO

From £500 a month. Measured, not promised.

The call is free. I run your buyers' questions past the three engines while we talk, tell you who they name instead of you and why, and you decide.

Book a 30-minute callRead the Suffolk study
Free · no obligation · I’ll tell you straight if it isn’t a fit