Matt Turley, Continuum. Updated September 23, 2026.
People call this AI SEO, ChatGPT SEO, or answer engine optimization (AEO). The name matters less than the job: when a buyer asks an AI for what you do, your business is one of the names it gives.
Get your name into the places the AI already reads when your buyer asks. That means a page on your site titled with the buyer’s exact question, a profile on the directories and review sites it cites for your category, and real answers in the forum threads it pulls. Then re-ask the same questions every week, three runs each, because answers change from run to run.
Before changing anything, write down the 8 to 12 questions a buyer would actually type. Not your brand name. The problem. Ask each one in ChatGPT and Perplexity three times and write down two things: whether you were named, and which websites got cited.
We did this for our own business first. Across 8 buyer questions, 3 runs each on 2 engines, Continuum was named in 1 of 48 answers. That is the honest starting line, and it is on this page so the after can be checked against it.
Three runs matters. The same question can name you on Tuesday and skip you on Wednesday. Only count a question as won when you show up in most of the runs.
The AI can pull your page in as a source and still not say your name in the answer. We saw it happen with one of our own Reddit threads. Google's AI Overview cited it because the title was nearly the same as the search, but the answer itself stayed generic. To get named, the source the AI reads has to present you as the answer, clearly, not just talk about the topic.
There is no single list of places to be. When we checked 12 Charleston trip questions, the engines cited 302 links. TripAdvisor was 47 of them. Reddit was 4. For software questions it flips, and Reddit, GitHub and dev.to lead. So the second step is always the same: look at what gets cited for your questions, then go be in those places.
So judge the first two weeks on Perplexity and Google, and treat ChatGPT as a trend line.
Do not publish 200 AI-written articles. The engines already have plenty of that, and it is what they are learning to skip. What gets cited is specific and firsthand. One of the Reddit threads cited in our Charleston check has answers that name a specific tour and even the guide to ask for. If Reddit is one of your sources, read how to use Reddit to get customers without getting banned before you post anything.
That is what Get Users is for: $1,200 a month, month to month. If you have a date on the calendar, the Deadline AEO Sprint is a two-week, $3,500 one-time sprint measured before and after on your own buyer questions.
Not sure where you stand yet? Run the free AI visibility check first.