AEO for small businesses in the UK: what is worth doing?

Short answer: AEO, or answer engine optimisation, means writing pages so a search engine or AI assistant can lift a plain answer from them and name you. Google says no special optimisation is needed for AI Overviews beyond normal SEO. For a UK small business that leaves a short checklist, one crawler setting to check, and the ASA’s evidence rule for any claim in the answer. Do those before paying for anything labelled AEO.

Much of what is sold as AEO is ordinary SEO with a new label. We think that is worth saying early, because the label comes with a price tag and the work underneath barely changes.

This page is for the owner who wants to know what to do on Monday morning. It sits under our UK guide to SEO, AEO and GEO, and the plain definitions are in SEO, AEO and GEO explained.

Google says there is nothing special to do

Google’s page for site owners, AI features and your website, last updated on 10 December 2025, says there are “no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode”, and that no other special optimisation is necessary. To be eligible, “a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet”, and “There are no additional technical requirements.” It also says: “There’s also no special schema.org structured data that you need to add.”

Meeting the requirements does not guarantee a page is crawled, indexed or served. What the page lists are ordinary practices: allow crawling in robots.txt and by any CDN or hosting infrastructure, link pages together, offer a good page experience, keep important content in text, and keep Business Profile information up to date.

Our view: this should make you sceptical of any package priced as a separate AEO product. What remains is doing the ordinary things well, for the questions your customers actually ask.

It still matters. Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 report, published on 10 December 2025, says around 30% of keyword search queries deliver an AI overview, and 53% of UK adults say they see these summaries often, in research by YouGov that Ofcom cites.

Who answer work pays for, and who can leave it

This section is opinion, and it is ours.

Answer work pays for businesses whose buyers ask questions before they buy. A trade with a diagnosis step is the clearest case. Professional services fit too, as does anything regulated or priced by quote, where the buyer wants some idea of what to expect.

It can wait for a business whose site has pages Google has not indexed. Fix that first, because Google says indexing is the requirement. It can wait for a business with no time to write, since a half-finished programme is worse than a short, finished one. And it can wait where buyers search a name, not a question.

For a purely local trade, local SEO for UK small businesses is the better first job.

The checklist, in the order we would do it

1. Check your pages are indexed and can show a snippet. Search Console shows which pages are in and which are not.
2. Check robots.txt, and any CDN or host, is not blocking crawlers. Google lists this as a practice. An old security setting can quietly block the visitors you want.
3. Write down the ten questions customers ask on the phone. Use the real ones, in the customer’s words. Ask whoever answers the phone.
4. Answer each one in the first two sentences under a heading that is the question. Give the answer first and the reasoning after.
5. Put the answer in text, not in an image or a PDF. A price list locked in a picture cannot be quoted.
6. State who you are, where you cover and what it costs, in plain sentences. For the company details that belong in the footer, the UK guide covers them.
7. Make any structured data match the words on the page. If you have none, you are not behind.
8. Keep your Google Business Profile current. Hours, services and address go stale first.

None of the eight needs new software.

Your answer is an advert in the ASA’s eyes

This is the UK-specific part, and imported advice tends to miss it.

The ASA’s Remit: General page, dated 17 June 2026, says: “The Code also applies to claims on a marketer’s own website and in other non-paid for space online under their control”, where they are “directly connected with the supply of goods or services, opportunities, prizes or gifts.” The Code does not apply to editorial material or press releases. The website remit dates from 2011, so this is not new.

Its Types of claims: General page, dated 12 March 2026, says marketers “should ensure that they hold evidence to support all claims” that consumers are likely to take as objective. Without enough evidence, the ASA is likely to treat an objective claim as misleading. It looks at an ad from the consumer’s perspective, and it permits obvious exaggeration, and claims the average consumer is unlikely to take literally, provided they do not materially mislead.

A direct answer is exactly the sort of sentence that gets lifted and repeated, so an unsupported claim travels further when it sits in the answer. Our practical rule: write answers as facts you can show evidence for, such as years trading, accreditations or a price list, and keep opinion looking like opinion. The ASA keeps separate guidance on words such as best and leading, so read it before either goes into an answer.

The crawler you may be blocking without knowing

OpenAI’s Overview of OpenAI Crawlers describes three crawlers that do different jobs.

“OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in search results in ChatGPT’s search features.” Sites opted out of it “will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers”, though they can still appear as navigational links. GPTBot “is used to crawl content that may be used in training our generative AI foundation models.” ChatGPT-User acts on a user’s request and “is not used for crawling the web in an automatic fashion.”

So blocking the training crawler and blocking the search crawler are two different decisions. Treating them as one is the usual mistake.

Open your robots.txt, a plain text file you can read by adding /robots.txt to your web address. Then ask your web host, and the supplier of any security tool on the site, what else is blocked before a visitor reaches that file. We do not know what your setup blocks, and neither will you until you ask. OpenAI says “it can take ~24 hours from a site’s robots.txt update for our systems to adjust”.

Our view: a small business that wants enquiries should allow the search crawler. Whether to allow the training crawler is a separate choice.

The CMA rule on Google’s AI features, and what it leaves open

On 3 June 2026 the CMA published CMA secures fairer deal for publishers and improves Google search services in UK. It imposed a publisher conduct requirement on Google’s general search services, where Google has strategic market status.

The CMA says “publishers will now have effective tools to prevent their content being used to power AI features in search.” Google must ensure “publisher content is properly attributed, using clear links, in AI-generated search results.” Google “will have nine months to implement all changes.” The CMA’s summary on GOV.UK, updated on 4 August 2026, also lists a duty to give publishers “clear and detailed metrics on user engagement” with their content in AI features.

Here is what is not known. The release speaks of “content publishers, including news organisations”, and the pages we read do not define publisher, so we cannot say an ordinary small business website is covered. They also do not say whether opting out changes how a site appears in ordinary results. Wait for Google’s own documentation of the controls before changing anything.

Our view: most small businesses want to be named in AI answers, so the opt-out is not the useful part. The attribution duty is, because it is about clear links back to the source.

A Shrewsbury damp surveyor, worked through

This is a hypothetical, not a client: a two-person damp and timber surveying firm in Shrewsbury.

Before, the services page is made of adjectives. The survey price is hidden behind a line saying call us. The page claims the firm is the leading damp surveyor in Shropshire, with nothing behind it. Nobody has looked at robots.txt since the site was built.

After, the owners write down the ten questions customers ask on the phone, such as whether it is damp or condensation and how long a survey takes. Each becomes a heading, and the first two sentences under it answer it. The survey fee goes into a plain sentence. The leading claim goes, replaced by what they can evidence: years trading, the professional body they belong to, the area they cover. Where they have a view, it reads as a view. They check robots.txt and ask their host what else is blocked.

Because the firm is invented, there is no result to report. What its owners would watch next is whether the ten pages are indexed, whether they are named when asked the same ten questions in the assistants, and whether enquiries start to mention the answers.

What we would not spend money on

This is our opinion.

• A separate AEO retainer on top of SEO. Google says no special optimisation is needed, so the ordinary work belongs in your SEO budget.
• Special schema sold as an AI requirement. Google says there is no special schema.org structured data you need to add.
• Tools that promise a guaranteed place in AI answers. Google says meeting the requirements guarantees nothing about being crawled, indexed or served.
• Rewriting every page at once. Answer the ten questions first, then see which earn enquiries.

For what a fair fee looks like, see what SEO costs in the UK by the day. We print no price here, because days are the thing to compare.

Counting results when clicks do not move

Google says sites appearing in AI features are included in Search Console’s Performance report, within the “Web” search type. Google’s page describes no separate report for it, so flat clicks cannot tell you whether the answers work.

Once a month, ask the assistants your ten questions and record who is named. Keep the same ten. Add a how-did-you-hear-about-us field to your enquiry form. Judge the work on enquiries. If you want help, that is what our SEO, AEO and GEO service is for.

Frequently asked questions

What is AEO for a small business in the UK?

AEO, or answer engine optimisation, means writing pages so a search engine or AI assistant can lift a plain answer from them and name you. Google says AI Overviews need no special optimisation beyond normal SEO. For a UK small business that means a short checklist of ordinary tasks, a check on one crawler setting, and evidence for any claim your answers make.

Do I need special schema markup to appear in AI Overviews?

No. Google’s Search Central says there is no special schema.org structured data that you need to add to appear in AI features, and no additional technical requirements. A page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet. If you do use structured data, make sure it matches the visible text on the page.

Can a UK website opt out of Google’s AI Overviews?

Not in any way we can confirm yet. On 3 June 2026 the CMA required Google to give publishers effective tools to stop their content powering AI features in search, and Google has nine months to implement the changes. The pages we read do not define publisher, so we cannot say a small business site is covered. Wait for Google’s own documentation before changing anything.

Do the ASA’s rules apply to answers on my own website?

Yes, where the claims are directly connected with the supply of goods or services. The ASA says the Code applies to claims on a marketer’s own website and in other non-paid for space online under their control. It does not apply to editorial material or press releases. Marketers should hold evidence for objective claims, so an unsupported claim in an answer can be treated as misleading.

Will blocking GPTBot stop my business appearing in ChatGPT search?

No. GPTBot is the crawler for content that may be used in training OpenAI’s models, while OAI-SearchBot is the one used to surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features. OpenAI says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links. Allow about 24 hours for a robots.txt change to take effect.

How many UK searches show an AI overview?

Ofcom’s Online Nation 2025 report, published on 10 December 2025, says around 30% of keyword search queries deliver an AI overview. It also reports that 53% of UK adults say they see these summaries often, in research by YouGov. That is a figure for keyword searches in general, not for your trade or your area, so treat it as context, not a forecast.

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