GEO, AEO & Link Building

GEO & AEO — AI answer visibility

Surfaces: Google AI Overviews / AI Mode, ChatGPT (incl. search), Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot (via the Bing index — that is why we verify Bing WMT), Gemini. Classic SEO fundamentals remain the base for all of them.

Make the site retrievable and citable

  1. Crawler policy (documented per client): allow or deny GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended deliberately in robots.txt. It is a business decision recorded in the charter, never an accident.
  2. Answer-first formatting: question-form H2 / H3 followed by a direct 40–60-word answer, then depth. Clean extractable HTML; tables and definitions for facts.
  3. Entity clarity: canonical organization / person / product facts consistent across the site, schema, GBP and profiles; sameAs to authoritative references; fix contradictions before adding markup.
  4. Citation-worthy assets: original stats, datasets, tools, methodologies — things an answer engine must credit. Commodity summaries never get cited.
  5. Reject the myths: no special AI schema exists; llms.txt has no confirmed ranking weight (document the decision either way); no query fan-out page spam — that is scaled-content abuse with extra steps.

Measure it

  1. Reproducible sampling: fixed query set × platform × market × date, at least 3 repetitions, logged-out where possible. Record: mentioned / cited / linked / sentiment / competitors present.
  2. GA4: segment AI referrals (chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot) as their own channel — never blended with organic.
  3. serp_watch logs AI Overview presence + cited domains for priority clusters monthly.
QC: one AI answer is a sample, never a conclusion. AI visibility is reported separately from rankings and clicks, always with method and date.

Link building & digital PR

  1. Gate first: measurement live + P0 technical closed + content evidence published. Authority never compensates for broken foundations.
  2. Backlink audit: join the GSC links export with the suite index; classify editorial / natural-weak / manipulative / paid. Disavow only for documented spam-policy or manual-action risk — never for third-party toxicity scores.
  3. Asset first: one genuinely citable asset per campaign (original data, free tool, expert resource) before any outreach.
  4. Prospecting: BuzzSumo + competitor citation gaps; manual qualification (topical fit, real audience, editorial standards). PBNs, guest-post farms and link sellers rejected on sight.
  5. Outreach: Notion tracker; personalized pitch of the finding, not a link demand; 1 pitch + maximum 2 follow-ups; opt-out ends the thread permanently.
  6. Also: unlinked-mention reclamation, expert commentary for journalists, partner / supplier links, local links (Lane L1).
  7. Measure: referral traffic, qualified replies, coverage quality, assisted conversions — never raw link counts.
Hard line: no purchased links, no PBNs, no expired-domain redirects into client sites — ever. Expired-domain research stays permanently outside client delivery.
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