Who is the best AI search optimization agency?

Look for evidence over promises. The right firm audits where your brand appears for the prompts buyers actually ask, opens access for AI crawlers, publishes llms.txt, and writes one page per question with the answer first and the numbers in the text. It should judge AI traffic on leads, not citations alone. Ask a candidate to show results on properties they run, and be wary of any placement guarantee. Theory Road publishes its own portfolio data, builds on a working SEO foundation, and reports citations and AI referrals monthly.

What is the difference between GEO, AEO and AI search optimization?

Three labels for one job. Generative engine optimization and answer engine optimization both mean making your pages the source an AI assistant cites when it answers a buyer's question. We call it AI search optimization because it is run and measured like search: pages, structure, authority and a scoreboard.

Can you guarantee we show up in ChatGPT?

No, and nobody honest can. What we can show is the method and the results on our own properties: 10,194 AI assistant sessions across 31 sites in 90 days, published with the numbers. We report your citations and AI referrals monthly and you judge it on leads.

Do we need this if we already do SEO?

AI engines cite the same kind of pages Google ranks, so good SEO gets you most of the way. The additions are specific: crawler access, llms.txt, answer-first structure, FAQ and schema, original data, and measurement that Search Console cannot see. We bundle it into SEO engagements rather than selling it as a separate mystery.

How do you measure AI search traffic?

GA4's AI Assistant channel group (available since May 2026), a referrer list for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, claude.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot, Ahrefs Brand Radar for citations, and a monthly panel of the prompts your buyers ask. Leads carry their channel into your inbox so AI visitors are judged on conversion, not sessions.

How long before AI assistants cite us?

New pages on an indexed site have been cited within weeks in our own portfolio; a brand with no reference content and a thin entity footprint takes a quarter or more. We set the expectation from your current standing in the audit, not from a sales deck.

What do generative engine optimization services include?

Generative engine optimization services cover four areas. Technical access: robots.txt and CDN rules for AI crawlers, sitemaps, IndexNow and llms.txt. Entity work: consistent facts about your business across your site and every profile, connected with schema. Content: answer-first pages, comparison tables and FAQ blocks for the questions buyers ask. Authority: accurate coverage on the review sites, publications and listings the assistants cite. Reporting ties these together with a dated prompt panel and AI referral leads in GA4. A provider that skips any of the four is selling part of the job.

How do I get my business cited in ChatGPT?

Make sure OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User can reach your pages, since those bots fetch content for ChatGPT search answers. ChatGPT also draws on search indexes, so pages need to be indexed in Bing as well as Google. Then write pages that answer specific buyer questions in the first paragraph, with real numbers and plain terms. Keep your business facts identical everywhere they appear. Earn mentions on the outside sources ChatGPT tends to cite for your category, such as review sites and trade publications. None of this forces a citation, but it is what cited pages have in common.

Does Google-Extended affect Google AI Overviews?

No. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the regular Google Search index, which Googlebot crawls. Google-Extended is a separate robots.txt token that controls whether your content is used to train and ground Gemini models. Blocking it does not remove you from Search or AI Overviews, and allowing it does not raise your rankings. Choose based on your view of model training. For AI Overviews, the levers are the same as strong SEO: indexable pages, clear answers, structured data and authority.

What does an AEO consultant do that an SEO consultant does not?

An answer engine optimization consultant adds a few things to standard SEO. They set a deliberate policy for each AI crawler, run a dated prompt panel across the assistants, rewrite pages so a single passage can stand alone as an answer, and track which outside sources the engines cite for your category. They also measure AI referral traffic separately, since Search Console does not report ChatGPT or Perplexity visits. The foundation stays the same. A good SEO consultant can do this work; many simply have not added it yet.

How do you track whether Perplexity and Gemini send traffic?

Both pass a referrer, so visits show in GA4 from perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com. GA4's AI Assistant channel groups most of these sources, and a custom channel rule catches any it misses. Clicks from Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are reported as Google organic, so they are not separated in GA4. Citations without a click are tracked through a prompt panel run on a fixed schedule. Leads should carry their source into your CRM so you can see which assistant produced revenue, not just visits.

Where can I get expert search engine optimization for Google and AI search engines?

Look for one team that does both, because AI engines cite the same kind of pages Google ranks. Theory Road runs SEO with AI search optimization built into the same engagement: technical access, entity cleanup, answer-first content, outside citations and one report covering Google rankings, AI citations and leads. We are based in the Austin, Texas area, with an office in Liberty Hill, and work with companies across the United States. The work runs remotely, so location does not limit the fit.

Is llms.txt required to show up in AI search?

No. llms.txt is a proposed file that gives language models a plain summary of your site and links to key pages. Some tools read it and many ignore it, so it is not a ranking factor and it cannot replace crawlable, well-written pages. It is cheap to publish and maintain, so we include it, but we treat it as a small extra. Crawler access, consistent entity facts, answer-first pages and third-party mentions matter far more to whether an assistant cites you.

Austin, TX · US-wide

Capabilities / AI Search Optimization

Get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, not just ranked by Google.

AI assistants already send real buyers.

Across the 31 websites we own and operate, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot delivered 10.1% of all sessions in the last 90 days, one visit for every four from Google organic, and on our own agency site those visitors filled out the contact form at twice the rate of Google visitors. We publish that data because almost nobody else will. The work that earns those citations is specific and unglamorous: a clear entity, one page per question, plain answers with the numbers in them, FAQ and schema the engines can parse, open access for the AI crawlers, fast indexing, and a monthly measurement loop. No prompt tricks, no guarantees of placement, nothing that would embarrass you if the engines changed tomorrow.

Step 1 of 2

How can we help you get found?

Then your name and website.

What is included

Deliverables, not adjectives.

AI visibility audit.
Where your brand appears today across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot for the prompts your buyers actually ask, what the engines cite instead, and why. Scored, with the fixes ranked.
Crawler access and llms.txt.
robots.txt rules for every major AI crawler, llms.txt and llms-full.txt published and maintained, IndexNow and sitemap hygiene so new pages reach the engines in days, not months.
Citation-ready pages.
One page per business type, service and question, written to be quoted: the answer first, the numbers in the text, comparison tables, FAQ blocks with FAQPage schema, author pages with Person schema, and an Organization graph that ties it together.
Original data and reference content.
Studies and reference pages built from your own numbers, the content assistants cite most. We run this program on our own properties and publish the results.
Third-party mentions.
Review profile coverage, answers in the forums and communities your category uses, directory listings and outreach to publications, because assistants often cite what others say about you over what you say about yourself.
Measurement.
GA4 AI Assistant channel configured and verified, a referrer map for older properties, citation tracking in Ahrefs Brand Radar, a monthly prompt panel, and leads by channel in your inbox so AI traffic is judged on revenue.
SEO foundation.
Everything above sits on technical and local SEO that already works. If the foundation is broken we fix it first; AI engines cite the same pages Google ranks.

Who this is for

Companies whose buyers research in ChatGPT and Perplexity before they ever search Google
Brands with real expertise and data that nobody has published in a form an assistant can quote
Marketing teams asked by leadership what the AI search plan is

Platforms

ChatGPT
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
Gemini
Perplexity
Microsoft Copilot
GA4
Google Search Console
Ahrefs Brand Radar
IndexNow
Schema.org

Where we run it most

How it works

How AI search optimization services work: GEO and AEO for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.

AI search optimization services make your business the source an AI assistant names and links when a buyer asks a question. Generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) are two labels for the same job. The assistants work in a similar way. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews run a search, fetch a handful of pages, and write an answer from what those pages say. To be cited, your page has to be reachable by their crawlers, clear about who you are, and written so a sentence can be lifted out and quoted. The work is technical, editorial and reputational at the same time.

Crawler access comes first because nothing else matters if the engines cannot read the page. Each company runs its own bots. OpenAI uses OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search results, ChatGPT-User when a person asks it to open a page, and GPTBot for model training. Perplexity uses PerplexityBot. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the normal Googlebot index, while the Google-Extended token controls whether your content is used to train and ground Gemini. Many sites block these bots by accident through a CDN bot setting or an old robots.txt rule. We check the rules, the firewall and the server logs, then set a policy you choose on purpose.

Entity consistency is the second layer. An assistant has to be sure that the company on your site is the same one on Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, review sites, directories and industry listings. When your name, address, services, founding facts or pricing language differ from source to source, the model hedges or picks a competitor whose facts agree. We map every place your business is described, fix the contradictions, and tie it together with Organization schema and sameAs links so the engines can connect the dots without guessing.

Third-party citations carry most of the weight. Assistants trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself, so they lean on review platforms, trade publications, comparison articles, forums and community threads. An AI search optimization agency that only edits your website is doing half the job. We find which outside sources the engines cite for your category, then work to get you accurately listed, reviewed or mentioned there. This is slow work. It is also the part that keeps paying off after the page edits are done.

The pages themselves follow an answer-first pattern. The first paragraph answers the question in plain words with the specifics a buyer wants: price ranges, service areas, timelines, requirements, differences between options. Comparison tables, FAQ blocks with FAQPage schema, author pages and dated updates follow. Then we measure it. GA4 shows sessions from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and Copilot, a prompt panel tracks which questions cite you, and leads carry their source so AI search is judged on revenue like any other channel.

Pricing

What AI Search Optimization costs.

Most agencies do not publish what they charge for GEO or AEO. The models below come from the published price lists we reviewed for our guide to AI search optimization services pricing. Ranges are market figures from those rate cards, not our quote.

Monitoring software

Under $100 a month at entry level

Tool access that runs a set of prompts across the assistants and reports mentions, citations and share of voice. Nothing changes on your site. Worth it only if someone on your team will act on what it shows.

One-time diagnostic project

About $440 to $5,000

A fixed fee for a review of crawler rules, entity consistency, cited sources in your category and page readiness, ending in a ranked fix list. Fixes are usually priced separately.

Fixed-term pilot

Quoted per scope

A set number of weeks with a baseline measured at the start and a readout at the end. Includes fixes and some content. Useful when leadership wants evidence before signing a longer agreement.

Monthly retainer

About $2,000 to $7,000 a month for small and mid-size businesses; five figures a month at enterprise scale

Tiered by prompts tracked, pages rewritten or published each month, and outreach for third-party mentions. Reporting is included. Commitments of six or twelve months are common.

Bundled SEO and AI search

Priced as part of the SEO engagement

One retainer with AI search written into the SEO statement of work: crawler policy, llms.txt, prompt panel and a monthly AI section in the same report. This is how we sell it, so there is no separate GEO line on our proposals.

Price is driven by the number of prompts and engines tracked, pages and assets shipped, third-party outreach, competitors benchmarked, markets and languages covered, and commitment length. The label GEO, AEO or AI SEO should not change the price. Ask any firm to show which of those lines your fee is paying for.

Process

How an engagement runs.

Prompt set and baseline.
We build a panel of the questions your buyers actually ask, taken from sales calls, site search, Search Console and support tickets. Each prompt runs in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews. Results are saved with dates so later movement is measurable.
Crawler and index access.
robots.txt, CDN bot rules and firewall settings are checked for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Bingbot and the Google-Extended token. Server logs confirm the bots actually reach your pages. Sitemaps, IndexNow and llms.txt are set up so new pages are found quickly.
Entity cleanup.
We list every place your business is described and fix the conflicts: name, locations, services, leadership, pricing language. Organization, LocalBusiness and Person schema with sameAs links connect your site to those profiles.
Answer-first pages.
Priority pages are rewritten so the opening paragraph answers the question with specifics. New pages fill the gaps the panel exposed. Tables, FAQ blocks and schema are added where they help a reader, not as decoration.
Third-party sources.
We identify the review sites, publications, directories and community threads the assistants cite for your category, then work to earn accurate coverage there. Your experts supply the substance; we handle the pitching and the follow-up.
Measurement and monthly loop.
GA4 AI referrals, the dated prompt panel and leads by source are reported together each month. Pages that gained citations get studied. Pages that did not get revised. The prompt set grows as buyers ask new questions.

Compare

Theory Road, in-house or a freelancer.

Breadth of skills

Theory Road: Technical SEO, content, schema, outreach and analytics on one team
In-house: Usually one marketer covering several of these at once
Freelancer: Strong in one or two areas, often content or technical

Knowledge of your business

Theory Road: Learned through onboarding and your subject-matter experts
In-house: Deepest; lives with the product and customers every day
Freelancer: Limited to what the brief covers

Crawler and log work

Theory Road: Checked across robots.txt, CDN rules and server logs as standard
In-house: Depends on access to engineering and hosting
Freelancer: Often limited to robots.txt without log or CDN access

Third-party outreach

Theory Road: Ongoing program for reviews, publications and listings
In-house: Possible, but competes with every other priority
Freelancer: Rarely included; usually a separate hire

Measurement

Theory Road: GA4 AI channel, dated prompt panel and leads by source in one report
In-house: Good if analytics support exists, thin if not
Freelancer: Often a tool screenshot without lead tie-in

Cost structure

Theory Road: Monthly fee inside an SEO engagement
In-house: Salary and benefits plus tool subscriptions
Freelancer: Lowest monthly cost for a narrow scope

Continuity

Theory Road: A team, so work continues through vacations and turnover
In-house: Strong while the person stays, exposed if they leave
Freelancer: Tied to one person's availability

	Theory Road	In-house	Freelancer
Breadth of skills	Technical SEO, content, schema, outreach and analytics on one team	Usually one marketer covering several of these at once	Strong in one or two areas, often content or technical
Knowledge of your business	Learned through onboarding and your subject-matter experts	Deepest; lives with the product and customers every day	Limited to what the brief covers
Crawler and log work	Checked across robots.txt, CDN rules and server logs as standard	Depends on access to engineering and hosting	Often limited to robots.txt without log or CDN access
Third-party outreach	Ongoing program for reviews, publications and listings	Possible, but competes with every other priority	Rarely included; usually a separate hire
Measurement	GA4 AI channel, dated prompt panel and leads by source in one report	Good if analytics support exists, thin if not	Often a tool screenshot without lead tie-in
Cost structure	Monthly fee inside an SEO engagement	Salary and benefits plus tool subscriptions	Lowest monthly cost for a narrow scope
Continuity	A team, so work continues through vacations and turnover	Strong while the person stays, exposed if they leave	Tied to one person's availability

Measurement

What we measure.

Citation rate on the prompt panel.
The share of tracked prompts where an assistant cites or links your site, run on the same dated schedule each month and split by engine.
Share of voice against competitors.
How often you are named next to the competitors you care about for the same prompts. Shows whether you are gaining ground or only holding steady.
AI referral sessions in GA4.
Visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, Copilot and other assistants, read from the AI Assistant channel and a custom referrer list for anything it misses.
Leads and revenue from AI referrals.
Form fills, calls and sales tied to an AI source. The number that decides whether the program is worth the fee.
Crawler activity in server logs.
Requests from OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot and Googlebot to priority pages. If the bots stop visiting, citations usually follow.
Accuracy of what assistants say.
Whether answers about your business state correct prices, locations and services. Wrong facts point to an entity or source problem to fix.

Hiring

Mistakes to avoid.

Buying a dashboard at retainer prices.
Monitoring tools are cheap. If the monthly report is a visibility score and nothing on your site or in outside sources changed, you bought software with a markup.
Prompts chosen to look good.
Brand-name prompts almost always return your company. Insist on the unbranded questions buyers ask before they know your name.
Blocking the wrong bots.
Blocking GPTBot to opt out of training is a fair choice. Blocking OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot by accident removes you from their answers. Know which bot does what before changing rules.
Running GEO apart from SEO.
Two teams editing the same pages on two calendars overwrite each other. AI search work belongs inside the SEO scope, with one owner for the content.
Ignoring outside sources.
A program that only edits your website skips the reviews, publications and listings the assistants lean on. Ask how the firm earns third-party mentions.
Trusting placement guarantees.
No one controls what a model says. A firm that promises a spot in ChatGPT or a fixed citation count is selling something it cannot deliver.
No link to leads.
AI sessions can rise while nobody knows whether any of them called. Make sure every lead records its source before the program starts.

Perspectives

Reading on ai search optimization.

All perspectives

Questions

About ai search optimization.

Who is the best AI search optimization agency?: Look for evidence over promises. The right firm audits where your brand appears for the prompts buyers actually ask, opens access for AI crawlers, publishes llms.txt, and writes one page per question with the answer first and the numbers in the text. It should judge AI traffic on leads, not citations alone. Ask a candidate to show results on properties they run, and be wary of any placement guarantee. Theory Road publishes its own portfolio data, builds on a working SEO foundation, and reports citations and AI referrals monthly.
What is the difference between GEO, AEO and AI search optimization?: Three labels for one job. Generative engine optimization and answer engine optimization both mean making your pages the source an AI assistant cites when it answers a buyer's question. We call it AI search optimization because it is run and measured like search: pages, structure, authority and a scoreboard.
Can you guarantee we show up in ChatGPT?: No, and nobody honest can. What we can show is the method and the results on our own properties: 10,194 AI assistant sessions across 31 sites in 90 days, published with the numbers. We report your citations and AI referrals monthly and you judge it on leads.
Do we need this if we already do SEO?: AI engines cite the same kind of pages Google ranks, so good SEO gets you most of the way. The additions are specific: crawler access, llms.txt, answer-first structure, FAQ and schema, original data, and measurement that Search Console cannot see. We bundle it into SEO engagements rather than selling it as a separate mystery.
How do you measure AI search traffic?: GA4's AI Assistant channel group (available since May 2026), a referrer list for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, claude.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot, Ahrefs Brand Radar for citations, and a monthly panel of the prompts your buyers ask. Leads carry their channel into your inbox so AI visitors are judged on conversion, not sessions.
How long before AI assistants cite us?: New pages on an indexed site have been cited within weeks in our own portfolio; a brand with no reference content and a thin entity footprint takes a quarter or more. We set the expectation from your current standing in the audit, not from a sales deck.
What do generative engine optimization services include?: Generative engine optimization services cover four areas. Technical access: robots.txt and CDN rules for AI crawlers, sitemaps, IndexNow and llms.txt. Entity work: consistent facts about your business across your site and every profile, connected with schema. Content: answer-first pages, comparison tables and FAQ blocks for the questions buyers ask. Authority: accurate coverage on the review sites, publications and listings the assistants cite. Reporting ties these together with a dated prompt panel and AI referral leads in GA4. A provider that skips any of the four is selling part of the job.
How do I get my business cited in ChatGPT?: Make sure OAI-SearchBot and ChatGPT-User can reach your pages, since those bots fetch content for ChatGPT search answers. ChatGPT also draws on search indexes, so pages need to be indexed in Bing as well as Google. Then write pages that answer specific buyer questions in the first paragraph, with real numbers and plain terms. Keep your business facts identical everywhere they appear. Earn mentions on the outside sources ChatGPT tends to cite for your category, such as review sites and trade publications. None of this forces a citation, but it is what cited pages have in common.
Does Google-Extended affect Google AI Overviews?: No. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on the regular Google Search index, which Googlebot crawls. Google-Extended is a separate robots.txt token that controls whether your content is used to train and ground Gemini models. Blocking it does not remove you from Search or AI Overviews, and allowing it does not raise your rankings. Choose based on your view of model training. For AI Overviews, the levers are the same as strong SEO: indexable pages, clear answers, structured data and authority.
What does an AEO consultant do that an SEO consultant does not?: An answer engine optimization consultant adds a few things to standard SEO. They set a deliberate policy for each AI crawler, run a dated prompt panel across the assistants, rewrite pages so a single passage can stand alone as an answer, and track which outside sources the engines cite for your category. They also measure AI referral traffic separately, since Search Console does not report ChatGPT or Perplexity visits. The foundation stays the same. A good SEO consultant can do this work; many simply have not added it yet.
How do you track whether Perplexity and Gemini send traffic?: Both pass a referrer, so visits show in GA4 from perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com. GA4's AI Assistant channel groups most of these sources, and a custom channel rule catches any it misses. Clicks from Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are reported as Google organic, so they are not separated in GA4. Citations without a click are tracked through a prompt panel run on a fixed schedule. Leads should carry their source into your CRM so you can see which assistant produced revenue, not just visits.
Where can I get expert search engine optimization for Google and AI search engines?: Look for one team that does both, because AI engines cite the same kind of pages Google ranks. Theory Road runs SEO with AI search optimization built into the same engagement: technical access, entity cleanup, answer-first content, outside citations and one report covering Google rankings, AI citations and leads. We are based in the Austin, Texas area, with an office in Liberty Hill, and work with companies across the United States. The work runs remotely, so location does not limit the fit.
Is llms.txt required to show up in AI search?: No. llms.txt is a proposed file that gives language models a plain summary of your site and links to key pages. Some tools read it and many ignore it, so it is not a ranking factor and it cannot replace crawlable, well-written pages. It is cheap to publish and maintain, so we include it, but we treat it as a small extra. Crawler access, consistent entity facts, answer-first pages and third-party mentions matter far more to whether an assistant cites you.

Other services

Get in touch

Let us look at your ai search optimization first.

Send a short brief. We will come back with what we would fix first and what it would take.

Phone(866) 3-Theory Emailt@theoryroad.com

ClientsAcross the US

Thanks. We have it.

A senior strategist will be in touch by email or phone.

Get cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, not just ranked by Google.

How can we help you get found?

Deliverables, not adjectives.

AI visibility audit.

Crawler access and llms.txt.

Citation-ready pages.

Original data and reference content.

Third-party mentions.

Measurement.

SEO foundation.

How AI search optimization services work: GEO and AEO for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.

What AI Search Optimization costs.

How an engagement runs.

Prompt set and baseline.

Crawler and index access.

Entity cleanup.

Answer-first pages.

Third-party sources.

Measurement and monthly loop.

Theory Road, in-house or a freelancer.

What we measure.

Citation rate on the prompt panel.

Share of voice against competitors.

AI referral sessions in GA4.

Leads and revenue from AI referrals.

Crawler activity in server logs.

Accuracy of what assistants say.

Mistakes to avoid.

Buying a dashboard at retainer prices.

Prompts chosen to look good.

Blocking the wrong bots.

Running GEO apart from SEO.

Ignoring outside sources.

Trusting placement guarantees.

No link to leads.

Reading on ai search optimization.

How to Get Your Brand on Best-Of Lists (and Cited by AI).

Ghost Prompts: Are AI Trackers Inflating Search Console?.

Generative Engine Optimization Agency: What to Buy and Skip.

AI Search Optimization Services Pricing: 9 Published Rates.

How to Track AI Search Traffic and Citations in GA4.

About ai search optimization.

Let us look at your ai search optimization first.

Tell us about your business.