Right now, somebody is typing your business name into ChatGPT . They want to know if you’re any good. They want to compare you to your competitor. They want a quick recommendation before they even visit your website. And ChatGPT is answering them. Without you in the room. Over 800 million people use ChatGPT every single week. Most no longer scroll through ten blue links. They ask. They take the answer. They make a decision. Gartner predicts that by 2026, one in four search clicks will move from Google to AI assistants . That’s the biggest shift in how customers find businesses in twenty years. This is the new search. There’s a new game to win it. It’s called Answer Engine Optimisation, or AEO. The good news? Most small businesses have never heard of it. Which means you can still win. What Is Answer Engine Optimisation? Answer Engine Optimisation is the practice of structuring your content so AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude pick it as the source for the...
Open ChatGPT. Ask “best CRM for small businesses”. You’ll get five names. Maybe six. Now ask “best accountant in Manchester”. You’ll get a different five. Same with plumbers, dentists, marketing agencies, solicitors. Whoever made the list won something quietly important. They’re now the recommendation. Not the option. The default. So here’s the question. Why those five? Why not yours? The answer isn’t what most SEO advice tells you. The signals that win SEO don’t win AEO. The signals that win AEO are stranger, simpler, and far more under-used by small businesses. This piece breaks down the real reasons ChatGPT cites the brands it cites. Then it tells you what to do about it. It’s Not What You Think It Is Most marketers assume ChatGPT picks the brands with the strongest SEO. The ones with the most backlinks . The biggest domain authority. The top Google rankings. That’s wrong. Recent research on LLM citation patterns shows backlinks have a near-zero correlation with AI citations. Domai...