AEO checklist for US small businesses: eight jobs, none of them new

Short answer: AEO, or answer engine optimization, 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 optimization beyond normal SEO. For a US small business that leaves eight ordinary jobs, one crawler setting to check, and the FTC’s rule that claims need proof. Do those before paying for anything labeled AEO.

Plenty of AEO offers are SEO under a fresh name. Check the basics first.

This article sits under our US guide to SEO, AEO and GEO. The plain definitions are in SEO, AEO and GEO explained.

What one US study found about clicks and AI summaries

The best independent read we have on American searchers comes from the Pew Research Center. Athena Chapekis and Anna Lieb published Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results on July 22, 2025. It rests on the browsing activity of 900 US adults who agreed to share it, for March 1 to 31, 2025, covering 68,879 unique Google searches.

The reach: “Some 18% of all the Google searches in our study generated an AI summary as part of the search results.” Also, “About six-in-ten respondents (58%) conducted at least one Google search in March 2025 that produced an AI-generated summary.”

The clicks: “Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in 8% of all visits.” Those who did not see one “clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (15% of visits).” Clicking a link inside the summary itself: “This occurred in just 1% of all visits to pages with such a summary.”

The exits: ending the browsing session “happened on 26% of pages with an AI summary, compared with 16% of pages with only traditional search results.”

The sources: Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit were the most frequently linked sources in both AI summaries and standard results, at 15% of sources in AI summaries and 17% in standard results.

The caveats: one month in 2025, 900 people, all searches, not your trade or your town. It is context, not a forecast.

Now our reading, all of it opinion. If the summary answers the question, a searcher has less reason to open your site, so a page can keep its place and still see fewer visits. The 1% figure suggests the link inside a summary is not where most traffic will come from. The exit figure hints at a searcher who got what they needed, which for a local business can be a call that never shows up as a visit. The Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit result tells you the competition for a quoted answer is not only other businesses. Fewer clicks does not mean no value, because being named can still produce a call.

Google’s own page asks for nothing extra

Google’s AI features and your website, last updated on December 10, 2025, says: “There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” In our paraphrase, the page adds that no extra technical requirements apply and no special schema.org markup is needed. It points instead to the usual SEO fundamentals, including crawler access through robots.txt and any CDN or host, internal links, page experience, key content in text, structured data that matches what is visible, and current Business Profile details.

Google’s Search Help page on AI Overviews, Find information in faster & easier ways with AI Overviews in Google Search, carries no date. We read it on October 13, 2026. It says “Features cannot be turned off.” That describes the searcher’s side: a person searching cannot disable AI Overviews, but can choose the Web filter to see text links only.

Is answer work worth it for your business?

Our opinion: it pays when buyers have questions before they buy. A trade that diagnoses a problem before quoting is the clearest case. If the site has unindexed pages, fix that first. If customers search your business name instead of a question, it can wait. A purely local trade may do better to start with local SEO for US small businesses.

Eight jobs, in the order we would do them

1. Indexing and snippets. In Search Console, confirm the pages you care about are indexed and able to show a snippet.
2. Crawler access. Read your robots.txt and ask your host and any security vendor whether something blocks crawlers before they reach it. Bing deserves the same check; our US guide has a section called “Bing is not a rounding error here”, and we give no Bing figure here.
3. Real questions. List the ten things customers actually ask when they call, in their words, not yours.
4. Question headings. Make each question a heading and put the answer in the two sentences right under it.
5. Text, not pictures. Prices, hours and steps belong in page text. Inside an image or a PDF they are hard for anything to quote.
6. Plain facts about you. Write out who you are, your service area and your license numbers, and say what you charge or how you charge. Many US trades are state-licensed. “Call for a quote” gives a reader and an assistant nothing to repeat.
7. Honest markup. If you use structured data, make it say what the visible page says.
8. Business Profile upkeep. Review your Google Business Profile every so often.

The FTC already has a rule for the sentence that gets quoted

A tidy answer gets lifted and repeated. So an unsupported claim travels as far as the useful fact beside it.

The Federal Trade Commission publishes a guide pitched at small firms: Advertising FAQ’s: A Guide for Small Business. The page shows April 2001 and a note that it was edited January 2025. It says that under the Federal Trade Commission Act, “Advertising must be truthful and non-deceptive;” “Advertisers must have evidence to back up their claims; and” “Advertisements cannot be unfair.”

The evidence test is spelled out: “Before a company runs an ad, it has to have a ‘reasonable basis’ for the claims.” A reasonable basis “means objective evidence that supports the claim.” And: “The law requires that advertisers have proof before the ad runs.” So the proof comes first.

The page asks “Is advertising on the Internet subject to the same laws as other advertising?” and answers “Yes. Ad claims on the Internet must be truthful and substantiated.”

The guide says an ad is deceptive if it contains a statement, or omits information, that is likely to mislead consumers acting reasonably and is material, meaning important to the decision to buy.

Two details matter to a small business. First, “Statements from satisfied customers usually are not sufficient to support a health or safety claim” or any other claim that requires objective evaluation. Our reading: a glowing testimonial does not make a claim safe to repeat in your own voice. Second, the FTC pays less attention to “Ads that make subjective claims or claims that consumers can judge for themselves”, and gives “ABC Cola tastes great” as an example. Our reading: opinion that sounds like opinion is lower risk than a ranking that sounds like a fact.

Here is what we could not confirm. The page does not single out a company’s own service pages, so we are not saying how the FTC would treat any particular page. States also have their own consumer protection laws, which this guide does not cover. This is general information, not legal advice.

Our practical rule, which is opinion: write answers as facts you can show proof for. Years in business, a license number and a price list qualify. Keep opinion sounding like opinion. Take “best” and “number one” out of answers unless you hold the evidence.

Two OpenAI crawlers, two separate decisions

OpenAI’s Overview of OpenAI Crawlers, which we read on October 13, 2026, separates its bots by purpose. “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 the training crawler, and disallowing it tells OpenAI not to use your content for training its models. ChatGPT-User, as OpenAI describes it, does not crawl automatically and does not decide whether content may appear in search. OpenAI also notes a search-related robots.txt change can take around a day to take effect.

Our view: a small business that wants inquiries should let the search crawler in. The training crawler is a separate choice, and it is yours.

Limiting what Google shows, and what that costs you

Google’s page points to nosnippet, data-nosnippet, max-snippet and noindex as the controls for limiting what is shown from a page in Search. It describes no AI-only switch, so using these also trims your ordinary snippet. For AI training and grounding in some of Google’s other systems, it refers readers to Google-Extended.

Our view: a business that wants inquiries should leave these alone. A page with no snippet gives a searcher less to go on, and that is the cost.

A Tulsa heating and air company, worked through

This is a hypothetical, not a client: a family-owned heating and air company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We invented it, so there is no result to report.

Before, the service page is a wall of adjectives. It says “Tulsa’s #1 HVAC company” with nothing behind it. Prices hide behind “call for a quote”. Nobody has checked robots.txt.

After, the owners list the ten questions callers raise most. Two of them are whether to repair or replace an old unit, and how long an install takes. Each becomes a heading with a two-sentence answer beneath it. The page gets a plain sentence on the diagnostic fee, with no amount in this example. The “#1” line comes out. In its place go things they can prove: years in business, license numbers, the towns they serve. Then they read robots.txt and ask their host what else is blocked.

They would watch whether the new pages get indexed, whether the assistants name them when asked those same ten questions, and whether callers quote the answers back.

Where we would not spend the money

Our opinion: do not pay extra for AEO as its own retainer line. The ordinary work belongs inside your SEO budget. For what a fair fee looks like, see how much SEO costs in the US. We print no price here.

Be wary of anyone selling markup as a way into AI answers. Google’s page says none is needed, and it offers no guaranteed spot either.

Finally, do not publish bold claims you cannot back. Under the FTC’s proof rule, an answer that says you are the best, with nothing behind it, is a risk no tool fixes.

Telling whether it is working

Google says AI feature appearances are reported in Search Console: “they’re reported on in the Performance report, within the ‘Web’ search type.” Its page describes no separate AI report, so a flat click line cannot tell you whether the answers work.

Here is our method, which is opinion. Once a month, put the same ten questions to the assistants and write down which businesses get named. Add a “how did you hear about us” field to your inquiry form, and read the answers. If callers say an assistant mentioned you, a click chart will never show that. Judge the work by inquiries, not sessions. If you want help setting it up, that is what our SEO, AEO and GEO service is for.

Frequently asked questions

What is AEO for a small business in the US?

AEO, short for answer engine optimization, is the work of making your pages easy for a search engine or an AI assistant to quote, with your business named as the source. Google says AI Overviews need nothing beyond normal SEO. For a US small business, that comes down to eight everyday jobs, one crawler setting, and evidence behind every claim in your answers.

Do I need special schema markup to show up in AI Overviews?

No. Google’s Search Central page says no special schema.org structured data needs adding for AI Overviews or AI Mode, and it names no extra technical requirements. The usual SEO basics still apply, such as letting crawlers in through robots.txt. Any structured data you already have should match the text visitors can see on the page.

How often do Google searches show an AI summary?

In one Pew Research Center study, 18% of Google searches generated an AI summary. The study covered March 2025 and the browsing of 900 US adults, with 68,879 unique searches. It is one month, and it covers all searches, not your trade or your town. Treat it as context, not a forecast of what your customers will see.

Do FTC advertising rules apply to answers on my own website?

The FTC’s small business guide says ad claims on the Internet must be truthful and substantiated. It does not single out a company’s own service pages, so we cannot say how the FTC would treat any particular page, and states have their own consumer protection laws. Write answers as facts you can prove. This is general information, not legal advice.

Will blocking GPTBot keep my business out of ChatGPT search?

No. They are separate crawlers with separate jobs. GPTBot is the one tied to training OpenAI’s generative AI foundation models. OAI-SearchBot is the one that surfaces websites in ChatGPT’s search features, and OpenAI says sites opted out of it 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 register.

How do I know if AEO is working when clicks stay flat?

Clicks alone will not tell you, because Google’s page describes no separate AI report in Search Console. Our method: ask the assistants the same ten questions once a month and note who is named, put a how-did-you-hear-about-us field on your inquiry form, and judge by inquiries. Fewer clicks does not mean no value, since being named can still produce a phone call.

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