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What is AIO? Findable in AI search engines
More and more people no longer ask their question to Google but to an AI assistant: “which plumber in Apeldoorn also does central heating boilers?” The answer comes from websites such an assistant has read. AIO is about whether your site is properly among them.
What does AIO mean?
AIO stands for AI optimisation. You build your site so that an AI search engine can read it without effort and repeats the facts correctly: what you do, where, for whom and what it costs. You also come across the names GEO and LLMO; they mean the same thing.
How is it different from SEO?
With SEO you want to be high in the list of search results, so someone clicks your link. An AI assistant doesn't give a list but an answer, sometimes with a few sources. What matters then is that your details end up in that answer, and that they are correct.
| Difference | SEO | AIO |
|---|---|---|
| What the searcher gets | A list of links | One answer, sometimes with a few sources |
| What you want to achieve | Be high in that list, so someone clicks | That your details are in the answer, and that they are correct |
| What you do for it | Clear text, good technology, structured data | The same, plus a text version and llms.txt |
Much of the work is the same. A site that is clear for Google is usually also clear for an AI. Google says so itself: there are no extra requirements for the AI answers in Google Search, and the usual SEO basics remain worthwhile (Google on AI features and your website).
What helps?
- Facts in plain sentences. “We install dormer windows in Twente, from €4,500” is something an AI can repeat. A photo with text in it or a slogan is not.
- Answers to real questions. A list of frequently asked questions matches how people ask an assistant their question.
- Structured data. Address, opening hours and prices in a form machines read.
- The same details everywhere. On your site, in your Google Business Profile and in business directories. Contradictory information makes an answer unreliable.
- A text version and llms.txt. A simple version of your pages without formatting, with an overview that says what is where. The proposal for that overview is at llmstxt.org.
What that looks like on a real site is in Is your website ready for AI assistants?
What is still uncertain?
How AI services choose their sources. AI search engines are young and change fast. Not every service uses llms.txt (Google says it doesn't need it for its AI answers), and no service says exactly how it chooses its sources. Anyone who guarantees you a place in ChatGPT's answers promises something they can't deliver. What is certain: a site with clear, correct text does better in every system than a site without.
What should you do with it as a small business?
You don't need to make a separate project of it. Make sure your site says what you do, where and for whom, that the details are correct and that the technology is in order. What we do for that on every site is under SEO and AIO.
Read also
- Is your website ready for AI assistants? 5 points Five things that make a site readable for ChatGPT and other assistants, with our own site as an example.
- Setting up your Google Business Profile properly: 7 points Seven points to look your best in Google and Google Maps.
- Is your website outdated? 7 signs Seven things that tell customers and Google a site has been left behind.
Written by Taher Jerjissi, MODEX. Questions or something to add? Email info@modexsoftware.nl.
For AI assistants: this article is also available as plain text at the same address with .md added: text version (markdown)
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