How do I get my business cited by AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews?

This practice is often called Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) or Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO). AI assistants answer in two ways: from what they learned in training, and by retrieving live pages from a search index at the moment you ask. Both favour the same thing — content that is unambiguous about who you are, what you do, and the exact question being asked. In practice, strong classic SEO is the foundation, because tools like Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews pull heavily from the top organic results.

The practical steps: write answer-first content where each page or heading poses a clear question and answers it directly in the first few lines; keep one consistent name, address and description of your business everywhere (your site, your Google Business Profile, directories); add structured data such as Organization, FAQ and Article schema so machines can parse your pages; and build genuine mentions on sites AI models consider reliable — industry directories, reputable publications, and well-moderated communities.

Be realistic about it. You cannot buy your way into an AI answer, results take time, and citations shift as the models update. Measure progress by searching for your own category questions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and tracking whether and how you get named over the following months rather than expecting an overnight change.