Some businesses worry that competitors will see what they charge. Others are concerned that a potential customer might see a figure, decide it is too expensive and leave before understanding what is actually included.

There is also the opposite argument. If somebody cannot find even a rough indication of cost, they may simply move on to another business that is more open about its pricing.

There is no single answer that works for every company. Whether you should publish prices depends on what you sell, how predictable the cost is and how customers normally choose between providers.

For many service businesses, though, providing at least some indication of price can make the website considerably more useful.

Jump To

• Should You Show Prices on Your Website?
• Why Do Businesses Avoid Showing Prices?
• Benefits of Putting Prices on Your Website
• Reasons Not to Publish Fixed Prices
• What If Every Project Is Different?
• Should You Use “From” Prices?
• Pricing Ranges and Example Costs
• Should Service Businesses Show Prices?
• Does Showing Prices Help SEO?
• How to Present Pricing Properly
• When Might It Be Better Not to Show Prices?

Should You Show Prices on Your Website?

In many cases, yes.

That does not necessarily mean publishing an exact price for every possible job.

There is a big difference between:

“Website design costs £1,250.”

and:

“Bespoke business websites typically start from £1,250, with the final cost depending on the number of pages, functionality and content required.”

The second gives the customer useful information without pretending every project is identical.

If somebody is researching a purchase, price is likely to be one of the questions they want answered. Hiding it does not remove that question. It just means they have to contact you, search elsewhere or make their own assumptions.

The right level of detail depends on the service.

Why Do Businesses Avoid Showing Prices?

There are several understandable reasons businesses choose not to display pricing.

Every Job Is Different

This is probably the most common reason.

A builder cannot accurately price an extension without knowing the size, specification and site conditions. A web designer may need to understand the number of pages, required functionality and existing systems. An electrician may need to inspect a property before knowing exactly what work is involved.

In situations like these, publishing one fixed figure could be misleading.

That does not automatically mean the website has to say nothing about cost.

Competitors Can See the Prices

They can.

But competitors can also request a quotation, ask somebody else to enquire or speak to previous customers.

If pricing information would genuinely help your potential customers, keeping it hidden purely because a competitor might see it is not always a strong reason to leave it off the website.

The Business Wants the Enquiry First

Some businesses prefer to get a potential customer on the phone before discussing money.

That gives them an opportunity to explain the value of the service before revealing the price.

This can work, particularly for complex or high-value purchases, but it can also create unnecessary enquiries from people whose budget was never going to be suitable.

Prices Change

This is a genuine consideration.

If material costs, supplier charges or labour rates change regularly, an exact figure can become outdated surprisingly quickly.

The solution may be to use starting prices, indicative ranges or example costs rather than maintaining a large fixed price list.

Benefits of Putting Prices on Your Website

Customers Get an Answer Straight Away

A useful website should answer important questions before somebody has to contact the business.

Price is often one of those questions.

If somebody is researching at 9pm, they may not want to submit three enquiry forms and wait until the following morning just to discover which companies are within budget.

Giving them useful pricing information allows them to make progress immediately.

It Can Qualify Enquiries

Not every enquiry is necessarily a good enquiry.

If your typical project costs several thousand pounds, spending time preparing quotations for people expecting to pay £200 is unlikely to benefit either side.

A visible starting price can filter out enquiries where expectations are completely different.

The people who do contact you then have a better idea of what your service costs.

It Can Build Trust

People are used to finding prices online.

When every competitor says “Contact us for a quote”, a business willing to provide some useful guidance can feel more transparent.

That does not mean the cheapest business automatically wins.

Customers may actually be more comfortable paying more when they understand what they receive for the money.

It Saves Repetitive Conversations

If one of the first questions on every phone call is:

“Roughly how much does this cost?”

there is a good argument for answering it on the website.

Your website can explain the typical cost, what affects that cost and what is included. The subsequent conversation can then focus on the customer’s actual requirements.

It Gives Customers Context

A number on its own is not always particularly useful.

A good pricing section can explain what is included.

For example:

• How many pages are included
• Whether hosting is included
• Whether ongoing support is included
• What level of design or customisation is provided
• Whether VAT needs to be added
• What might increase the final cost

This makes it easier for customers to compare like with like.

Reasons Not to Publish Fixed Prices

There are situations where publishing an exact fixed price would be unhelpful.

The Scope Can Vary Significantly

If one project might cost £500 and another £50,000, a single headline price tells the visitor very little.

It may be more useful to explain how quotations are calculated and provide representative examples.

There Are Too Many Variables

Some services depend on factors that cannot reasonably be established from a webpage.

This could include:

• Property condition
• Site access
• Required materials
• Project complexity
• Existing systems
• Timescales
• Quantity
• Travel or delivery requirements

In these situations, the website should explain why a quotation is required rather than simply hiding the price.

The Service Is Highly Bespoke

A consultant providing a one-hour session and a consultant delivering a twelve-month programme are technically selling the same expertise, but the cost and scope are completely different.

Publishing packages can work where services naturally divide into packages. Where they do not, indicative examples may make more sense.

What If Every Project Is Different?

This is where businesses often assume they cannot publish any prices at all.

There are several alternatives to a fixed price.

Show a Starting Price

For example:

Projects from £1,500.

This gives customers a minimum budget to work with while making it clear that larger projects will cost more.

Show a Typical Range

For example:

Most projects fall between £1,500 and £3,500 depending on the scope of work.

This can be more useful than a starting price if the majority of customers fall into a reasonably predictable range.

Give Real Examples

You could explain:

“A straightforward five-page brochure website will normally cost less than an eCommerce website containing hundreds of products and custom integrations.”

Realistic project examples help people understand why the final quotation changes.

Explain What Affects the Cost

Sometimes this is more valuable than publishing a figure.

A web design project, for example, might be affected by:

• Number of pages
• eCommerce requirements
• Booking functionality
• Custom development
• Third-party integrations
• Content requirements
• Product imports

That gives the visitor an understanding of how pricing works rather than leaving them with a vague “contact us” message.

Should You Use “From” Prices?

“From” pricing can be useful when there is a genuine minimum price for a service.

It works particularly well when the scope varies but there is a sensible starting point.

The important part is making the figure realistic.

If you advertise:

“Websites from £299”

but virtually nobody could actually purchase a suitable website for £299, the headline is likely to cause frustration rather than build trust.

Your starting price should represent something you genuinely sell.

It should also be reasonably clear what somebody receives at that price.

Pricing Ranges and Example Costs

For bespoke services, ranges can often strike a good balance between transparency and flexibility.

Imagine a service where:

• Small projects typically cost £500 to £1,000
• Medium projects cost £1,000 to £3,000
• More complex work starts above £3,000

Explaining those broad levels can help a customer place their own requirements into context.

You can then make it clear that a proper quotation will follow once you understand exactly what is needed.

This is far more informative than forcing somebody to enquire simply to find out whether the likely cost is £500 or £5,000.

Should Service Businesses Show Prices?

Service businesses often have the most difficulty with pricing because they are selling time, expertise and a solution rather than a standard physical product.

Even so, there are usually opportunities to provide useful guidance.

Trades

A tradesperson may not be able to quote an entire project without seeing it.

They may still be able to publish:

• Call-out charges
• Hourly rates where applicable
• Standard service costs
• Starting prices
• Typical project ranges

Professional Services

Accountants, consultants, designers and similar businesses may be able to offer packages or typical price ranges.

If pricing varies considerably, they can explain the factors that influence the quotation.

Web Designers and Digital Agencies

Website projects are a good example because costs can vary enormously.

A simple business website and a bespoke eCommerce platform are both websites, but they are not comparable projects.

A web designer can still explain their starting point, typical project size or alternative options such as pay monthly web design.

The customer then has enough information to decide whether it is worth starting a conversation.

Does Showing Prices Help SEO?

Putting a price on a webpage is not a direct shortcut to higher Google rankings.

However, pricing content can make a page more useful because it answers questions people genuinely search for.

Someone considering a new website may search:

• How much does a business website cost?
• How much does web design cost in the UK?
• How much should I pay for SEO?
• What does website maintenance cost?

Those are genuine parts of the buying process.

A service page that avoids every mention of cost may therefore be missing information that matters to prospective customers.

Pricing can also give you useful subjects for supporting articles, FAQs and comparison content that naturally links back to your main SEO or service pages.

What About AI Search?

The same logic applies when people use tools such as ChatGPT or Google AI to research a purchase.

Someone might ask:

“How much should a small business website cost in the UK?”

or:

“Can I get a professionally designed website for under £100 per month?”

Useful, clearly written information about costs gives search and AI systems something relevant to retrieve when answering those types of questions.

That does not mean publishing prices guarantees your website will be referenced. It simply means you are providing useful information around a subject customers genuinely want to understand.

How to Present Pricing Properly

If you decide to show prices, give them enough context to be useful.

Explain What Is Included

A customer needs to understand what they are actually comparing.

Two companies may both advertise a website for £1,000 while providing completely different levels of design, development, support and functionality.

Make VAT Clear

If VAT applies, make the position clear so customers are not surprised later.

This is particularly important where your audience may include both businesses and consumers.

Explain What Can Increase the Price

If additional pages, products, integrations or features increase the cost, say so.

You do not need to publish a price for every possible combination.

Keep Pricing Updated

An outdated pricing page can be worse than having no pricing page at all.

If your costs change, update your website at the same time.

This is particularly important if old prices appear in blog posts or service pages that are still receiving visitors.

Give the Visitor a Clear Next Step

Someone who is comfortable with the indicative price should immediately know what to do next.

That might be:

• Request a quotation
• Book a consultation
• Call the business
• Choose a package
• Complete an enquiry form

Good website design should make that next step obvious rather than making visitors hunt around for contact details after reading the price.

When Might It Be Better Not to Show Prices?

There are genuine situations where publishing meaningful pricing is difficult.

This is more likely where:

• Every project requires a detailed survey
• Costs depend heavily on external suppliers
• The service is extremely complex
• Requirements vary by such a large amount that a range would be meaningless
• A proper consultation is needed before the correct service can even be identified

Even then, your website can explain the quotation process.

Instead of:

“Contact us for prices.”

you could say:

“Every project is individually quoted because the cost depends on the size of the property, existing installation and work required. After an initial conversation, we can arrange a survey and provide a detailed quotation before work begins.”

That still gives the visitor useful information.

Should You Have a Separate Pricing Page?

It depends on how much there is to explain.

If you have several clear packages, a dedicated pricing page can work well.

If you only have one or two indicative figures, it may make more sense to include them directly within the relevant service page.

Do not hide important pricing information several clicks away simply because you think every website needs a pricing page.

Put the information where somebody researching that particular service is most likely to need it.

What If Your Competitors Are Cheaper?

This is often the real concern behind the decision not to publish prices.

Being more expensive does not automatically make your offer less attractive.

A customer might pay more because of:

• Experience
• Quality of work
• Better support
• Faster turnaround
• Better materials
• Greater expertise
• A stronger guarantee
• A more comprehensive service

Your website therefore needs to communicate more than the number.

If Company A charges £500 and Company B charges £1,000, the customer needs enough information to understand why those two offers may not actually be equivalent.

Trying to hide the £1,000 price does not make it disappear. It simply delays the point at which the customer finds out.

Transparency Does Not Mean Publishing Every Price

There is a middle ground between publishing a complete price list and saying absolutely nothing.

You can provide:

• Starting prices
• Typical ranges
• Example projects
• Packages
• Hourly or daily rates
• An explanation of what affects cost
• Details of how your quotation process works

The aim is to give potential customers enough information to decide whether taking the next step makes sense.

So, Should You Put Prices on Your Website?

If you can provide genuinely useful pricing information without misleading customers, there is usually a good reason to do so.

You do not need to reduce a bespoke service to one fixed number.

Instead, think about what somebody actually wants to know.

Are they trying to establish whether they need £500, £5,000 or £50,000? Do they want to compare packages? Are they worried about hidden costs? Do they simply need to know whether your service is within reach before making an enquiry?

Answering those questions can make your website more useful, reduce unsuitable enquiries and give prospective customers greater confidence about contacting you.

If exact pricing is impossible, explain why and give as much meaningful guidance as you reasonably can.

A good business website should help people make decisions rather than deliberately withholding the information they need to make one.

If your current website is not generating the right enquiries or you want to improve how your services, pricing and value are communicated, Athena Media provides bespoke web design focused on making business websites clearer, easier to use and more effective.

Contact Athena Media to discuss your website and what could be improved.

The post Should I Put Prices on My Website? appeared first on Athena Media.

You may have heard that adding schema to a website helps Google understand it, creates better search results or improves visibility in AI tools such as ChatGPT. You may also have seen plugins promising to add it automatically or SEO services describing schema as a way to improve rankings.

There is some truth behind those claims, but schema is not a shortcut to the top of Google and there is no special piece of markup that forces an AI platform to recommend your business.

Used properly, schema markup gives search engines and other systems clearer, structured information about your website, the business behind it and the content on individual pages.

Here is what it actually does, where it can help and where some of the claims around schema start to get exaggerated.

Jump To

• What Is Schema Markup?
• How Does Schema Markup Work?
• What Information Can Schema Describe?
• Does Schema Markup Help SEO?
• What Are Rich Results?
• Does Schema Help AI Visibility?
• Which Schema Types Are Useful for Businesses?
• Should Every Page Have the Same Schema?
• Does WordPress Add Schema Automatically?
• Common Schema Markup Mistakes
• How to Test Schema Markup
• Is Schema Markup Worth Adding?

What Is Schema Markup?

Schema markup is structured information added to the code of a website to describe what something actually represents.

A person looking at a webpage can often work this out without any help.

You might see:

• A company name
• A telephone number
• An address
• A photograph of the business owner
• A service description
• A product price
• An article title and author

The meaning is fairly obvious to you because you understand the context of the page.

Schema allows some of that meaning to be expressed in a consistent, machine-readable format.

Instead of a search engine simply encountering the words Athena Media, for example, structured data can identify Athena Media as an organisation or professional service, associate it with a website, connect it to an address and telephone number, identify the person behind the business and describe the services it provides.

The vocabulary most websites use comes from Schema.org, a project originally founded by major search engines including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex.

How Does Schema Markup Work?

Schema can be added to a website in several formats, but JSON-LD is now one of the most commonly used.

It normally sits within the code of the page and looks something like this:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Example Business",
  "url": "https://www.example.co.uk/",
  "telephone": "+44 1484 000000"
}
</script>

A customer browsing the website does not see this block of code on the page.

It is there for systems processing the website.

The @type tells them what is being described, while properties such as name, url and telephone provide information about that entity.

More detailed schema can connect several entities together.

For example, a website could identify:

• The website itself
• The business that publishes it
• The person who founded the business
• The service described on the current page
• The breadcrumb trail leading to that page

Those relationships can create a clearer description of what the page represents and how it fits into the wider website.

What Information Can Schema Describe?

Schema.org contains a large vocabulary covering many different types of information.

Depending on the website, structured data can describe things such as:

• Businesses and organisations
• People
• Products
• Services
• Articles and blog posts
• Events
• Jobs
• Recipes
• Videos
• Software
• Breadcrumbs
• Reviews and ratings
• Addresses and locations
• Offers and prices

Not every website needs every available schema type.

A local electrician has little reason to add Recipe schema. An online retailer may have extensive Product and Offer data that would be completely unnecessary on a small brochure website.

The right markup depends on what actually exists on the page.

Does Schema Markup Help SEO?

Schema can be useful for SEO, but it is important to understand what that means.

Adding structured data does not automatically move a website higher in Google’s organic results.

If a page has poor content, weak relevance, no useful links and a bad overall experience, adding a large block of JSON-LD is not going to solve those problems.

Where schema can help is by giving Google more explicit information about the content it is processing.

Google itself describes structured data as a way of providing clues about the meaning of a page.

It can also make certain pages eligible for enhanced search appearances known as rich results.

That makes schema a useful part of technical SEO, rather than a replacement for the rest of SEO.

Schema Can Provide Greater Clarity

Consider a page containing a person’s name, business name and university.

Those words appearing together do not necessarily explain their relationship.

Structured data can explicitly describe that the person works for the business and studied at that university.

Likewise, a service page can identify the business providing the service rather than leaving systems to infer that relationship entirely from the visible wording.

Schema Does Not Guarantee Better Rankings

It is worth being cautious whenever somebody claims that simply installing schema will improve rankings.

Search engines consider many different signals when deciding which results best answer a search.

Structured data can support understanding and certain search features, but it does not turn an otherwise weak page into a strong one.

The fundamentals still matter:

• Useful and relevant content
• A technically sound website
• Good site structure
• Clear internal linking
• Strong external signals where appropriate
• A good experience for visitors
• Pages that satisfy the reason somebody searched

Schema works alongside those things.

What Are Rich Results?

One of the more visible reasons for using structured data is Google’s rich results.

A normal Google result may contain a title, URL and description.

Depending on the type of content and the markup used, an eligible result may sometimes include additional information.

Examples can include:

• Product prices and availability
• Recipe information
• Event details
• Job information
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Review information where eligible

These additional features can make a result more informative before the person even visits the website.

However, valid schema only makes a page eligible for supported features. It does not guarantee Google will show them.

Google ultimately decides how an individual result should appear.

Not Every Schema Type Creates a Rich Result

This is another common misunderstanding.

Schema.org contains far more types and properties than Google uses for visible rich results.

You may therefore have completely valid structured data that produces no obvious visual change in Google.

That does not necessarily mean the markup is pointless. It may still provide a clearer machine-readable description of the page.

Does Schema Help AI Visibility?

This is where things become particularly interesting as more people use ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and other AI-assisted search tools to research businesses and services.

Schema can contribute to making information on a website more explicit and machine-readable.

It would therefore be reasonable to include accurate structured data as part of a wider Generative Engine Optimisation strategy.

What you should not do is assume that adding schema automatically makes an AI tool recommend your business.

Google Does Not Require Special AI Schema

Google’s guidance for its generative AI search features makes this particularly clear.

There is no special Schema.org markup that needs to be added for Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Google continues to recommend the same broad SEO foundations, including crawlable pages, useful original content, clear technical structure and good search visibility.

Structured data can remain part of that overall SEO strategy, particularly where it supports Google’s existing search features, but it should not be treated as an AI ranking switch.

What About ChatGPT?

The same caution applies to ChatGPT.

There is no publicly documented piece of schema that tells ChatGPT:

“Recommend this business.”

ChatGPT Search can retrieve current information from the web, while OpenAI provides guidance around allowing its search crawler to access public website content.

Accurate schema may make aspects of a website clearer to systems capable of processing structured data, but there is no sensible basis for promising that adding Organization, LocalBusiness or Service schema will cause ChatGPT to recommend a particular company.

Improving AI visibility is broader than adding one technical feature.

Clear services, useful content, real experience, independent mentions, strong search visibility and accurate business information all contribute to creating a business that is easier to discover and verify.

Which Schema Types Are Useful for Businesses?

The appropriate schema depends on the website, but there are several types that regularly make sense for business websites.

Organization

Organization schema can describe the company behind a website.

This may include details such as:

• Business name
• Website
• Logo
• Contact information
• Business identifiers
• Social profiles
• Founders

LocalBusiness

LocalBusiness is more appropriate where a business operates from or serves a particular geographic location.

There are also more specific types beneath LocalBusiness for certain industries.

The markup can describe information such as an address, telephone number and business identity where those details genuinely apply.

ProfessionalService

ProfessionalService is a more specific business type that can suit companies providing professional services.

The most specific accurate type is generally more useful than picking a type purely because somebody claims it performs better for SEO.

Service

Service schema can describe an individual service offered by a business.

For example, a web company may have separate service pages for:

• Web design
• SEO
• Website maintenance
• Website hosting

The markup on each page can identify the relevant service and connect it back to the business providing it.

Person

Person schema can identify a genuine person connected to the website.

This can be useful for founder profiles, authors and professional biographies where the person is an important part of the content.

Relevant properties may describe their role, employer, qualifications or professional profiles where these details are accurate and publicly available.

Article and BlogPosting

Articles can use structured data to describe details including:

• The headline
• Author
• Date published
• Date modified
• Featured image
• Publisher

For a website publishing regular advice and guides, BlogPosting schema can help describe the relationship between individual articles, their author and the website publishing them.

BreadcrumbList

Breadcrumb schema describes the hierarchy leading to a page.

For example:

Home > Services > SEO

This can help search engines understand where the page sits within the wider site structure.

Product and Offer

For eCommerce websites, Product and Offer markup can be particularly useful.

Depending on the implementation, this can provide structured information about:

• Product names
• Images
• Prices
• Availability
• Brand
• Variants
• Shipping and return information

Google supports several product-related search enhancements, making accurate product structured data particularly worthwhile for many online shops.

Should Every Page Have the Same Schema?

No.

This is where a more considered implementation can be better than installing a plugin and assuming the job is finished.

Some information will naturally be consistent across the whole website.

The business is still the same business whether someone is viewing the homepage, an SEO page or a blog article.

Other information should reflect the individual page.

For example:

• The homepage may primarily describe the business and website
• An About page may focus more heavily on the organisation and people behind it
• A service page can identify a particular Service
• A blog post can identify a BlogPosting and its author
• A project page can describe the particular work being showcased
• An eCommerce product page should describe the actual product

The different entities can then be connected using consistent identifiers.

This creates a structured graph rather than a collection of unrelated blocks of markup.

Does WordPress Add Schema Automatically?

WordPress itself, themes and SEO plugins can all contribute markup to a website.

Plugins such as Yoast SEO can generate structured data automatically for common information including webpages, websites, organisations, people and breadcrumbs.

WooCommerce and other eCommerce tools may also output product information.

This means you should check what is already being generated before adding more.

Adding custom schema without looking at the existing markup can create:

• Duplicate business entities
• Conflicting information
• Several versions of the same person
• Incorrect page types
• Outdated telephone numbers or addresses
• Multiple pieces of markup that do not connect to each other

More schema is not automatically better schema.

Common Schema Markup Mistakes

Structured data is useful when it accurately describes what is really on the website.

Problems often appear when it is treated as an opportunity to add information search engines cannot otherwise verify.

Adding Information That Is Not on the Page

Structured data should represent the content and entity it describes.

It should not be used as a hidden area for stuffing keywords, locations, awards or claims that visitors cannot find anywhere else.

Using Fake Ratings

Adding a five-star AggregateRating to your own business schema does not magically create review stars in Google.

Google has specific rules around review snippets, including restrictions affecting self-serving reviews for businesses and organisations.

If reviews genuinely belong to an eligible Product or another supported type, that is a different situation.

The markup still needs to accurately represent real reviews.

Making Every Service a Product

A service is not automatically a Product simply because Product markup offers features somebody wants to trigger.

Use the type that truthfully describes what the page contains.

Using Unsupported Properties

It is easy to find generated schema containing properties that sound believable but do not actually belong to the selected Schema.org type.

This is particularly common when schema has been generated quickly by AI or copied from random examples online.

Check the actual Schema.org vocabulary rather than assuming a property exists because its name sounds sensible.

Letting Structured Data Become Outdated

A website might change its:

• Address
• Telephone number
• Services
• Prices
• Opening hours
• Staff
• Business name

If the visible website is updated but the structured data is forgotten, machines can receive different information from visitors.

Schema should therefore be included in normal website reviews and ongoing website maintenance.

Can Schema Help a Page Get Indexed?

Schema is not a solution for every indexing problem.

If Google has placed a page under Crawled – currently not indexed, adding a huge block of structured data is unlikely to suddenly make a thin or duplicated page worth indexing.

Google still needs to be able to crawl the page, understand its main content and decide that the URL belongs in its index.

Structured data should support a worthwhile page rather than compensate for one that adds little value.

If indexing is the problem, start by reviewing the page itself, its technical setup, internal linking, uniqueness and purpose.

How to Test Schema Markup

You should test structured data after adding or changing it.

Google Rich Results Test

Google’s Rich Results Test checks whether a page contains structured data that can make it eligible for Google-supported rich result features.

It is particularly useful when implementing supported markup such as Product, Article or LocalBusiness information.

Schema Markup Validator

The Schema Markup Validator checks Schema.org structured data more broadly.

This matters because valid Schema.org markup does not always correspond to a Google rich result.

A page can therefore contain useful, valid schema while Google’s Rich Results Test shows relatively little.

Google Search Console

Search Console can also report structured data issues for certain supported search features.

After making changes, URL Inspection can help confirm that Google can access the latest version of the page.

Do You Need a Schema Plugin?

Not necessarily.

A good SEO plugin may already handle much of the basic structured data a smaller WordPress website needs.

More complicated websites may benefit from additional configuration or custom schema where important page-specific information is not being represented properly.

The important question is not:

“How much schema can I add?”

It is:

“What information on this page would be useful to describe more clearly?”

Sometimes the answer is a substantial connected graph. Sometimes the markup a good SEO plugin already provides is perfectly adequate.

Is Schema Markup Worth Adding?

For many websites, yes.

Schema provides a recognised way to describe businesses, people, services, products and content in a format machines can process consistently.

It can help Google understand information more explicitly and can make eligible content available for richer search features.

As search becomes increasingly influenced by AI, having clear, accurate and well-structured information is also a sensible part of maintaining a website that machines can interpret effectively.

But it needs to stay in perspective.

Schema does not replace strong content. It does not fix poor web design. It does not guarantee Google rankings and it does not provide a secret route into ChatGPT recommendations.

Think of it as another layer of clarity.

Your visible website explains the business to people. Good structured data helps provide machines with a clearer description of the same information.

Get Your Website’s Technical Foundations Right

Good SEO is rarely about finding one setting, plugin or piece of code that suddenly changes everything.

Schema works best when it sits alongside useful content, sensible site structure, good technical SEO and a website that clearly communicates what the business actually provides.

If you are unsure what structured data your website currently uses, whether it is valid or whether important pages could be described more effectively, Athena Media provides SEO and AI search optimisation alongside ongoing technical website support.

Contact Athena Media to discuss your website and identify where its search and AI visibility could be improved.

The post What Is Schema Markup and Does It Help SEO / AI Visibility? appeared first on Athena Media.

Crawled – currently not indexed

It is one of the more frustrating messages in Search Console because there is no obvious error to fix. Google knows the page exists and has successfully crawled it, but has chosen not to include it in its search index at that time.

That does not automatically mean something is technically wrong with your website.

In many cases, the solution is less about pressing another button in Search Console and more about looking at the page itself, the purpose it serves and how it fits into the rest of your website.

Jump To

• What Does Crawled – Currently Not Indexed Mean?
• Crawled vs Discovered – Currently Not Indexed
• Does It Mean There Is a Problem?
• Why Does Google Crawl a Page but Not Index It?
• How to Check an Affected Page
• How to Fix Crawled – Currently Not Indexed
• Should You Request Indexing Again?
• What Does Validation Failed Mean?
• What If Lots of Pages Are Not Indexed?
• How Long Does Indexing Take?

What Does Crawled – Currently Not Indexed Mean?

Google describes the status quite simply: the page has been crawled but is not currently indexed.

In practical terms, Googlebot has successfully reached the URL and processed the page, but Google has decided not to include that particular URL within its searchable index at the moment.

The important distinction is that crawling and indexing are not the same thing.

Crawling means Google has visited the URL.

Indexing means Google has chosen to store the page within its search index so it can potentially appear in search results.

A page being crawlable does not guarantee that Google will index it, and a page being indexed does not guarantee that it will rank prominently for any particular search.

Crawled vs Discovered – Currently Not Indexed

Search Console contains another similarly named status:

Discovered – currently not indexed

The difference is important.

Discovered – Currently Not Indexed

Google knows the URL exists but has not yet crawled it.

It may have discovered the page through an XML sitemap, an internal link or another website, but Googlebot has not yet fetched the page.

Crawled – Currently Not Indexed

Google has already fetched the page.

This means repeatedly trying to make Google discover the URL is unlikely to address the underlying reason it has not been indexed.

If the page has already been crawled, the more useful question becomes:

Why would Google want to include this particular page in its search results?

Does It Mean There Is a Problem?

Not necessarily.

Every website can have URLs that Google crawls without indexing.

Some may be:

• Old URLs
• Feed pages
• Search result pages
• API or technical URLs
• Duplicate versions of another page
• Low-value taxonomy archives
• Pages that no longer need to appear in search

You do not need every URL Google discovers to be indexed.

The concern is when important pages that you genuinely want people to find repeatedly remain outside the index.

If your main service pages, useful blog articles, products, important location pages or substantial project pages are affected, they deserve further investigation.

Why Does Google Crawl a Page but Not Index It?

Google does not provide a detailed explanation against every URL, so there is rarely one single answer.

However, there are several areas worth reviewing.

The Page Adds Very Little Unique Value

A page does not become useful simply because it contains a certain number of words.

Google does not have a preferred minimum word count.

A short page can be perfectly useful if it answers its purpose well, while a 2,000-word article can still provide very little value if it simply repeats information already available elsewhere.

Ask whether the page contains something genuinely useful for the person landing on it.

This could include:

• First-hand experience
• Original explanations
• Real project examples
• Specific service information
• Original photographs
• Useful comparisons
• Practical instructions
• Relevant local information
• Answers to genuine customer questions

Adding paragraphs purely to make a page longer is unlikely to solve an indexing problem.

The Page Is Too Similar to Other Pages

This is particularly common with websites containing lots of location pages, product variants, portfolio entries or automatically generated pages.

Imagine a web design company creates separate pages for:

• Web Design Huddersfield
• Web Design Halifax
• Web Design Brighouse
• Web Design Mirfield
• Web Design Holmfirth

If every page contains essentially the same content with only the town name changed, there is very little reason for Google to treat each URL as a valuable standalone result.

A worthwhile location page should offer more than a different heading.

The same applies to project pages. Twenty portfolio pages containing one unique paragraph followed by the same repeated company information may not be as useful as twenty proper case studies explaining the client, brief, work completed and outcome.

The Purpose of the Page Is Unclear

A page should have a reason to exist.

If you already have a detailed page about a service, creating another article targeting almost exactly the same question can leave Google with several similar URLs competing for the same purpose.

This can happen accidentally as a website grows over several years.

Before creating another page, consider:

• What question does this page answer?
• What search intent does it serve?
• Is there already another page doing the same job?
• Would combining the two pages create something better?

A smaller number of strong pages can sometimes be much more effective than maintaining hundreds of pages with overlapping purposes.

The Page Has Weak Internal Linking

Internal links help search engines understand which pages are important and how different areas of a website relate to one another.

If an important page can only be found through an XML sitemap, while no meaningful page on your website links to it, that is worth correcting.

Relevant internal links could include:

• A service page linking to related projects
• Blog articles linking to the service they discuss
• A main category page linking to important sub-pages
• Related articles linking naturally between one another
• Your navigation linking to key commercial pages

Internal linking should make sense to visitors rather than being added purely for search engines.

Google May Prefer Another Version of the Page

Duplicate or near-duplicate URLs can occur for several reasons.

For example:

• HTTP and HTTPS versions
• www and non-www versions
• URLs with and without trailing slashes
• Tracking parameters
• WordPress query-string URLs
• Printer or filter versions

Canonical tags and redirects should make the preferred version clear.

The URL Inspection tool can show the canonical Google has selected for a page.

There Could Be a Rendering Problem

Although Crawled – currently not indexed is often not a technical problem, there are edge cases where Google can fetch a page but struggle to render its main content correctly.

This can happen on websites that rely heavily on JavaScript or where scripts, cookie systems, security tools or other functionality interfere with how the page loads.

If you suspect this, use the live test within URL Inspection and review the rendered page.

If Google sees a mostly empty page while a normal visitor sees substantial content, that deserves further investigation.

How to Check an Affected Page

Before changing anything, inspect the individual URL in Google Search Console.

1. Open URL Inspection

Paste the complete affected URL into the inspection box at the top of Search Console.

Review what Google currently knows about the page.

2. Check the Page Can Be Fetched

Google should be able to access the page normally.

An important page should generally return a successful 200 response rather than a 404, 403, server error or inappropriate redirect.

3. Check Indexing Is Allowed

Make sure the page has not accidentally been given a noindex directive.

This can happen through WordPress settings, an SEO plugin, development settings or custom code.

4. Check the Canonical URL

Look at both the user-declared canonical and Google’s selected canonical.

If Google considers another URL to be the main version of the content, investigate why.

5. Test the Live URL

Search Console’s live test lets you check the current version rather than relying solely on information from Google’s previous crawl.

This is particularly useful if you have recently made changes.

6. Review the Rendered Page

Look at what Google is actually able to see.

If important text, navigation or page content is missing, the problem may be technical rather than editorial.

7. Check the Page Yourself

Do not rely entirely on Search Console.

Open the page as a potential customer and ask whether it is genuinely useful.

Would you be satisfied if Google sent you to this page to answer the search it is targeting?

If not, improving that page is more valuable than repeatedly requesting indexing.

How to Fix Crawled – Currently Not Indexed

There is no universal fix because the reason differs from page to page.

A useful approach is to decide what should actually happen to each affected URL.

Improve Pages That Deserve to Be Indexed

If the page is important, strengthen it.

This may mean:

• Answering the subject more thoroughly
• Adding genuine first-hand experience
• Removing generic filler
• Adding useful photographs or examples
• Improving headings and page structure
• Making the purpose of the page clearer
• Adding relevant internal links
• Updating inaccurate or outdated information
• Adding useful supporting information customers genuinely need

Think about improving usefulness rather than simply increasing word count.

Combine Pages That Are Too Similar

Sometimes the right fix is not to improve both URLs.

If two articles cover essentially the same subject, consider combining the strongest content into one comprehensive page and redirecting the weaker URL.

The same principle can apply to service pages and location pages.

This removes unnecessary competition and gives you one stronger page to maintain.

Redirect Pages That No Longer Need to Exist

If an old page has been replaced by a newer equivalent, use an appropriate permanent redirect rather than leaving both versions available indefinitely.

Do not redirect every unwanted page to your homepage. Redirect it to the genuinely relevant replacement where one exists.

Noindex Pages You Do Not Want in Search

Some pages are useful to visitors but have little reason to appear as standalone Google results.

Depending on the website, these may include certain:

• Internal search pages
• Thin taxonomy archives
• Account pages
• Filter pages
• Utility pages

If a URL should deliberately stay out of Google’s index, a proper noindex directive can make that intention clearer.

Improve Internal Linking

If a page matters, your website should generally treat it as though it matters.

Link to important pages from relevant areas of the website using descriptive anchor text.

For example, an article explaining why a business is not appearing in Google could naturally link to your SEO services rather than leaving the article isolated.

Keep Your XML Sitemap Clean

Your XML sitemap should primarily contain canonical URLs that you genuinely want Google to consider for indexing.

Do not treat inclusion in a sitemap as a guarantee of indexing. A sitemap helps Google discover and monitor URLs, but Google still decides which pages belong in its index.

Should You Request Indexing Again?

You can use Request Indexing after you have made a meaningful improvement to an important page.

For example, if you:

• Rewrote a thin page
• Fixed a technical problem
• Changed an incorrect canonical
• Added substantial new information
• Corrected an accidental indexing restriction

then requesting another crawl can be useful.

What is unlikely to help is repeatedly pressing Request Indexing without changing anything.

Google has already crawled a page showing this status. Asking it to crawl exactly the same page again does not address why Google decided not to index it previously.

What Does Validation Failed Mean?

Search Console allows you to start a validation process for certain indexing issues.

If that validation later shows as Failed, it does not automatically mean your entire website has an indexing problem.

It means Google checked URLs associated with the issue and still found examples showing the same condition.

This is particularly important with Crawled – currently not indexed because there may not be one technical change that instantly fixes every affected URL.

If a report contains 60 URLs, for example, those URLs may include a mixture of:

• Important pages that need improving
• Duplicate URLs
• Old pages
• Technical WordPress URLs
• Archives you do not need indexed

Trying to force all 60 into the index is therefore the wrong goal.

The better goal is to make sure the right URLs are indexable, useful and worth including.

What If Lots of Pages Are Not Indexed?

If dozens or hundreds of URLs appear under Crawled – currently not indexed, export the report rather than checking them randomly.

Then group each URL into one of four categories.

INDEX

This is a valuable page that you genuinely want to appear in Google.

Review its technical setup, content quality, uniqueness and internal linking.

NOINDEX

The page is useful for the website but does not need to appear as its own search result.

Consider whether an intentional noindex directive is appropriate.

REDIRECT

The URL is old, duplicated or has been replaced by a better page.

Redirect it to the most relevant current alternative.

IGNORE

The URL is a technical endpoint, feed or another URL that does not matter as a Google search result.

There is little value spending hours trying to make these URLs appear in the index.

This classification can turn what initially looks like a serious indexing problem into a much smaller and more manageable list of genuinely important pages.

Look for Patterns

If most affected URLs belong to one particular type of page, that pattern can be more useful than examining them individually.

For example:

• If most are location pages, review whether they are too similar
• If most are products, review templates and product information
• If most are project pages, check how much unique case-study content they contain
• If most are old blog posts, review whether they are still useful and relevant
• If most belong to one taxonomy, consider whether the archive should be indexed at all

This can reveal a broader content or site-structure issue that would otherwise be easy to miss.

Do You Need More Words to Get a Page Indexed?

No particular word count guarantees indexing.

Google explicitly advises against writing to a certain length simply because you believe the search engine prefers a particular number of words.

The amount of content should be appropriate for the subject.

A contact page may only require a relatively small amount of information. A detailed guide to website accessibility or technical SEO may naturally require much more.

The important question is whether the page does its job well.

Can You Force Google to Index a Page?

No.

You can make a page easy for Google to discover, crawl and understand, but website owners cannot force Google to include a URL within its index.

Submitting an XML sitemap and requesting indexing are ways of helping Google find or revisit content. They are not commands requiring Google to publish the page in search results.

This is why the strongest long-term approach is to build pages that deserve to exist independently.

How Long Does Indexing Take?

There is no fixed timeframe.

Google may revisit and reconsider a page later, but changes do not necessarily result in immediate indexing.

A newly improved page may be crawled relatively quickly while another takes longer to be reassessed.

Rather than repeatedly checking the same URL every few hours, concentrate on improving the wider website:

• Publish useful content
• Keep key service pages strong
• Remove unnecessary duplication
• Improve internal linking
• Maintain a sensible site structure
• Keep technical SEO in good order

Over time, this provides Google with a much clearer collection of pages to crawl and evaluate.

Crawled – Currently Not Indexed Is Not Always Something to Fix

Seeing a large number beside an indexing report can immediately look alarming.

But the aim of SEO is not to get every URL your website has ever created into Google.

The aim is to ensure that your important pages are discoverable, technically sound, useful and genuinely worth showing to somebody searching for that information.

Start by separating URLs you care about from those you do not. Investigate important pages individually, look for patterns across larger groups and improve or consolidate content where there is a genuine reason to do so.

If Google has already crawled the page, simply submitting it again is rarely the most productive place to start.

If you are struggling with pages that are not being indexed or want a clearer picture of how Google is crawling your website, Athena Media provides SEO and technical website support to identify indexing, content and site-structure issues.

Contact Athena Media to discuss your website and the areas that may be holding back its organic visibility.

The post Crawled – Currently Not Indexed: What Does It Mean and How Do You Fix It? appeared first on Athena Media.

• Who is a good accountant for a small business near me?
• What are the best independent web designers in Huddersfield?
• Can you recommend a local electrician for an EV charger installation?
• Which companies provide managed WordPress hosting in the UK?

Tools such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity can respond with businesses, websites and sources that appear relevant to the question.

That creates an obvious question for business owners: how do you improve the chances of your own company being included?

There is no button that adds a business to every AI recommendation, and no legitimate way to guarantee that a particular tool will mention you. However, there are practical steps that can make your business easier for search engines and AI-assisted systems to discover, understand and confidently reference.

Jump To

• What Does Being Recommended by AI Mean?
• How Do AI Tools Find Businesses?
• Make Your Business Easy to Understand
• Build Strong Service Pages
• Answer the Questions Your Customers Ask
• Demonstrate Real Experience
• Build Your Presence Beyond Your Own Website
• Local SEO Still Matters
• Make Sure AI Tools Can Access Your Website
• Use Structured Data Correctly
• Avoid AI Optimisation Shortcuts
• How Can You Measure AI Visibility?
• How Long Does It Take?

What Does Being Recommended by AI Mean?

An AI recommendation can take several different forms.

A tool might mention your business by name, include your website as a supporting source, recommend several companies for the user to consider or use information from your website when answering a question.

For example, someone researching a new website could ask an AI tool:

“What should I look for when choosing a web designer in Huddersfield?”

The answer may contain general advice supported by several websites. A more specific question such as:

“Can you recommend a web designer in Huddersfield for a small business?”

could instead cause the system to search for businesses that appear relevant to the location, service and requirements contained within the question.

These answers can change depending on the wording of the question, the user’s location, the information available to the platform and how recently that information has been updated.

Being mentioned once therefore does not mean your business permanently “ranks” first in AI.

How Do AI Tools Find Businesses?

There is no single database used by every AI platform.

Different tools may use search indexes, their own web crawlers, third-party search providers, business listings, structured data and information published across the wider web.

Some AI responses also use live web search to retrieve current information before producing an answer.

This is one reason why traditional search engine optimisation remains important. If search engines struggle to discover, index or understand your business, there may also be less reliable information available for AI-assisted search tools to work with.

Good AI visibility therefore starts with many of the same foundations as good SEO.

Make Your Business Easy to Understand

Start with the basics. Your website should make it immediately clear:

• Who the business is
• What services or products it provides
• Where the business operates
• Who is behind the business
• How customers can make contact
• What experience, qualifications or specialisms are genuinely relevant

This information should not be hidden in a footer or buried inside vague marketing language.

If you are an electrician providing domestic rewires, EV charger installations and EICRs across Huddersfield and surrounding areas, say so clearly.

If you are a specialist commercial insurance broker rather than a general insurance company, make that distinction clear too.

The easier it is to understand what a business actually does, the easier it is for both customers and search systems to determine whether it is relevant to a particular question.

Keep Important Details Consistent

Your company name, address, telephone number, website and other important details should also be reasonably consistent wherever the business appears online.

This could include:

• Your own website
• Google Business Profile
• Professional directories
• Social profiles
• Industry memberships
• Supplier or manufacturer websites
• Local business directories

This does not mean every description needs to contain identical wording. The important point is that different sources should not contradict each other about basic facts.

Build Strong Service Pages

A homepage cannot realistically explain everything a business does in enough detail.

If a service is important to your business, it will usually benefit from having a useful page of its own.

For example, an electrical contractor might have separate pages covering:

• Full and partial rewires
• EICR reports
• EV charger installation
• Solar PV
• Battery storage
• Commercial electrical work

Each page can then answer questions specifically related to that service rather than forcing every subject into one general electrical services page.

Strong service pages should explain what the service involves, who it is for, relevant considerations, how the business approaches the work and what someone should do next.

This gives search and AI systems more useful information to retrieve when somebody asks a detailed question.

A well-planned business website should therefore be structured around the information customers actually need, rather than simply having a homepage, About page and Contact page because every other website does.

Answer the Questions Your Customers Ask

AI search is particularly well suited to conversational questions.

People are no longer restricted to short searches such as:

“accountant Huddersfield”

They can ask:

“Do I need an accountant if I have just set up a limited company and only have a small number of transactions each month?”

That creates opportunities for businesses willing to answer genuine customer questions properly.

Useful subjects can often be found in:

• Questions customers regularly ask on the phone
• Questions asked during quotations
• Emails from prospective customers
• Concerns raised before somebody buys
• Things customers commonly misunderstand
• Comparisons between different services or products
• Questions about cost, timescales or suitability

These can become useful sections within service pages or separate articles where the subject deserves a more detailed explanation.

Do not create hundreds of near-identical pages for every possible wording of a question. One genuinely useful page can answer several related searches without repeating the same content across the website.

Demonstrate Real Experience

Generic information is easy to reproduce.

If twenty websites all provide essentially the same summary, there may be little reason for a search or AI system to favour one over another.

Your own experience is much harder to duplicate.

A business can demonstrate this through:

• Detailed project examples
• Original photographs
• Case studies
• Real customer questions
• Specific examples of problems solved
• Clear explanations of how work is carried out
• Relevant qualifications and accreditations
• Named people behind the business

For Athena Media, for example, the projects section provides evidence of websites and digital work completed for real businesses rather than simply claiming experience.

An informative About page can also help visitors understand who they are dealing with. Where appropriate, include genuine experience, qualifications and professional background rather than relying on phrases such as “industry-leading experts”.

Claims should always be accurate and capable of being supported.

Build Your Presence Beyond Your Own Website

Your own website is important, but it should not be the only place online that confirms your business exists.

Independent references can help build a clearer picture of a company and its reputation.

Depending on the business, these might include:

• Google reviews
• Industry directories
• Professional associations
• Manufacturer or approved-installer directories
• Local business organisations
• Supplier websites
• Local press coverage
• Relevant business partnerships
• Links and mentions from other reputable websites

This does not mean buying hundreds of directory listings or paying websites to publish artificial articles containing your business name.

Quality, relevance and legitimacy matter considerably more than simply creating as many mentions as possible.

A genuine industry association, customer review profile or local business feature is much more meaningful than fifty low-quality websites created purely for links.

Local SEO Still Matters

For businesses serving a particular geographic area, local SEO remains an important part of the picture.

Keep your Google Business Profile accurate and make sure it reflects the services, contact details, opening hours and location of the business.

Reviews can also provide useful independent evidence about the experience customers have had with a company.

Your website should support this with clear information about where you genuinely work.

A business serving Huddersfield, Halifax, Brighouse and surrounding areas can explain that coverage naturally within its website without creating dozens of virtually identical pages where only the town name changes.

Dedicated location pages can be worthwhile when they provide genuinely useful local information. Thin pages created solely to target every nearby town can have the opposite effect and add large amounts of repetitive content to the website.

Make Sure AI Tools Can Access Your Website

Good content cannot be retrieved if the systems looking for it cannot access the website.

Basic technical checks should include:

• Important pages return a normal 200 status code
• Pages are not accidentally set to noindex
• Robots.txt is not blocking important content
• Canonical tags point to the correct version of each page
• XML sitemaps contain the pages you actually want discovered
• Important pages have internal links pointing to them
• Content can be accessed without requiring a login
• Security systems are not unintentionally blocking legitimate crawlers

ChatGPT Search

OpenAI uses a crawler called OAI-SearchBot for its search features.

If being discoverable through ChatGPT Search is important to your business, it is worth checking that your website, hosting provider, firewall or robots.txt rules are not preventing OAI-SearchBot from accessing public pages.

This is separate from GPTBot, which relates to content that may be used to improve OpenAI’s generative AI models. A website can therefore make its own decisions about model-training access while still allowing its public pages to be discovered for search.

Google AI Features

Google’s AI-powered search experiences are closely connected with its existing Search systems.

Pages generally need to be crawlable, indexed and eligible to appear within Google Search before they can be used as supporting sources within Google’s AI search features.

There is no separate submission form required simply because you want a page to appear in an AI-generated answer.

Other AI Search Tools

Other platforms have their own methods of finding and retrieving web content.

For example, Perplexity operates its own search crawler and Microsoft has its wider Bing search infrastructure.

This is another reason not to treat AI visibility as one isolated optimisation exercise. A technically healthy website with strong search visibility gives the business a better foundation across several different discovery platforms.

Use Structured Data Correctly

Structured data, often referred to as schema markup, provides machine-readable information about the content of a page.

Depending on the website, structured data can describe things such as:

• The organisation behind the website
• Local business information
• People
• Articles
• Products
• Services
• Events
• Breadcrumbs

This can help search systems interpret information more accurately, particularly when the markup supports information that is already visible on the page.

It is not, however, a secret method for forcing an AI tool to recommend a company.

Adding a piece of schema that calls your company the “best web designer in Yorkshire” does not make that statement true, and hidden structured data should not be used to make claims that the page itself cannot support.

Use structured data to describe the business accurately rather than trying to manipulate a recommendation.

Avoid AI Optimisation Shortcuts

As interest in AI search has grown, so have supposed shortcuts for getting mentioned.

Be cautious about claims that every website suddenly needs a particular file, piece of code or completely separate set of AI pages.

You Do Not Need Hundreds of AI-Targeted Articles

Creating large volumes of generic content simply to cover every question somebody might ask can dilute the quality of a website rather than improve it.

A smaller number of useful, well-researched pages with genuine experience behind them is normally a much stronger foundation.

There Is No Magic AI Schema

Structured data can help explain content, but there is no universal “recommend my business” schema property.

Do Not Manufacture Fake Authority

Artificial reviews, fake awards, invented statistics and paid-for mentions designed to make a company appear more established can create much bigger problems than they solve.

Build genuine evidence over time instead.

Do Not Forget About Your Customers

A website ultimately needs to work for the people who visit it.

There is little value in being mentioned by an AI tool if the visitor arrives on a confusing website, cannot understand what you provide or struggles to make an enquiry.

Generative Engine Optimisation should complement good SEO, web design and content rather than replacing them.

How Can You Measure AI Visibility?

AI visibility is more difficult to measure than a conventional Google ranking.

A search engine ranking can already vary between users, devices and locations, but conversational AI adds even more variation because a small change in the wording of a question can produce a different answer.

Useful ways to monitor visibility include:

• Testing a selection of realistic customer questions across different platforms
• Looking for your business within cited sources
• Monitoring referral traffic from AI search tools
• Watching for changes in branded searches
• Asking new customers how they found the business
• Tracking enquiries that arrive directly from identifiable AI referrals

Do not simply ask an AI tool your company name repeatedly until it produces the answer you want.

Instead, test questions a genuine potential customer might ask when they do not already know your business exists.

For Athena Media, for example, a more useful test would be:

“Can you recommend a web designer for a small business in Huddersfield?”

rather than:

“Is Athena Media a good web design company?”

The first gives you a much more realistic indication of genuine discovery.

How Long Does It Take to Get Recommended by AI?

There is no fixed timescale.

New and updated pages need to be discovered, crawled and processed. External mentions and reviews develop over time, while different AI systems update their information in different ways.

Recommendations can also change as competitors improve their websites, new sources become available or the user’s question changes.

This is why AI visibility is better treated as part of an ongoing SEO and content strategy rather than a one-off technical task.

Can You Guarantee That AI Will Recommend Your Business?

No.

No SEO company, web designer or GEO specialist can legitimately guarantee that ChatGPT, Google AI, Copilot or another platform will recommend a particular business.

The systems decide which information and sources are relevant to each individual question.

What you can do is improve the signals available to them.

A business with a well-structured website, clearly explained services, genuine expertise, useful content, strong search visibility, accurate business information and independent evidence has a much stronger foundation than one with a five-page website that barely explains what it does.

Build Visibility for Search and AI Together

AI is changing the way people research businesses, but the fundamentals have not suddenly disappeared.

Make your business easy to find, easy to understand and easy to verify. Publish information that genuinely helps customers. Build a strong reputation outside your own website and make sure search systems can access the information you have created.

These are all worthwhile improvements whether the eventual customer finds you through Google, ChatGPT, an AI-generated answer or a conventional recommendation.

Athena Media combines SEO and AI search optimisation to help businesses improve how they are discovered across traditional and emerging search platforms.

If you want to understand how visible your business currently is and what could be improved, contact Athena Media to discuss your website, SEO and AI search visibility.

The post How Can I Get My Business Recommended by AI? appeared first on Athena Media.

Google Search Console provides much of this information directly from Google. It is a free tool that helps website owners understand how their site appears and performs within Google Search.

You do not need to be a developer or SEO specialist to benefit from it. Even a basic understanding of the reports can help you make better decisions about your website, recognise potential problems and measure whether your content is reaching the right audience.

Jump To

• What Is Google Search Console?
• What Does Google Search Console Show?
• Google Search Console vs Google Analytics
• How Search Console Can Help Your Business
• Important Search Console Reports
• Common Search Console Misunderstandings
• Who Should Have Access?
• How Often Should You Check Search Console?

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a web-based service provided by Google. It allows verified website owners and authorised users to view information about how a website is discovered, indexed and displayed in Google Search.

It was previously known as Google Webmaster Tools, but its purpose is no longer limited to website developers. Business owners, marketing teams, content writers and website managers can all use it.

Search Console can help you:

• See which Google searches display your website
• Measure clicks and impressions from search results
• Check whether important pages are indexed
• Investigate why a page might be missing from Google
• Submit and monitor an XML sitemap
• Review mobile usability and Core Web Vitals data
• Identify some security issues and manual actions
• See which websites and internal pages link to your content

Search Console does not directly improve your rankings simply because you have installed or verified it. Its value comes from the information it provides and how that information is used to improve the website.

What Does Google Search Console Show?

The exact reports available depend on the type of website and whether Google has collected enough information. However, most businesses will use Search Console to understand three main areas.

Search Performance

The Performance report shows how often your website appeared in Google Search and how frequently people clicked through to it.

The main figures include:

• Clicks: The number of times someone selected a link to your website from Google Search
• Impressions: The number of times a link or search feature connected to your website was shown
• Click-through rate: The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click
• Average position: The average topmost position recorded for your website across the selected searches

You can break this information down by search query, page, country, device, date and search appearance.

This can reveal which services people are already finding, which pages attract the most search traffic and where there may be opportunities to improve visibility.

Indexing

Before a page can normally appear in Google Search, Google needs to discover, crawl and index it.

The Page Indexing report shows which known pages have been indexed and which have not. It can also provide reasons why certain pages are excluded, such as:

• A noindex instruction
• A redirect
• A duplicate or alternative page
• A page returning an error
• A page that has been discovered but not currently indexed
• A page that Google has crawled but chosen not to index

Not every excluded page represents a problem. Thank-you pages, account areas, filtered product URLs and duplicate versions may be intentionally kept out of search results.

The aim is not necessarily to have every URL indexed. It is to ensure that the pages customers should be able to find are accessible and eligible to appear.

Website Health And Enhancements

Search Console can also provide reports relating to page experience, structured data, mobile presentation, security and other search features.

These reports can help identify issues, but they should be interpreted in context. For example, achieving good Core Web Vitals results does not guarantee high rankings, and an automated report cannot assess every part of the experience provided by a website.

Google Search Console vs Google Analytics

Google Search Console and Google Analytics are often confused, but they answer different questions.

Search Console mainly explains what happened before someone arrived on your website through Google Search. It can show:

• The search used
• The page shown in the results
• How often the result appeared
• Whether it received a click
• The country and device associated with the search

Google Analytics mainly measures what happened after someone reached the website. Depending on the setup and consent choices, it may show:

• Which pages people visited
• How long they engaged with the website
• How they moved between pages
• Which traffic sources brought them to the site
• Whether they completed tracked actions or conversions

The figures in the two platforms will not always match exactly. A click recorded by Search Console is not the same thing as a session recorded by Analytics. Consent settings, tracking restrictions, repeated visits, time zones and different measurement methods can all create differences.

Used together, the tools provide a more complete picture. Search Console shows how people discover you through Google, while Analytics helps explain what they do once they arrive.

How Search Console Can Help Your Business

Understand What Potential Customers Search For

The Queries section can reveal the words and questions people used when your website appeared in Google.

This can help you understand how customers describe your services. The language they use may be different from the terminology used within your industry.

For example, a company may promote “responsive website development”, while customers are more likely to search for “website that works on mobile” or “mobile-friendly web designer”.

This information can guide future service pages, frequently asked questions and useful website content.

Find Pages With Untapped Potential

A page may receive a high number of impressions but relatively few clicks. This does not automatically mean something is wrong, but it is worth investigating.

The page title and description may not clearly reflect the search, the result may be appearing too far down the page, or Google may be showing the website for searches that are only loosely relevant.

You may be able to strengthen the page by:

• Making the title clearer and more specific
• Answering the main question more directly
• Adding missing information
• Improving internal links from related pages
• Updating inaccurate or outdated details

Changes should improve the page for the reader rather than simply inserting more phrases from the report. Our guide to updating website content explains when a revision is genuinely worthwhile.

Check Whether New Content Has Been Indexed

Publishing a page does not guarantee that it will immediately appear in Google.

The URL Inspection tool allows you to check a particular address and see whether Google has indexed it. It can also show the selected canonical URL, the last known crawl and whether Google encountered problems while processing the page.

You can request indexing after publishing or substantially updating an important page. However, submitting a request does not guarantee inclusion and repeatedly requesting indexing will not force Google to rank the page.

Investigate Drops In Search Traffic

If website enquiries or organic traffic decline, Search Console can help identify where the change occurred.

You can compare date ranges and look for:

• Specific pages losing clicks or impressions
• Changes affecting mobile or desktop searches
• Important queries declining
• Pages disappearing from the index
• Technical errors or server problems
• Security warnings or manual actions

A decline does not always mean the website has been penalised. Search demand can change seasonally, competitors may improve their content, customer behaviour can shift and Google regularly updates how results are presented.

Search Console provides evidence that can help narrow down the cause rather than relying on assumptions.

Measure The Results Of SEO Work

Search Console is an important part of measuring an ongoing SEO campaign.

It can show whether relevant pages are gaining impressions, whether new searches are beginning to display the website and whether organic clicks are improving over time.

It is usually more useful to assess trends across a sensible period than to react to individual daily changes. Rankings and traffic naturally fluctuate, particularly on websites with lower search volumes.

Important Search Console Reports

Performance

Use this report to explore clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. Filters allow you to compare particular pages, queries, devices, countries and dates.

Page Indexing

This report provides an overview of which known URLs are indexed and why other URLs may be excluded.

Pay particular attention to unexpected changes affecting important service, product or location pages.

URL Inspection

Use URL Inspection when you need to investigate one specific page. It can help confirm whether Google has indexed the page and whether the live version is accessible.

Sitemaps

An XML sitemap provides Google with a structured list of pages you would like it to know about.

The Sitemaps report allows you to submit the sitemap and check whether Google encountered errors while reading it. Inclusion in a sitemap does not guarantee that every listed page will be indexed.

Core Web Vitals

This report groups pages according to real-world loading, responsiveness and visual stability data where enough information is available.

It can help identify groups of pages that may provide a poor experience, although further testing is normally needed to diagnose the specific cause.

Links

The Links report provides examples of external websites linking to your pages, commonly linked internal pages and the text Google has associated with some links.

It should not be treated as a complete list of every link on the internet, but it can provide a useful overview of how Google understands the website’s linking structure.

Manual Actions And Security Issues

The Manual Actions report shows whether Google has applied an action after identifying serious breaches of its spam policies.

The Security Issues report can warn you when Google detects certain signs of hacking, malicious downloads, phishing or other harmful behaviour.

These reports should normally show that no issues have been detected. When a warning does appear, it should be investigated promptly.

Common Search Console Misunderstandings

Search Console Does Not Guarantee Better Rankings

Verifying your website does not give it preferential treatment. Search Console provides information and diagnostic tools, but improvements depend on the quality, relevance and technical condition of the website.

Average Position Is Not One Fixed Ranking

Average position combines data from different searches, dates, devices, locations and pages. A reported position of 12 does not necessarily mean that everybody sees your website in exactly twelfth place.

It is most useful as a trend when filtered to a relevant query or page and compared over time.

Not Every Search Will Be Listed

The query table does not provide a complete record of everything every person searched. Google limits some rows for privacy and reporting reasons.

The totals shown in charts may therefore be higher than the figures obtained by adding together all visible queries.

Indexed Does Not Mean Highly Ranked

Indexing means Google is able to consider a page for search results. It does not guarantee that the page will appear prominently or receive visitors.

A page still needs to be relevant, useful and competitive for the searches it is intended to serve.

Who Should Have Access?

The business should retain ownership or verified access to its own Search Console property, even when an agency or developer manages the day-to-day work.

Access can be granted to other people without sharing the main Google account password. Different permission levels allow you to control what each user can see or change.

When a relationship with an employee, agency or contractor ends, review the user list and remove access that is no longer required. The same principle should apply to Analytics, advertising accounts, domain management and other important digital services.

How Often Should You Check Search Console?

Most small businesses do not need to check Search Console every day.

A sensible routine might include:

• Reviewing the main performance figures monthly
• Checking important page and query trends
• Inspecting newly published priority pages
• Reviewing indexing changes after major website updates
• Responding promptly to security or manual action notifications
• Comparing longer periods when assessing SEO progress

Regular website maintenance can also help ensure that indexing errors, broken pages and outdated content are not left unnoticed.

Turn Search Data Into Useful Decisions

Google Search Console gives businesses valuable insight into how their websites are discovered and understood by Google.

The figures alone will not improve a website, but they can highlight opportunities, identify problems and provide evidence about what is working. Used alongside Analytics, customer enquiries and wider business data, Search Console can support more informed decisions about content, website improvements and future marketing activity.

To discuss setting up Search Console, understanding your reports or improving your organic search visibility, contact Athena Media for practical advice.

The post What Is Google Search Console and How Can It Help Your Business? appeared first on Athena Media.

Website accessibility means designing and developing websites so that as many people as possible can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with them. This includes people with visual, hearing, physical and cognitive disabilities, as well as people experiencing temporary or situational difficulties.

Accessibility is not an optional finishing touch or a single feature that can be added after a website has been built. It is part of creating a thoughtful, usable website that does not unnecessarily exclude potential customers.

Jump To

• What Is Website Accessibility?
• Who Benefits From an Accessible Website?
• Why Website Accessibility Matters
• The Four Principles of Accessibility
• Common Website Accessibility Problems
• How to Improve Website Accessibility
• Accessibility Is an Ongoing Process

What Is Website Accessibility?

Website accessibility is the practice of removing barriers that make digital content difficult or impossible for some people to use.

An accessible website should allow visitors to:

• Read and understand its content
• Navigate without relying entirely on a mouse
• Use assistive technologies such as screen readers
• Identify links, buttons and form fields clearly
• Watch or understand multimedia content
• Enlarge text without breaking the page layout
• Complete enquiries, purchases and other important tasks

Accessibility applies to both the visible design and the underlying code. A page can look attractive while still being difficult for a screen reader or keyboard user to navigate.

Equally, a technically compliant page may still be confusing if its instructions, menus or forms are poorly written. Good accessibility brings design, development and content together.

Who Benefits From an Accessible Website?

Accessible websites support people with a wide range of needs and circumstances.

People With Visual Impairments

This can include people who are blind, partially sighted or colour blind. They may use screen readers, magnification software, enlarged text or customised colour settings.

Clear headings, descriptive alternative text, sufficient contrast and properly labelled controls can make content much easier to understand.

People With Hearing Impairments

People who are deaf or hard of hearing may be unable to access information delivered only through audio.

Accurate captions, transcripts and visible alternatives to audio alerts help make videos, podcasts and interactive content more inclusive.

People With Physical or Motor Disabilities

Some visitors cannot use a mouse or precisely select small buttons. They may rely on a keyboard, switch device, voice control or other assistive technology.

Interactive elements should therefore be easy to reach, clearly highlighted and large enough to use without demanding precise movements.

People With Cognitive or Learning Disabilities

Complicated instructions, inconsistent navigation and dense blocks of text can make a website difficult to follow.

Plain language, predictable layouts, descriptive headings and clear feedback can help visitors understand what to do next.

People Experiencing Temporary or Situational Barriers

Accessibility improvements often help people who do not consider themselves disabled.

Someone may be using a phone in bright sunlight, watching a video without sound, navigating with an injured hand or trying to complete a form while distracted. Larger controls, captions, strong contrast and straightforward instructions can improve all of these experiences.

Why Website Accessibility Matters

It Prevents People From Being Excluded

Your website may be the first or only way someone can research your business, compare services, make a purchase or request support.

When important content or functionality is inaccessible, that person may have no practical way to continue. This can be particularly serious for websites providing healthcare, housing, financial, educational or public information.

It Creates a Better Experience for Everyone

Many accessibility improvements are also signs of good general usability.

Clear navigation, readable text, useful form labels, descriptive links and well-structured content make a website easier for everybody to use. They can also improve the experience on smaller screens and slower connections.

It Can Reduce Lost Enquiries and Sales

A visitor who cannot read a page, operate a menu or complete a form is unlikely to become a customer.

Accessible web design removes avoidable obstacles from the journey between arriving on the website and taking action. It does not guarantee a sale, but it gives more people a fair opportunity to understand the offer and respond.

Businesses Have Legal Responsibilities

In Great Britain, the Equality Act 2010 protects disabled people from discrimination and places responsibilities on organisations providing goods, facilities and services. Depending on the circumstances, this can include making reasonable adjustments so disabled people are not placed at a substantial disadvantage.

Public-sector organisations are also subject to specific website and mobile application accessibility regulations, including requirements relating to accessibility standards and published accessibility statements.

The precise legal position depends on the organisation, service and circumstances. Businesses with concerns about their obligations should obtain appropriate legal advice rather than relying on a general website article.

The Four Principles of Accessibility

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, usually known as WCAG, organise accessibility around four main principles. Content should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Perceivable

People must be able to perceive the information being presented.

This includes providing text alternatives for meaningful images, captions for spoken video content and sufficient contrast between text and its background.

Operable

Visitors must be able to operate the website and move through its content.

Menus, forms, buttons and other interactive features should work without requiring a mouse. Keyboard focus should also be clearly visible so the visitor knows which element is currently selected.

Understandable

Content and functionality should behave in a clear and predictable way.

Instructions should be straightforward, navigation should remain consistent and forms should explain errors in a way that helps the visitor correct them.

Robust

The website should be built using reliable code that works with different browsers, devices and assistive technologies.

Using appropriate HTML elements and correctly identifying controls helps software understand the purpose and structure of the page.

Common Website Accessibility Problems

Accessibility barriers are not always obvious during an ordinary visual review. Some of the most common problems include:

• Text with insufficient contrast against its background
• Images containing important information without suitable alternative text
• Forms without clear labels or useful error messages
• Menus and pop-ups that cannot be operated by keyboard
• Missing or poorly ordered headings
• Buttons and links with vague labels such as “click here”
• Videos without captions or transcripts
• Text embedded inside images
• Small controls that are difficult to select
• Animations that cannot be paused
• Layouts that break when text is enlarged
• Important messages communicated through colour alone

A website does not need to look plain or identical for every visitor. The aim is to ensure that the design choices do not prevent people from accessing the content or completing essential tasks.

How to Improve Website Accessibility

Use a Logical Heading Structure

Headings should describe the content that follows and form a sensible hierarchy. They should not be selected purely because of their visual size.

A clear structure helps sighted visitors scan the page and allows screen reader users to move between sections more efficiently.

Provide Useful Alternative Text

Alternative text should explain the purpose of a meaningful image within its particular context.

It does not need to list every visual detail. Decorative images can often use empty alternative text so they do not create unnecessary noise for screen reader users.

Check Colour Contrast

Text, buttons, form controls and important icons need enough contrast to remain distinguishable from their backgrounds.

Colour should not be the only way information is communicated. For example, a form error should include a written explanation rather than relying solely on a red border.

Make the Website Keyboard Accessible

A visitor should be able to reach and operate menus, links, buttons, forms, pop-ups and other interactive features using a keyboard.

The selected element should have a visible focus indicator, and the order should follow a logical journey through the page.

Write Descriptive Links and Buttons

Link text should explain where the link leads or what will happen when it is selected.

Labels such as “View Our Web Design Services” or “Request a Quotation” are more informative than repeated links saying only “Read More” or “Click Here”.

Build Clear and Forgiving Forms

Each field should have a visible label and any required format should be explained before the visitor submits the form.

When an error occurs, the message should identify the affected field and explain how to correct it. Previously entered information should not disappear unnecessarily.

Add Captions and Transcripts

Videos containing speech should include accurate captions. Audio-only content may require a transcript so the same information is available in another format.

Automatically generated captions can be a useful starting point, but names, technical terms and punctuation should be checked before publication.

Test Beyond Automated Scores

Automated accessibility tools can identify issues such as missing labels, contrast failures and some structural errors. They cannot determine whether every instruction is understandable or whether an entire user journey makes sense.

Useful testing can include:

• Navigating the website using only a keyboard
• Checking pages at increased text sizes
• Reviewing the site at different screen widths
• Testing forms and error messages
• Using appropriate screen reader testing
• Involving disabled users where practical

An accessibility widget or overlay should not be treated as a substitute for improving the underlying website. A toolbar may offer useful preferences, but it cannot automatically correct every problem in the design, content and code.

Accessibility Is an Ongoing Process

A website can become less accessible over time as new pages, plugins, forms, videos and design features are added.

Accessibility should therefore form part of ongoing content reviews and website maintenance. Editors should understand how to use headings, write alternative text, create descriptive links and avoid introducing inaccessible colour combinations or layouts.

It is also important to be honest about limitations. Accessibility is a broad and developing area, and a single automated score cannot prove that every person will be able to use every feature without difficulty.

Make Your Website Easier for More People to Use

Website accessibility is ultimately about removing avoidable barriers. It supports disabled people, improves everyday usability and helps more visitors reach the information or service they need.

The best results come when accessibility is considered throughout the design, development and content process rather than being added as an afterthought.

To discuss accessibility improvements for an existing website or include them within a new project, contact Athena Media for straightforward advice about the next steps.

The post Website Accessibility: What It Is and Why It Matters appeared first on Athena Media.

Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT Search, Microsoft Copilot and similar platforms allow people to ask detailed questions in a conversational way. Instead of opening several websites and comparing the information themselves, they may receive a combined response with links to selected sources.

Generative Engine Optimisation, commonly shortened to GEO, is the name often given to work intended to improve a business’s visibility within these AI-generated answers.

However, GEO should not be treated as a replacement for search engine optimisation or as a collection of secret technical tricks. In most cases, it builds on the same foundations that already help a website earn visibility, trust and relevant traffic.

Jump To

• What Is Generative Engine Optimisation?
• How AI-Assisted Search Works
• What Is the Difference Between GEO and SEO?
• Why GEO Matters for Businesses
• How to Improve AI Search Visibility
• Common GEO Mistakes to Avoid
• How to Measure GEO

What Is Generative Engine Optimisation?

Generative Engine Optimisation is the process of making information about a business easier for AI-assisted search systems to discover, understand and potentially use when producing an answer.

This could result in:

• A website being linked as a supporting source
• A business being named within an AI-generated response
• A product or service being included in a comparison
• Information from a page being used to explain a subject
• A local business being suggested for a relevant enquiry

There is no single GEO standard used by every AI platform. Different tools have their own methods for finding, interpreting and presenting information.

The same question can also produce different answers depending on the platform, wording, location and information available at that time. Being mentioned once does not guarantee that a business will continue to appear.

How AI-Assisted Search Works

A conventional search engine usually provides a list of pages that may answer the user’s question. The person then chooses which result to open and decides whether the information is useful.

AI-assisted search can add another stage to this process. The system may carry out several related searches, retrieve relevant information and create a combined answer. Supporting websites may then be shown alongside individual claims or offered as places to learn more.

For example, someone looking for a new website might ask:

• How much should a small business website cost in the UK?
• Should I use WordPress or a website builder?
• What should be included in a professional web design quotation?
• How often should a business website be updated?

Rather than treating each question as an isolated phrase, an AI system may explore related subjects such as hosting, maintenance, ownership, ecommerce features and ongoing support.

This makes complete, well-structured information increasingly valuable. A useful page should answer the main question clearly while providing enough context to help the reader make an informed decision.

What Is the Difference Between GEO and SEO?

Search engine optimisation is focused on improving a website’s visibility within organic search results. It includes technical performance, content, indexing, internal linking, authority, local visibility and user experience.

GEO looks more specifically at whether a business or its content can be retrieved and presented within an AI-generated response.

Despite the different terminology, there is considerable overlap:

• Both depend on search systems being able to access the website
• Both benefit from accurate and genuinely useful information
• Both require clear page structure and meaningful internal links
• Both are supported by a technically reliable website
• Neither can guarantee a particular position, mention or citation

Google considers work intended to improve visibility within its AI features to be part of SEO. It does not require a separate AI version of a website, special artificial intelligence markup or a new optimisation process.

GEO is therefore best understood as an extension of a broader search and content strategy, rather than a replacement for established SEO.

Why GEO Matters for Businesses

People are becoming more comfortable asking longer and more detailed questions online. They may describe their circumstances, priorities and budget rather than entering a short service phrase.

This creates an opportunity for businesses that publish genuinely helpful information. A detailed explanation based on real experience may be more useful than a generic service page filled with promotional claims.

GEO can support:

• Awareness while potential customers are researching
• Visibility for detailed questions and comparisons
• Recognition of genuine experience and specialist knowledge
• Referral visits from AI-assisted search tools
• More accurate descriptions of a business and its services

It also creates a challenge. Some straightforward questions may be answered without the user visiting a website at all. A mention does not necessarily result in a click, and a citation should not automatically be treated as an enquiry.

The aim is not simply to collect AI mentions. It is to make accurate and useful information available wherever potential customers are researching their options.

How to Improve AI Search Visibility

There is no guaranteed method for getting a business mentioned by an AI platform. The most sustainable approach is to improve the information and technical foundations that search systems already use.

Answer Genuine Customer Questions

Start with questions customers actually ask before buying, booking or making an enquiry. These may relate to price, timescales, suitability, maintenance, comparisons or the way a service works.

Give a straightforward answer early in the page, then explain the factors that could affect it. Avoid hiding the useful information beneath a long introduction or forcing the reader to contact you for every basic detail.

Publish Original, First-Hand Information

Generic summaries are easy to reproduce. They give an AI system little reason to select one website rather than another.

More distinctive content might include:

• Experience gained from completing real projects
• Original photographs and examples
• Common problems encountered by customers
• A clearly explained working process
• Realistic cost and timescale considerations
• Situations where one option may be more appropriate than another
• Lessons learned from a particular type of project

Do not invent customer stories, statistics or research to make an article appear more authoritative. Genuine experience is far more valuable than unsupported claims.

Make Your Business Easy to Understand

Your website should clearly explain who you are, what you provide and where you operate.

Keep important information consistent across your website, Google Business Profile and reputable business listings. This includes:

• Your business name and contact details
• The services or products you genuinely offer
• The locations you actually serve
• Relevant experience, qualifications and accreditations
• Current opening hours, prices and offers where published
• Information about the people responsible for the business

Avoid vague phrases such as “leading provider” or “industry expert” unless there is clear evidence to support them. Specific information about your experience and process is usually more useful.

Use Clear Page Structure

Well-organised content helps visitors scan a page and find the information they need. It can also help retrieval systems identify the section that best answers a particular question.

Use descriptive headings, readable paragraphs, useful lists and natural internal links. Important information should be available as visible text rather than appearing only inside an image or video.

There is no requirement to break every answer into tiny sections. The length and structure should suit the subject and make the page easier for a person to understand.

Maintain Strong Technical Foundations

Useful content cannot be retrieved reliably when important pages are inaccessible, incorrectly indexed or dependent on broken scripts.

A technically sound business website should make it straightforward for search systems and visitors to reach important information.

Check that:

• Important pages can be accessed without a login
• Search crawlers are not blocked unintentionally
• Pages return the correct status codes
• Canonical tags point to the intended versions
• XML sitemaps remain current
• Mobile visitors receive the same important content
• Internal links make key pages discoverable
• The website performs reliably across common devices

Keep Information Current

Outdated details can weaken an otherwise useful page. Old prices, discontinued services, expired offers and superseded regulations may all cause inaccurate answers.

Ongoing website maintenance should therefore include reviewing important written information, not only installing software updates.

Use Structured Data Accurately

Suitable structured data can help search systems interpret information about an organisation, article, product, service, event or local business.

However, there is no special GEO schema that guarantees an AI mention. Any structured data should match the information that visitors can see on the page.

Do not place hidden prices, services, reviews or other claims in the code when they are not supported by the visible content.

Common GEO Mistakes to Avoid

Creating Separate Content for AI Systems

Most businesses do not need a second version of every page written specifically for an AI tool. This can create duplication and make the website harder to manage.

Improve the main page for customers first. Create a new article only when it answers a genuinely different question or serves a distinct purpose.

Producing Hundreds of Similar Articles

Publishing a separate page for every possible wording of a question is unlikely to create a useful website. Near-identical articles can compete with one another and make it difficult to decide which page should be prioritised.

Treating llms.txt as a Guaranteed Solution

An llms.txt file is sometimes promoted as essential for AI visibility. Google does not use it for Google Search and does not require special AI text files or markup for its generative search features.

Other platforms may handle experimental files differently, but adding one cannot guarantee discovery or inclusion.

Buying Artificial Mentions

Fake reviews, manufactured forum discussions and misleading recommendations are not a sustainable way to establish authority.

Independent mentions are most valuable when they come from genuine customer experiences, professional relationships and useful third-party coverage.

Publishing Unchecked AI-Generated Content

AI tools can support research, planning and drafting, but the finished content still needs careful review. Publishing large quantities of generic material can introduce errors, repetition and unsupported claims.

Content should include real knowledge, be checked for accuracy and provide something useful beyond information that is already widely available.

How to Measure GEO

Measuring GEO is less straightforward than tracking a fixed organic search position. AI-generated answers can vary according to the platform, prompt, account, location and date.

Useful measurements may include:

• Pages cited or linked by supported AI tools
• Referral visits from identifiable AI platforms
• Visibility within Google’s generative AI reporting
• Changes in branded searches
• Enquiries that mention an AI recommendation
• Conversions from identifiable AI referral traffic

Manually checking realistic customer questions can provide useful observations, but it should not be presented as a complete ranking report. One answer on one device does not represent what every potential customer will see.

The Future of Search Still Starts With Useful Information

Generative Engine Optimisation reflects a genuine change in how people discover and compare information, but it does not make traditional SEO irrelevant.

Businesses are more likely to build lasting visibility by publishing specific, accurate and first-hand information on a website that search systems can access and customers can trust.

That approach supports traditional search results, AI-assisted discovery and the people who eventually arrive on the website ready to take the next step.

To discuss how clearly your website communicates your experience, services and expertise, contact Athena Media for a review of your content and wider online visibility.

The post Generative Engine Optimisation: Why GEO Matters for the Future of Search appeared first on Athena Media.

For businesses, appearing as one of those sources can provide an additional opportunity to be discovered. However, there is no form to complete, special piece of code to install or guaranteed way to secure a mention.

Google chooses supporting sources dynamically, based on the search being made and the information it considers useful. The aim is therefore not to chase a loophole, but to make your website accessible, accurate and genuinely valuable enough to be considered.

Jump To

• What Is an AI Overview Mention?
• Start With Standard Google Visibility
• Publish Original and Useful Information
• Answer the Whole Question
• Make Your Content Easy to Understand
• Keep Your Business Information Accurate
• Avoid AI Overview Shortcuts
• Measure Your AI Overview Visibility

What Is an AI Overview Mention?

An AI Overview is a generated summary that may appear when Google believes it can help someone understand a question or explore a subject more easily.

The overview can include links to websites that support different parts of the answer. Your website might be shown as a source, linked from a particular statement or included among the pages offered for further reading.

This should not be treated as a permanent ranking position. AI Overviews do not appear for every search, and the websites selected can change depending on the wording of the question, the location of the user and the information available at that time.

It is also worth separating Google AI Overviews from wider Generative Engine Optimisation. GEO can include visibility across several AI-assisted platforms, while this guide concentrates specifically on Google Search.

Start With Standard Google Visibility

Before Google can use a page within an AI Overview, it generally needs to be able to find, crawl and index that page through its normal search systems.

Start by checking that:

• The page is publicly accessible without requiring a login
• Googlebot is not blocked by your robots.txt file or website firewall
• The page does not contain an accidental noindex instruction
• The canonical tag points to the correct version of the page
• The page is included in your XML sitemap where appropriate
• Important pages can be reached through internal links
• The content is eligible to appear in Google with a search snippet

Google Search Console can help you check whether an individual page is indexed and identify technical problems that may prevent it from appearing.

There is no separate AI Overview submission process. Good search engine optimisation remains the foundation because Google’s AI features use information retrieved from its wider search index.

Publish Original and Useful Information

Generic content gives Google little reason to select one website over another. An article that simply repeats the same advice found across dozens of other sites is unlikely to offer much additional value.

More useful content draws on genuine knowledge and experience. Depending on your business, this could include:

• Lessons learned while completing real projects
• Clear explanations of your working process
• Original photographs, examples and demonstrations
• Common problems encountered by customers
• Realistic cost and timescale considerations
• Situations where one option may be more suitable than another
• Limitations or exceptions that other articles fail to mention

For example, a generic article might say that website prices vary. A more useful article would explain which features affect the cost, what is normally included in a quotation and which ongoing expenses a business should ask about.

That additional detail gives the reader a better answer and gives Google something specific that cannot be reproduced by summarising basic information from elsewhere.

Answer the Whole Question

Google can explore several related questions while preparing an AI-generated response. A person asking about the cost of a website may also need to understand hosting, maintenance, ecommerce functionality and how long the project will take.

This does not mean creating a separate page for every slight variation of a question. It is usually better to publish one well-planned page that answers the main question and covers the genuinely relevant considerations around it.

Begin with a clear answer, then provide the context needed to understand it. Explain which factors can change the answer, who the advice applies to and when professional guidance may be needed.

Avoid hiding the useful information beneath a long introduction. Readers should be able to understand the main point quickly, while still having the option to explore the detail.

Make Your Content Easy to Understand

Your content should be structured for people first. Clear organisation also makes it easier for search systems to identify what each part of the page discusses.

Use:

• A descriptive page title
• Logical H2 and H3 headings
• Short, readable paragraphs
• Lists where they make steps or comparisons clearer
• Descriptive internal links to supporting pages
• Useful images and videos where they add context

Important information should normally be available as visible text rather than existing only inside an image, video or interactive element.

There is no need to break every sentence into a separate section or write in an unnatural style for AI systems. A page should feel straightforward and satisfying for a genuine visitor to read.

Use Structured Data Accurately

Suitable structured data can help Google understand information about your organisation, articles, products, services and local business details.

However, there is no special AI Overview schema. Any structured data you use should accurately reflect information that visitors can also see on the page.

Adding services, reviews, prices or other claims only within the code will not make the page more trustworthy and could create inconsistencies.

Keep Your Business Information Accurate

Google should be able to understand who is responsible for the website and what the business genuinely provides.

Make sure your website clearly presents:

• Your business name and contact details
• The services or products you actually offer
• The locations you genuinely serve
• Information about the people behind the business
• Relevant experience, qualifications or accreditations
• Current prices, opening hours and service details where published

Your Google Business Profile and other reputable listings should support the information shown on your website rather than contradict it.

Outdated service areas, old prices and discontinued offers can weaken the usefulness of otherwise helpful content. Regular website maintenance should therefore include reviewing important written information as well as updating software.

Avoid AI Overview Shortcuts

As interest in AI search has grown, so have claims about quick ways to secure mentions. Many of these tactics are unnecessary or unsupported.

You Do Not Need Special AI Files

Google does not require an llms.txt file, a separate AI sitemap or special machine-readable content to include a page in its generative search features.

You Do Not Need Separate AI Versions of Your Articles

Rewriting every page specifically for an AI system can create duplication and make the website harder to manage. Concentrate on improving the main page for customers.

Do Not Create Hundreds of Near-Identical Pages

Publishing a separate article for every wording of the same question is unlikely to improve quality. It can instead create thin pages that compete with one another.

Do Not Manufacture Mentions

Buying fake reviews, placing misleading recommendations or creating artificial discussions about a business is not a reliable visibility strategy. Genuine reviews and independent references should arise from real customer experiences and legitimate relationships.

Do Not Publish Unchecked AI Content

AI tools can assist with research and drafting, but the finished material still needs to be accurate, original and useful. Publishing large quantities of unedited content can introduce factual errors and repeat information already available elsewhere.

Measure Your AI Overview Visibility

Measuring AI Overview visibility is still developing. Google has begun introducing dedicated generative AI performance information within Search Console, including details about impressions, pages and countries.

The feature is being rolled out gradually, so it may not yet appear in every Search Console account.

You can also monitor:

• Changes in impressions and clicks for relevant pages
• Visits and conversions from Google organic search
• Branded searches for your company or services
• Enquiries that mention an AI-generated recommendation
• Whether important pages are being crawled and indexed correctly

Manually checking a selection of realistic customer questions can provide useful observations, but it should not be treated as a fixed ranking report. The answer and sources can change from one search to another.

Focus on Being Useful, Not Chasing the Feature

There is no guaranteed method for getting a website mentioned in Google AI Overviews. The strongest approach is also the most sustainable one: publish accurate and original information on a website that Google can access, understand and confidently present to users.

That means maintaining strong technical foundations, answering real customer questions and adding genuine experience that goes beyond a generic summary.

If you would like help reviewing whether your content and technical SEO are ready for Google’s changing search features, contact Athena Media to discuss your website and current online visibility.

The post How to Get Mentioned in Google AI Overviews appeared first on Athena Media.

Most businesses reading this will already have a professional email address (for example, John Doe uses j.doe@domain.co.uk) that is currently being pulled into a personal Gmail account like j.doe@gmail.com via POP3. This setup has worked for years, but recent changes mean POP3 access is being restricted, which is why this upgrade is now necessary. Moving to Google Workspace gives you a fully hosted mailbox at your own domain, removes the reliance on POP3, and keeps your existing Gmail history intact without re-importing years of old emails. This guide walks you through the process step by step. While this article focuses on Google Workspace, the same principles apply if you choose alternatives such as Microsoft 365 (Outlook) or Zoho Mail.

While this guide focuses on Google Workspace, the broad steps apply to any hosted email provider. Platforms such as Microsoft 365 (Outlook), Zoho Mail and other managed services require you to verify your domain, update MX records and recreate your addresses as aliases or users.

⚠️ Important:
I recommend only beginning this transfer when emails are likely to be quiet. None should go missing during the process, but it’s best to reduce any crossover.

Why Do We Need To Upgrade Now?

• POP3 is being deprecated – Google will stop supporting the “Check mail from other accounts” option in Gmail. If you do nothing, your professional email may stop arriving.
• Security and reliability – POP3 sends passwords in plain text and doesn’t support modern authentication. Workspace uses secure protocols and offers spam and malware protection.
• Business features and storage – If you already use a custom domain via POP3 you have a professional address but none of the extras. Workspace adds shared calendars, video meetings and file storage. Even the entry-level Business Starter plan supports one user with up to 30 email aliases and gives you 30 GB of storage per user.
• Future-proof – migrating now avoids a last-minute rush when POP3 access ends. You retain control of your data – all previously downloaded messages remain in Gmail.

Benefits of Google Workspace

Upgrading to Workspace keeps everything in one inbox while giving you:

• Aliases for multiple addresses – one user can have up to 30 aliases, so addresses such as info@, sales@ or hi@ all deliver to the same inbox at no extra cost.
• Multiple domains – you can add more domains to the same account if you have multiple businesses
• More storage – Workspace plans include generous cloud storage. Business Starter provides 30 GB per user, while Business Standard increases this to 2 TB per user and adds extra features. This is a significant upgrade from the limited space available to free Gmail accounts.

The rest of this guide explains how to migrate from POP inbox to Workspace without losing mail or pulling in years’ worth of old messages.

Step-by-step Upgrade Guide

Migration Checklist:

1. Remove all existing POP3 accounts from Gmail
2. Sign up for Google Workspace using your existing account
3. Select “Send emails” during migration
4. Add the TXT verification record to your DNS (or get us to do it!)
5. Verify the domain in the Admin Console
6. Update MX records and activate Gmail (or get us to do it!)
7. Add required email aliases
8. Configure “Send mail as” in Gmail
9. Add any secondary or alias domains
10. Check all website contact forms
11. Check emails send and receive from gmail

Detailed Steps:

1. Audit your current Gmail and remove POP3 fetchers

Before you start, sign in to your existing Gmail account on the web and go to Settings → Accounts and Import → Check mail from other accounts. Remove every POP3 entry. This stops Gmail from re-downloading old messages when POP3 is removed and ensures that only new email comes into your Workspace inbox. Deleting a POP account here does not delete messages already fetched.

Tip: also remove any unnecessary entries in Send mail as, so you can rebuild send-as addresses later using Workspace aliases.

2. Choose a Workspace Plan and Sign Up

For most businesses, Business Starter is the right plan. It gives you one user and up to 30 aliases. Use your existing Gmail login to start the upgrade – Google converts your account in place. When prompted to create a username, you may need to pick a temporary name if your desired address is “reserved”. You can rename the user later.

3. Verify your Domain and Add the TXT Record

Google must prove you own your domain before it can deliver mail. The admin console presents you with a unique TXT record for verification. You’ll need to choose “My domain uses a different host”. Copy the google-site-verification value and send it to me. Once I’ve added in your custom TXT record it will confirm the ownership.

Head back to the Workspace setup wizard, click Confirm to let Google check for the TXT record. Once verified, Google will prompt you to activate Gmail for your domain.

4. Activate Gmail and Update MX records

Once your domain has been verified, Google Workspace needs to take over handling email for your domain. This is done by updating your MX records.

At this stage, you have two options:

• Update the DNS records yourself, or
• Send the required records to us (or your web developer) and we’ll apply them safely on your behalf.

If you’re unsure, we strongly recommend letting a developer handle this step – incorrect MX records will stop email from working entirely.

⚠️ Important:
If your DNS is managed via Cloudflare, MX records must be set to “DNS only” (grey cloud). Orange-cloud/proxied records will break email delivery.

Once the MX records have been added (either by you or by us), allow time for them to propagate. Then return to the Google Admin Console and click Activate Gmail. From this point onward, emails sent to your domain will arrive directly in Gmail rather than being pulled in via POP3.

5. Add Your Existing Addresses as Email Aliases

You do not need to create extra users for further email addresses like info@, sales@ or hello@.

Instead, add them as email aliases on your main user account.

In the Admin Console:

• Go to Users
• Select your user
• Open Alternate email addresses
• Add each required address (e.g. info@yourdomain.co.uk, sales@yourdomain.co.uk)

Aliases allow you to send and receive from multiple addresses in one inbox and do not incur any extra licence cost.

If you have another domain that only needs alternate addresses (for example, matching the same names), it can be added as a user alias domain – this is usually the most cost-effective option.

6. Configure “Send mail as” in Gmail

After aliases are added, Gmail needs to be told how to send from them.

In Gmail:

1. Go to Settings → Accounts and Import
2. Under Send mail as, click Add another email address
3. Enter the alias address
4. Tick Treat as an alias
5. Complete the confirmation step

Once set up:

• You’ll be able to choose the correct From address when composing emails
• Replies will automatically send from the address the message was originally sent to

This ensures everything behaves exactly as your old POP3 setup did – just without the risk.

Tips and Common Pitfalls

• Do not re-enable POP3 fetching
  Remove all “Check mail from other accounts” settings. Your existing emails are already in Gmail.
• Choose the correct domain type
  Alias domains are free and ideal for most setups. Secondary domains are only needed for different address structures.
• Never proxy MX records
  Especially in Cloudflare – MX must always be DNS-only.
• Avoid creating extra users
  New users add monthly costs. Aliases achieve the same result for free.
• Check all connected services
  CRMs, booking systems, newsletters and contact forms may still reference old POP3 or SMTP settings.
• Allow DNS time to propagate
  Changes can take up to 72 hours (often much quicker). Avoid making multiple changes during this window.

The post How to Upgrade from Gmail’s POP3 to Google Workspace 2026 appeared first on Athena Media.

That journey still matters, but it is no longer the only way people find information. Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, Microsoft Copilot and other tools can now produce written answers assembled from several sources.

Sometimes the user follows one of those sources. In other cases, the generated answer provides enough information without an immediate website visit.

Generative Engine Optimisation, usually shortened to GEO, is the emerging name for work intended to improve how a business and its content are understood, retrieved and referenced within these AI-assisted experiences.

Jump To

• What Is Generative Engine Optimisation?
• How AI-Assisted Search Works
• The Difference Between GEO And SEO
• Why GEO Matters For Businesses
• How To Improve GEO
• Technical Foundations For AI Visibility
• Common GEO Myths
• How To Measure GEO
• Common Questions About GEO

What Is Generative Engine Optimisation?

Generative Engine Optimisation is the process of making website content easier for AI-assisted search systems to discover, understand and potentially use when constructing an answer.

The term grew from research into generative engines, but it is not currently a single agreed technical standard. Different platforms retrieve, assess and present information in different ways.

GEO may involve improving:

• The accuracy and clarity of website content
• The technical accessibility of important pages
• The way services, products and business details are described
• The evidence supporting factual claims
• The consistency of information across the web
• The originality and usefulness of published material

The aim is not to hide phrases inside a page or manipulate an AI system. It is to publish information that can be understood, checked and presented confidently to someone asking a relevant question.

How AI-Assisted Search Works

Traditional search normally presents a selection of pages that may answer the user’s question. The user decides which result to visit.

AI-assisted search can add another stage. The system may retrieve information from several sources, identify relevant passages and construct a combined response. Links or citations may then be shown alongside parts of that answer.

Exactly how this works depends on the platform:

• Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are connected to Google’s search index and core search systems.
• Microsoft Copilot and Bing can retrieve indexed web content and display supporting sources.
• ChatGPT Search can search current web information and provide linked sources when answering suitable questions.
• Other AI tools may use their own indexes, search providers, licensed data or previously learned information.

Not every response uses live website content, and the same question can produce different answers on different occasions. A source being used once does not guarantee that it will be selected again.

The Difference Between GEO And SEO

Search engine optimisation improves a website’s visibility within search results. It covers areas such as website structure, content, internal linking, indexing, local visibility, authority and user experience.

GEO looks specifically at visibility within AI-generated answers. Success might involve a page being cited, a business being mentioned accurately or a useful explanation being included in a generated response.

The two approaches overlap considerably:

• Both require search systems to access and understand the website
• Both benefit from accurate and useful content
• Both rely on clear page structure and meaningful internal links
• Both are supported by a technically sound website
• Neither can guarantee a particular placement or citation

From Google’s perspective, optimising for its generative AI search features remains part of SEO. Google states that there are no additional requirements or special optimisations needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode.

Other platforms have separate technical requirements. For example, a website that blocks OpenAI’s search crawler may not be fully included in ChatGPT Search answers.

Does GEO Replace SEO?

No. A business should not abandon established SEO work and start chasing AI mentions instead.

Search indexes, website accessibility, content quality and authority remain important foundations. GEO is better understood as an additional consideration within a broader search and content strategy.

Why GEO Matters For Businesses

People are increasingly using conversational questions when researching services, products and decisions. Instead of searching for a short phrase, someone might ask:

• What should I look for when choosing a web designer?
• How much does it cost to replace a business website?
• What questions should I ask an accountant before changing firms?
• Which type of boiler is suitable for a small office?

AI-assisted search can gather information from several sources and present it as one response. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity.

A business may receive fewer visits from simple informational searches when the answer is presented directly. However, useful content can still introduce the business during the research process, particularly when the source is clearly linked or named.

GEO can therefore support:

• Awareness during early research
• Visibility for detailed customer questions
• Recognition of genuine business expertise
• Referral visits from AI search tools
• More accurate descriptions of the business and its services

A citation is not the same as an enquiry, and an AI mention should not be treated as a guaranteed endorsement. The wider goal is to make reliable information available wherever potential customers are researching.

How To Improve GEO

Most businesses do not need an entirely separate collection of content for AI tools. The strongest starting point is improving the website for real customers while making important information straightforward for search systems to interpret.

Answer Specific Customer Questions

Create pages and articles around questions customers genuinely ask. Give a clear answer before expanding on the details, limitations and available options.

A page should normally have one recognisable purpose. Combining several unrelated subjects can make it difficult for readers and retrieval systems to identify the most relevant information.

Publish Original, First-Hand Information

Generic summaries are easy to reproduce and offer little reason for one source to be selected over another. More distinctive material could include:

• Experience gained from completing real projects
• Original photographs and examples
• A clearly explained working process
• Common problems encountered by customers
• Realistic timescales and cost considerations
• Lessons learned from a particular type of work

Do not invent statistics, customer stories or research to make an article appear more authoritative.

Make Factual Claims Verifiable

Use trustworthy sources when discussing regulations, technical standards, medical guidance, finance or other facts that require careful verification.

State when information was checked and update it when circumstances change. An old price, withdrawn grant or superseded rule can reduce the usefulness of the entire page.

Regular website maintenance should therefore include reviewing important written content as well as updating software.

Explain The Context

A short answer may be useful, but it should not remove necessary qualifications. Explain when advice applies, when it does not and what factors could change the outcome.

For example, there is rarely one fixed cost for a business website. The answer depends on its size, functionality, content, ecommerce requirements, integrations and ongoing support.

Use Clear Page Structure

Descriptive headings help people scan a page and understand how its sections relate to each other. They can also make individual passages easier for retrieval systems to identify.

Use:

• One clear page title
• Logical H2 and H3 headings
• Short paragraphs where appropriate
• Lists for genuine steps or comparisons
• Descriptive internal links
• FAQ sections only when they add useful information

Do not split every sentence into a separate section simply because somebody claims AI systems prefer “chunked” content. Structure should first make the page easier for a person to read.

Make The Business Easy To Identify

Clearly state who is responsible for the website and content. Keep important business details accurate across the website, Google Business Profile and reputable external listings.

Useful information may include:

• The business name and location
• The areas genuinely served
• The people behind the business
• Relevant experience and qualifications
• Clear contact information
• Service and product details

Only publish claims that can be supported. Repeating phrases such as “leading expert” does not establish genuine expertise.

Use Structured Data Correctly

Suitable structured data can help search systems interpret information such as the organisation, articles, products, services, events and local business details.

The markup must match the visible content. Structured data should not contain reviews, services, prices or other claims that visitors cannot find on the page itself.

Structured data can improve understanding, but it does not guarantee inclusion in a search feature or AI-generated answer.

Technical Foundations For AI Visibility

Useful content cannot be retrieved reliably if important pages are inaccessible or missing from the relevant search index.

Check that:

• Important pages are available without requiring a login
• Search engines are not unintentionally blocked
• Pages return the correct status code
• Canonical tags point to the intended version
• XML sitemaps are current
• Mobile visitors can access the same important information
• Content is visible without relying on a broken script
• Internal links make important pages discoverable

Google AI Features

For content to appear as a supporting link within Google’s AI features, the page generally needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet. No separate AI file or special Google submission is required.

ChatGPT Search

OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot to discover content for ChatGPT’s search features. If visibility within ChatGPT Search is important, ask your website provider to confirm that this crawler is not blocked by robots.txt, hosting security or a firewall.

OAI-SearchBot is separate from GPTBot, which relates to potential model training. A website can allow the search crawler while choosing a different rule for the training crawler.

Website Quality Still Matters

Technical access alone is not enough. The website must still provide information that is relevant and worth presenting.

A well-planned business website should combine accessible content, sensible performance, clear navigation and a straightforward path for visitors who want to make contact.

Common GEO Myths

You Need An llms.txt File

An llms.txt file is sometimes promoted as essential for AI visibility. Google has confirmed that it does not use llms.txt or require special AI markup for its search features.

Other systems may handle experimental files differently, but adding one does not guarantee discovery, citation or improved visibility.

Adding More Statistics Guarantees Citations

Facts and figures can make content useful when they are accurate, relevant and properly explained. Adding unsupported numbers purely to attract AI systems can make the page less trustworthy.

AI-Written Content Is Automatically GEO-Friendly

Content is not valuable simply because an AI tool produced it. Publishing large volumes of generic material without checking facts or adding original value can create duplication and undermine the website.

Every Page Needs An FAQ Section

FAQs are helpful when customers genuinely ask those questions. Adding repetitive questions to every page creates unnecessary content and may compete with more focused pages elsewhere on the website.

A Mention Is As Valuable As A Website Visit

An AI mention can support awareness, but it may not produce a click, enquiry or sale. It should be considered alongside other marketing results rather than treated as a replacement for them.

How To Measure GEO

Measuring AI visibility is improving, but it remains less consistent than conventional search reporting. Answers can vary according to the wording of a question, location, platform, date and available sources.

Useful measurements may include:

• Pages cited by supported AI search tools
• Referral visits from ChatGPT, Copilot and other platforms
• Search queries connected with AI-assisted results
• Changes in branded searches
• Enquiries that mention an AI recommendation or answer
• Conversions from identifiable AI referral traffic

In 2026, Bing Webmaster Tools includes AI Performance reporting in public preview, showing citation activity across supported Microsoft AI experiences. Google Search Console also provides reporting for visibility within Google’s generative AI features.

OpenAI adds a ChatGPT source parameter to referral links, allowing visits from ChatGPT Search to be identified in suitable analytics platforms.

Manually testing a selection of realistic questions can provide useful observations, but it should not be presented as a complete ranking report. One answer from one account at one moment does not represent every user’s experience.

Common Questions About GEO

Is GEO A Replacement For SEO?

No. GEO builds on many of the same foundations, including technical accessibility, useful content, authority and clear website structure. For Google, work intended to improve visibility in AI search remains part of SEO.

Can GEO Guarantee That My Business Is Mentioned?

No. AI systems choose sources dynamically, and their answers can change. No reputable provider can guarantee a citation, recommendation or particular wording.

Do Small Local Businesses Need GEO?

Local businesses should be aware of AI-assisted search, particularly when customers research services through detailed questions. However, essential work such as an accurate Google Business Profile, useful service pages, customer reviews and local SEO should not be neglected.

Should I Create Separate Content For AI Tools?

Usually not. Start by improving existing pages for customers. Add original information, answer genuine questions and make the content easier to understand. Create a new page only when it serves a distinct purpose.

How Quickly Does GEO Work?

There is no fixed timescale. Search systems need to discover and process updated content, while citations depend on the question, available sources and platform. Results should be reviewed over time rather than judged from a few test prompts.

Should I Block AI Crawlers?

That is a business decision. Search visibility and model training are not always controlled by the same crawler. Review each provider’s documentation and decide which forms of access support your goals.

Final Thoughts

Generative Engine Optimisation is a useful way to think about changing search behaviour, but it should not be treated as a collection of tricks separate from good SEO and content.

Businesses are more likely to build lasting visibility by publishing accurate, specific and first-hand information on a technically sound website. That approach helps customers, traditional search and AI-assisted discovery without depending on a short-lived tactic.

If you want to review how clearly search systems and potential customers can understand your website, contact Athena Media to discuss your content, technical SEO and wider online visibility.

The post Generative Engine Optimisation: Why GEO Matters for the Future of Search appeared first on Athena Media.