What is answer engine optimisation?

Answer engine optimisation, or AEO, is work that helps make your business information easier to discover, understand and reference in search answers. It overlaps with SEO: accessible pages, useful answers, consistent business facts and evidence a reader can check. You may also see suppliers call this AI search optimisation or generative engine optimisation (GEO).

We use those terms for one practical service. We review the questions buyers ask, the pages answering them and the route from reading to enquiry. Search engines and AI providers decide whether to show, cite or recommend a business. We cannot guarantee those decisions.

Who this is for

This suits owner-run companies and marketing teams whose customers research a considered purchase before getting in touch: professional services, specialist B2B suppliers and established local service businesses. We work remotely across the UK and Ireland from Derry.

Your website does not clearly explain the service, price basis, coverage or next step.
Different pages or public profiles give inconsistent facts about the business.
You have useful expertise and examples, but buyers struggle to find them.
You want to assess AI search with a defined budget and evidence rather than an open-ended content retainer.

If the offer is unproven, you cannot fulfil more enquiries or a basic website fault is blocking contact, we will start there. More articles are not automatically the answer. Use our AEO investment worksheet to decide whether the numbers justify a test.

What we review and improve

Buyer questions and page ownership. Identify the questions that matter before a sale. Improve existing pages where they already own the topic; create a new page only when it has a distinct useful job.
Discovery and access. Review priority-page responses, crawl and indexing signals, canonical URLs, internal links and relevant platform controls. A successful technical check is not proof of indexing or selection.
Business facts and evidence. Make services, locations actually covered, costs, limitations, authorship and genuine examples clear and consistent.
Useful content. Write answers, comparisons, checklists and examples that help a buyer make a decision. Appropriate structured data must describe the visible content accurately.
The enquiry route. Check mobile readability, contact details, booking destinations and how a prospect moves from a guide to the relevant service.
Measurement. Keep search performance, observed AI mentions and citations, referral visits and commercial outcomes in separate records.

AEO service scope and prices

AI visibility audit: £750 fixed price

For one business and one primary market, the audit covers up to ten priority website pages and ten agreed buyer questions across three agreed search surfaces, with two documented sampling rounds. For example, a surface might be Google Search, ChatGPT search or Microsoft Copilot. We agree the accessible surfaces and question set before work starts.

You receive a dated evidence log, priority-page findings, a map of questions to existing or proposed pages, a written action plan and a handover call. Each finding states what we checked, what remains unknown, the proposed fix and how completion can be verified. Relevant account reports are reviewed where access and usable data are available.

This is a website and search-visibility audit. It is separate from our £750 workflow-focused AI audit. Implementation, ongoing monitoring and paid software are not included. The plan belongs to you.

Implementation: from £1,750

A separately quoted sprint can improve up to five priority pages, their internal links, key business facts and agreed technical or measurement issues. We agree the actual changes and acceptance checks in writing after reviewing the site. Some projects need fewer, deeper changes; the page allowance is a limit, not a publishing target.

Website rebuilds, extensive migrations, paid media, external profile management and third-party fees are outside this starting scope. We will identify anything that needs a separate quote before work begins.

Ongoing improvement: from £750 a month, optional

The starting scope includes two documented monthly checks of up to ten agreed buyer questions across three agreed accessible search surfaces, up to two material page improvements and a monthly review. We keep the sample consistent and record changes in platforms or access. Additional pages, markets, tools or research are quoted separately.

You do not need to take ongoing work after the audit or implementation. The written agreement confirms the start date, reporting schedule, term and cancellation arrangements. We do not promise unlimited content or a particular number of AI recommendations.

Currency and costs: prices are in pounds sterling. Your written quote confirms the scope, timetable, payment details and whether VAT applies, including for customers in the Republic of Ireland. Software, platform, hosting and licence charges are separate unless explicitly included.

Discuss your website in a free 15-minute call. For help comparing proposals, read what affects AEO costs.

How the work runs

Agree the commercial question. Which service, customer and market matter? What counts as a relevant enquiry, and who will handle it?
Record the starting point. Inspect existing content and available reports. Agree a repeatable question sample and make unavailable data visible.
Deliver the audit. Separate verified problems from content ideas. Prioritise changes by likely usefulness, effort and dependencies.
Make the agreed changes. Prepare content and technical fixes, review them, publish the authorised scope and check the live pages and enquiry routes.
Review what happened. Compare complete periods and the same sample where possible. Use enquiries and commercial conversations alongside visibility, without attributing every change to one edit.

See the approach before buying

Our worked service-page example uses Blue Canvas's own published information to show how a buyer can understand scope, pricing and next steps. It is a content example, not a claim of ranking or revenue uplift.

You can also use the audit checklist and visibility tracking template yourself. We make the method clear so you can decide whether you need help with the work.

How we judge progress

We start with relevant enquiries and confirmed calls, then look at the evidence that may have contributed to them. A booking-link click is not a booking. A citation is not a visit. An AI crawler request is not a recommendation.

Search: impressions and clicks for the agreed pages and markets, using the correctly identified account and comparable periods. Platform AI reports are used where available.
AI referrals: recorded referring sources and landing pages, with consent and attribution limitations noted. Not every AI-originated visit retains a referrer.
Observed answers: brand mentions, linked citations and factual accuracy in the declared question sample, with dates, context and unsuccessful checks recorded.
Commercial outcomes: qualified enquiries, confirmed bookings, completed calls and won work, tracked separately in the enquiry record.

Read how to measure AI referrals and enquiries for a practical reporting plan.

Questions before you choose an AEO agency

Can you guarantee that ChatGPT or Google will recommend us?

No. We can commit to the agreed audit, content and technical deliverables, and show the checks we completed. We cannot guarantee selection, rankings, citations, traffic or sales.

Is this different from SEO?

It overlaps substantially. We focus on accurate business answers and measurable discovery across agreed search surfaces, while keeping ordinary SEO foundations in place. Our AEO, SEO and GEO comparison explains what the labels do and do not tell you about a proposal.

Do we need a new website or dozens of blog posts?

Usually the first decision is which existing pages need work. A rebuild is only worth considering when the current platform or site structure prevents the required changes. We do not create near-identical pages for every keyword variant.

How long does it take to see results?

We agree a delivery timetable after confirming access and scope. Search visibility and commercial outcomes have no guaranteed timetable. New pages may take time to be discovered and may never be selected for a sampled answer.

Will you need private customer data?

The starting audit uses your public website and agreed search observations. Read-only access to relevant aggregate reports can help where available. Do not send passwords, customer records or confidential documents through the enquiry form. We agree any additional access and evidence handling before work starts.

Practical AEO guides and worksheets

Start with one service you want more enquiries for. Bring its website page and the question your best prospects keep asking. Book a free 15-minute call.

Answer engine optimisation services