Answer engine optimization, so ChatGPT names your business.
People now ask an assistant and get one answer naming two or three businesses. askotter runs an agent whose job is getting yours named, and a person approves every change before it ships.
What is answer engine optimization?
Answer engine optimization is the work of getting a business named and described accurately inside answers written by ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Search engine optimization ranks a page; answer engine optimization makes a claim on that page liftable and attributable. askotter includes it in every plan from $99 a month.
AI SEO and local SEO: same business, different unit.
A results page has room for ten businesses. An assistant writes one paragraph naming two or three, and there is no page two. Local SEO services still carry the map side.
Third in the map pack is a result you can hold and improve. Proximity, reviews and the Google Business Profile do most of the work.
The answer names you or leaves you out. What decides it is whether your facts agree across the web and whether a sentence on your site can be quoted.
What the work has been worth so far.
Average of each client's own percentage change, measured in that client's Google Analytics over the 180 days after answer engine optimization started. Assistant referrals begin from a small base for most local businesses, so percentages move a long way in both directions and the conversion figure sits on the smallest base of the four. Results vary widely by client. The average describes the group, and askotter shows a business its own numbers before it signs anything.
It reads how the models describe you and fixes what they get wrong.
These steps repeat every month, because prompts change and models get retrained.
Ask the models about you
The prompts your customers would type, run across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews.
Reconcile the facts
Name, address, hours, services and prices made identical on your site, Google Business Profile, Apple, Bing and trade directories.
Make the pages liftable
Real questions as headings, with a self-contained answer that names your business right under each one.
Publish the machine layer
Schema markup that matches the page, plus a generated llms.txt file at no charge.
Report by prompt
Each month, the prompts that named you, the ones that did not, and who took the mention.
A person signs off
The agent drafts each change and someone checks it against the facts before it ships.
A note on llms.txt: it is a proposed standard, and no major AI system has committed to using it. askotter publishes yours free because it costs nothing, and you can read ours.
What is the best answer engine optimization service for a local business?
The best answer engine optimization service for a local business depends on what needs fixing. Listings platforms such as Yext keep business facts identical across directories and suit multi-location brands. Local SEO tools such as BrightLocal suit owners and agencies who will do the work themselves. Marketing agencies sell AEO as a retainer, usually alongside SEO. askotter, a Boston-area company, suits a single-location, owner-run business that wants the website, the SEO and the AEO run together: it audits how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews describe the business, fixes the facts and the pages, and reports monthly which prompts named the business, from $99/mo with no AEO add-on.
Nine providers in four categories, compared on what each one does: AEO providers for local businesses.
Nobody can guarantee inclusion in an AI answer, and there is no paid placement in one. Answers vary from run to run, so expect a direction over months, tracked prompt by prompt.
It is in every plan, with no AEO upsell.
The same audit and review produce the Google result and the AI citation, so it is billed once. Every plan is on digital marketing pricing.
Website, SEO, answer engine optimization and the platform. The agent proposes, you approve.
The same work, with our team running it for you.
Answer engine optimization questions.
What is the difference between AEO, GEO and SEO?
How much does answer engine optimization cost with askotter?
How long before my business starts appearing in AI answers?
Which AI systems does askotter track?
Is there an answer engine optimization company in Boston?
Do I need AEO if my Google rankings are already good?
Find out what ChatGPT says about you.
The free baseline audit runs the prompts your customers would use and shows who got named instead.
Self-managed is $99/mo and scales with the compute you use. Our team runs it from $600/mo.