GEO · AEO · AI Search
GEO and AEO for Melbourne businesses: get named when someone asks AI.
GEO and AEO are the work of getting a business named inside an AI answer. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is about the signals that make an AI understand and trust what your business does. AEO, answer engine optimisation, is about structuring your pages so an assistant can lift a clean answer straight out of them. In practice it is one job: when someone in Melbourne asks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini or Perplexity for a plumber, a cleaner or an accountant near them, your business is one of the handful that gets named. Savio Digital does this work as part of every plan, on the same CRM that handles the enquiries it brings you.
- Structured data an AI can actually read
- GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot let in
- Question-shaped pages built to be quoted
- Your details matched everywhere
- Included in every plan
- Free strategy call, no obligation
What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO is about being found. It decides whether your business appears in a list of blue links when somebody searches, and it is measured in rankings and clicks.
AEO is about being quoted. An answer engine reads a page, lifts a passage out of it, and shows that passage as the answer. Whether yours is the page it lifts depends on how the page is built: whether the question is asked out loud in a heading, whether the answer underneath stands alone without needing the heading, and whether the facts sit in a list rather than buried mid-paragraph.
GEO is about being trusted. Before an assistant recommends anybody it has to work out who they are: what the business does, where it operates, who runs it, and whether other sources agree. That is an entity problem rather than a keyword problem, and it is solved with structured data, details that match everywhere you are listed, and reviews that are genuinely there.
All three are worth doing and none replaces the others. A business that ranks first and cannot be quoted loses the answer. A business that is quotable but unknown to the model never gets considered in the first place.
Why does this matter now?
An AI answer is not a list. When somebody searches, they get ten results and choose one. When somebody asks an assistant, they get a handful of names, often just one, and everybody else is simply absent. There is no page two to be on.
The answer replaces the list
A page of search results gives ten businesses a chance. An AI answer usually names three, and frequently one. Being eleventh in search costs you some traffic. Not being named in the answer costs you the whole question.
Assistants do not run your website's JavaScript
Google renders a page in a browser before reading it. The crawlers behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity largely do not. Anything that only appears after the page loads, including structured data added by a script, is invisible to them. This is the most common reason a site that looks perfectly fine gets ignored.
Nobody checks whether they were mentioned
Rankings get tracked obsessively. AI mentions almost never do. Most businesses have no idea whether an assistant names them, names a competitor, or states their hours wrongly, because nobody has ever thought to ask it.
Your details have to agree with themselves
An assistant cross-references. If your hours differ between your website and your Google profile, or your service area says one thing in your copy and another on your listing, the model trusts all of it less and reaches for a business it is surer about.
How is it actually done?
Your business gets defined once, in a form a machine can read
Structured data describing what you do, where you work, what you charge, who runs it and which questions you answer. It goes into the page itself rather than being added afterwards by a script, so a crawler that does not run JavaScript still sees all of it.
The pages get written as questions and answers
Each heading becomes a question somebody would actually type or say out loud. The paragraph underneath answers it completely, without needing the heading for context, because that is how a passage gets lifted into an answer.
The AI crawlers are let in
GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are checked against your robots file. Blocking them is a common default that nobody chooses on purpose, and it quietly removes you from every AI answer.
Your details are made to agree everywhere
Name, hours, service area, phone and services matched across your website, your Google Business Profile and any directory carrying you, so an assistant cross-checking you finds one consistent story instead of three.
Then somebody actually asks
You get told what ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity say when asked for a business like yours in your suburb, who they name instead of you, and whether what they say about you is even correct.
What is included?
- Structured data written into the page, not added by a script
- LocalBusiness, Service, Person, FAQ and Breadcrumb schema
- Question-shaped headings with standalone answers underneath
- GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended access checked
- Google Business Profile details matched to your website
- Page titles and descriptions written for every page
- Pricing and comparison facts in formats an assistant can lift
- A plain-language report of what the assistants say about you
- Re-checked and adjusted as the answers move
Where does Savio work?
Savio Digital is based in Melbourne and does this work for local businesses across the metropolitan area and regional Victoria. Location matters more here than almost anywhere else, because an assistant asked for a business near somebody is answering a local question, and it will not name you unless it is confident you serve that place.
- Melbourne CBD and inner suburbs
- Northern suburbs, including Preston, Reservoir and Epping
- Eastern suburbs, including Box Hill, Ringwood and Croydon
- South east, including Dandenong, Berwick and Cranbourne
- Bayside and the Mornington Peninsula
- Western suburbs, including Footscray, Werribee and Melton
- Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo
- Regional Victoria and the rest of Australia
What this does not do
This is the newest and least settled corner of search, and there is a great deal of confident nonsense being sold around it. Here is what nobody can honestly promise you.
It does not guarantee you get named
Nobody controls what an assistant says. What can be controlled is whether your business is legible to it, whether your pages can be quoted, and whether your details agree with each other. Anyone selling a guaranteed AI ranking is selling something that does not exist.
There is no ranking to check
AI answers change with who is asking, where they are and how the question was phrased. There is no single position to report. What you get is a plain description of what the assistants actually said, which is honest but is not a league table.
It will not invent authority you do not have
An assistant weighs reviews and mentions elsewhere. A business with no reviews and no presence anywhere else is a thin entity, and structured data does not fix that. The review automation and the website are doing that half of the job.
It is not a substitute for ordinary SEO
Most people still search normally. GEO and AEO are added on top of a site built to rank, not instead of one. Anyone telling you SEO is dead is selling you the replacement.
Common questions about GEO and AEO
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It is the work of making a business legible and trustworthy to AI systems, so that when somebody asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews or Perplexity for a recommendation, that business is one of the ones named. It is an entity problem rather than a keyword problem: the model has to be confident about what you do, where you do it and who you are before it will put your name in an answer.
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. It is the practice of structuring a page so an answer engine can lift a clean, correct passage straight out of it. In practice that means asking the real question in the heading, answering it completely in the paragraph underneath without relying on the heading for context, and keeping the important facts in lists rather than buried in prose.
SEO is about being found and is measured in rankings and clicks. AEO is about being quoted and depends on how a page is structured. GEO is about being trusted and depends on whether an AI can work out who your business is and whether other sources agree. They overlap heavily and none of them replaces the others.
No. Most searches are still ordinary searches, and the same website quality that ranks well is what makes a page worth quoting in the first place. GEO and AEO are added on top of a site built to rank, not instead of one.
You get told what the assistants actually say when asked for a business like yours in your area, who they name instead of you, and whether the details they give about you are correct. There is no ranking number, because AI answers change with who is asking and where they are. Anyone showing you an AI ranking chart has invented it.
Usually because the important parts are added by JavaScript after the page loads. Google runs a browser and sees them. The crawlers behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity largely do not, so anything injected by a script, including structured data added that way, is invisible to them. It is the single most common reason a good-looking site gets ignored by assistants.
If you want to be named in AI answers, yes. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are the ones that matter. Plenty of sites block them without anybody having decided to, which quietly removes that business from every AI answer. It is worth being a deliberate choice either way.
It is a plain text file at the root of a site listing the most important pages with a short description of each, so a model has a curated map instead of guessing from a generic crawl. It is a proposed standard rather than an official one, and whether your site can serve one depends entirely on your hosting, so it is not part of the standard package. If your setup supports it, ask and it gets added.
It is part of your plan rather than a separate line item. Installation is $200, paid once, and free if you start on Growth or Complete. After that you pick a plan, from $31 a week, rolling, with no lock-in and no exit fee. The strategy call is free and you will have the full number in writing before you commit to anything.
The structured data and the crawler access land immediately. Whether an assistant starts naming you depends on the same slow signals as local search, particularly reviews and mentions elsewhere, so it is a matter of months rather than days. Anyone promising you a date is guessing.
The rest of the CRM
Every part runs inside the one system, and each works on its own. Together they close every gap between someone searching for what you do and booking you to do it.
- The CRMOne inbox, a lead and quote pipeline, and a live dashboard you can check any time.
- Websites and local SEODesigned, written and built to rank, so locals find you first.
- Google reviewsEvery finished job asks for a review automatically.
- Missed call text backA text within seconds of any call you cannot take.
- Lead managementEvery enquiry and quote tracked until it is won or lost.
- AI voice receptionistAnswers the calls you cannot, day or night.
Find out what AI already says about you
Book a free strategy call. I will ask ChatGPT and Perplexity for a business like yours in your suburb while we talk, and read you exactly what comes back, including who they name instead of you and whether your details are right. Sometimes the answer is that you are already there, and I will say so. It's $200 to install, free on Growth and Complete, then plans from $31 a week. No pitch deck, no obligation.