AI SEO
AI SEO Services
More of your customers are asking an AI tool before they ask Google. We make sure your business is in the answer.
Someone in Lincoln types "who's a good accountant for a small limited company near me?" into ChatGPT. Someone in Newark asks Google's AI Mode to compare three local roofers. Neither of them sees ten blue links. They get a written answer that names a handful of businesses, and if yours isn't one of them, you never knew you were in the running.
Our AI SEO services are about getting your business found, quoted and recommended in those answers: Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and the tools that work like them. It isn't a replacement for [SEO](/seo/). It's SEO done properly, with a few jobs added that most agencies are only just starting to think about.
No hard sell.
or call 0800 699 0037
What AI SEO actually is.
The same foundations as good SEO, aimed at a new kind of answer. AI search tools don't invent their recommendations. When someone asks a question, the tool searches the web, reads a set of pages it trusts, and writes an answer from them, usually with links to its sources. Google calls the way AI Mode does this "query fan-out": it runs several related searches at once and pulls the results together.
So AI SEO comes down to three questions. Can the AI tools reach and read your website? Do they trust what it says? And is your information written in a way they can quote? Get those right and you're a candidate for the answer. Get them wrong and the tool will happily recommend your competitor instead.
Google is open about this. Its guidance says there are no extra technical requirements and no special optimisation needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: a page has to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet, and the usual SEO best practice applies. We think that's the honest starting point, and it's why we're wary of anyone selling AI SEO as a secret trick.
What our AI SEO work includes
Making sure the AI tools can get in.
We check your robots.txt, your server firewall and your CDN settings so that Googlebot, Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot can reach your pages. We also make sure your important content is in the HTML when the page loads, not added later by JavaScript, because not every crawler waits for scripts to run. And we help you decide which AI training crawlers, such as GPTBot and Google-Extended, you're happy to let in. That's a separate decision from search, and Google has confirmed that blocking Google-Extended doesn't affect how you appear in Google Search.
Getting your facts straight everywhere.
AI tools build a picture of your business from every source they can find: your website, your Google Business Profile, directories, review sites, Companies House, social profiles and local press. If your opening hours, address, services or even your business name differ from one to the next, the tools become less sure about you. We find the inconsistencies and fix them.
Writing content that can be quoted.
An AI answer lifts short, clear passages that answer a specific question. So we write pages that answer the question first and explain second, with the specifics a generic page lacks: what a job costs, how long it takes, which areas you cover, what's included. Every service page gets real questions and answers, which is exactly how we've built our own site.
Showing who's behind the advice.
Named authors with real experience, author bios, your qualifications and accreditations, case studies with real results. These are the same trust signals Google's people-first content guidance describes, and they help an AI tool decide that your page is a source worth using.
Structured data that matches the page.
We add schema markup for your organisation, your local business details, your services, your authors and your FAQs, and we keep it consistent with what's visible on the page. Google says no special markup is needed for AI features, so we use it to make your information clearer, not as a shortcut.
Earning mentions and reviews.
AI answers lean heavily on what other people say about you. Reviews on Google and trusted review sites, mentions in local press, trade bodies and supplier pages all count. We help you earn them properly, the same way we approach link building.
Where your customers are asking
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
AI Overviews sit at the top of many Google results. AI Mode, which arrived in the UK in July 2025, is a separate tab for longer, conversational searches. Both draw on Google's own index, so the work that gets you ranking in normal results is the same work that gets you cited here.
ChatGPT
ChatGPT searches the web when a question needs current information, using OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot. If your robots.txt or your hosting firewall blocks it, you can't appear in those answers, however good your site is. We check this on every site we look after.
Microsoft Copilot
Copilot leans on Bing's index. Plenty of businesses have never verified their site in Bing Webmaster Tools, so Bing knows less about them than it should. It's a quick fix and one we make as standard.
What we won't sell you.
There's a lot of nonsense in this space. Here's where we stand.
We won't guarantee that ChatGPT or Google will recommend you. Nobody can. AI answers change from one search to the next, and they vary by who's asking and where.
We won't charge you for an llms.txt file and call it AI SEO. It's a proposed standard that some sites use, and adding one does no harm, but Google has said you don't need new machine-readable files or AI text files to appear in its AI features.
And we won't flood your site with hundreds of thin pages written by a machine to catch every possible question. Google's spam policies treat mass-produced pages made mainly to manipulate rankings as scaled content abuse, and AI tools are no keener on them than people are.
How we measure AI search.
Honest reporting on a channel that's still hard to track.
AI search is harder to measure than normal search, and we'd rather tell you that than dress it up. Google counts visits from AI Overviews and AI Mode inside its normal Web search figures in Search Console, so you can't separate them out there.
What we can do is set up Google Analytics 4 to group visits from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity into their own channel, so you can see how many people arrive from AI tools and whether they get in touch. We track enquiries from those visits as the result that matters. Alongside that, we run a fixed set of questions your customers would ask through the main AI tools each month and record whether you're named, so you can see the trend rather than a single snapshot.
Your monthly report from Talia includes all of it, in plain English, next to your normal SEO figures.
Part of SEO, not a bolt-on.
The same team, the same plan.
AI SEO works best when it's planned with everything else. The site has to be fast and crawlable, which is our technical SEO and hosting work. The content has to be strong, which is our SEO content work. Your Google Business Profile and reviews have to be right, which is local SEO. So AI SEO isn't a separate team or a separate report. It's part of the SEO work we already do, carried out by the people you already speak to.
If you're a client already, much of the groundwork may be done. We'll show you what's left.
People We've
Worked With
From local trades to national names, we've designed, built and marketed websites for businesses of every shape and size across Lincolnshire and beyond.
FAQs
01 What is AI SEO?
AI SEO is the work that makes your business more likely to be found, quoted and recommended by AI search tools such as Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. It builds on normal SEO: a site the tools can reach, information they can trust, and content written clearly enough to quote.
02 Is AI SEO different from normal SEO?
Less than some agencies would have you believe. Google says there are no special optimisations needed for its AI features beyond normal SEO best practice. The differences are in the detail: letting OAI-SearchBot and Bingbot reach your site, keeping your business information consistent across the web, and writing pages that answer questions directly.
03 How does ChatGPT decide which businesses to recommend?
When a question needs current information, ChatGPT searches the web and builds its answer from the pages it finds, usually linking to its sources. Businesses with clear, specific websites, consistent details across the web and plenty of genuine reviews and mentions give it more to work with. If your site blocks OpenAI's search crawler, you won't appear at all.
04 Can you guarantee my business will appear in AI answers?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who says they can. AI answers change from one search to the next and vary by who's asking and where. What we can do is remove the reasons you're being left out and track how often you're named over time.
05 Do I need an llms.txt file?
Not for Google. Google has said you don't need AI text files or new machine-readable files to appear in its AI features. An llms.txt file does no harm and some other tools may read it, so we'll add one if you'd like, but we won't sell it as the answer.
06 Should I block AI crawlers from my website?
Block the training crawlers if you want to, but think carefully before blocking the search ones. GPTBot and Google-Extended are used for training AI models, and Google says blocking Google-Extended doesn't affect your Google Search rankings. OAI-SearchBot is what lets you appear in ChatGPT's search answers, so blocking it takes you out of them.
07 Will AI Overviews take traffic away from my website?
For some searches, yes. Simple questions that an AI Overview answers in full may send fewer clicks. Searches where someone wants to hire, book or buy still tend to end on a website, which is why we measure enquiries rather than visits, and why we write pages that give people a reason to click through.
08 How do I know if I'm getting visitors from AI tools?
In Google Analytics 4, visits from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity show up as referrals from their websites. We set up a separate channel for them so you can see the numbers and the enquiries they bring. Visits from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted inside normal Google search traffic in Search Console, so they can't be separated out.
09 Does a small local business need AI SEO?
If your customers ask AI tools for recommendations, yes. A question like "who's a good electrician in Grantham?" gets an answer built from websites, Google Business Profiles and reviews, so a local business with a strong profile and a clear site is well placed. For most local businesses, the work overlaps heavily with the local SEO they need anyway.
Find out what AI tools say about you
Tell us the questions your customers ask, and we'll show you what ChatGPT, Copilot and Google's AI say in reply, who they recommend, and what it would take for that to be you. No obligation, and a straight answer. Ring 0800 699 0037 or email hello@codesky.co.uk. We're open 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday, and we reply within one working day.
