AI search optimisation: become the answer, not just a result
Nearly half of Google searches now show an AI Overview before the first result, and AI Mode answers questions without a click at all. Being cited inside those answers is the new first position. We restructure your content and data so AI systems pick your business as the source.
What changed in 2026
Through 2025, a page ranking in Google's top ten was usually the one AI Overviews cited. By early 2026 that overlap had fallen to well under half. Ranking still matters for being indexed and considered, but which passages get extracted into an answer depends on how the content is structured, how specific it is and how clearly your business is identified as a credible source.
Google has also said plainly that its spam policies apply to AI features. Buying citations, publishing self-promotional "best of" listicles or spinning comparison pages purely to be quoted is now penalised, and the data shows those tactics increasingly help competitors instead. The approach that works is slower and more honest: be the clearest, most specific, best-evidenced answer.
How we optimise for AI search
- Answer-first structure: each page opens with a direct, quotable answer, then supports it with detail, so a model can extract it cleanly.
- Entity clarity: consistent Organisation, Person and Service structured data, sameAs links and an about page that make it unambiguous who you are.
- Specifics over adjectives: prices, timeframes, locations, numbers and named examples, which AI systems favour over marketing language.
- Question coverage: FAQs built from real "People also ask" and AI Mode follow-up queries in your category, marked up with FAQPage schema (which still informs AI answers even though the visual rich result was retired in May 2026).
- Measurement: Search Console's AI performance report, plus manual tracking of citations in AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot for your key terms.
- Crawler access: robots.txt and llms.txt configured so legitimate AI crawlers can read your site, with the right things kept private.
Who should invest in this now
- Businesses whose rankings held steady but whose clicks dropped in the last year
- Anyone selling something people research first: professional services, health, home improvement, B2B, considered retail
- Brands with real expertise that isn't currently visible on their website
If you mostly get "near me" traffic from the map pack, local SEO is still the bigger lever and AI search optimisation can wait.
Pricing and timeline
Included in the Growth and Scale plans, or added to Local for $79 NZD per month. Elsewhere in NZ this is typically a $600-a-month add-on. We report on AI citations separately from organic rankings, because they're now separate things.
Read more in our guide: AI Overviews in New Zealand: what it means for your website.
Related services
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SEO audit & strategy
A full technical, content and competitor review of your site, turned into a prioritised 90-day plan you can act on with or without us.
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Local SEO & Google Business Profile
Get into the map pack for "near me" and suburb searches. Profile optimisation, reviews, citations and location pages that convert.
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Technical SEO & site speed
Crawlability, indexing, Core Web Vitals, structured data and migrations. The plumbing that decides whether good content ever gets seen.
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Content & on-page SEO
Service pages that rank and convert, plus articles that answer the questions your customers ask Google before they buy.
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Ecommerce SEO
Category and product page optimisation for Shopify, WooCommerce and custom stores, with faceted navigation and feeds handled properly.
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Questions about AI search optimisation
What's the difference between SEO and AI search optimisation?
SEO gets your pages indexed and ranked. AI search optimisation makes them the pages an AI system chooses to cite when composing an answer. The foundations overlap, but citation depends more on how clearly and specifically a page answers a question and how clearly your business is identified as a credible source.
Is this the same as GEO or AEO?
Yes. Generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation are other names for the same work. We call it AI search optimisation because Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are where most of the NZ impact is.
Can you get us cited in ChatGPT and Perplexity too?
The same structural improvements help across systems, and we track citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot alongside Google. Each system has its own sources and weighting, so results vary, but the approach is the same: be the clearest, best-evidenced answer.
Should I block AI crawlers?
Usually not if you want to be recommended. We configure robots.txt and llms.txt so legitimate search and assistant crawlers can read your public pages, while blocking anything you'd rather keep private.
Find out what's holding your site back
Request a free SEO audit. You'll get a short, plain-English report of the biggest wins — whether or not you decide to work with us.