Getting found is now three different jobs.
For twenty years there was really only one question, and it was where you ranked on Google. That has stopped being the whole story. A customer is now just as likely to ask an assistant who to call and never see a list of links at all, so search results, direct answers and AI recommendations have become three separate problems. A business can be doing fine at one and invisible to the other two.
What follows is what each one means, how we work on it and what it costs. We have done all of it to this website already, so most of what we claim here you can check for yourself rather than take on trust.
SEO, AEO and GEO, without the jargon.
The three get used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Each one answers a different question about how a stranger ends up in front of your business. Our SEO vs AEO vs GEO guide sets the three side by side.
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01The oldest one
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation. Making a page rank in a list of blue links when somebody types a query into Google or Bing.
- Titles, headings and page structure a search engine can parse
- Speed, mobile rendering and a clean XML sitemap
- Local signals like your suburb, your service area and your Google Business Profile
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02The newer one
AEO
Answer Engine Optimisation. Being the source a system quotes when it answers a question directly instead of handing over a page of links. The AEO guide shows how a passage gets picked.
- Content written to answer one real question per section
- Facts marked up as structured data, not just left in prose
- Consistency, because a business that looks different in three places is not trusted
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03The one nobody is ready for
GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation. Being visible to the assistants themselves, which means ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews. The GEO guide explains where the term came from.
- Pages that render as real HTML, because many AI crawlers do not run JavaScript
- Crawler access granted deliberately, by name, in robots.txt
- An llms.txt summary of what the business does and what it costs
| Side by side | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| The question it answers | Where do I rank when someone searches? | Am I the source quoted in a direct answer? | Does an AI assistant name me when asked? |
| Where it shows up | Google and Bing results, and the map listings | Direct answers that quote one source instead of listing links | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews |
| What it leans on most | Titles, speed, mobile rendering and local signals | Answer-first content and structured data | Readable HTML, crawler access and consistent facts |
| How you can check it | Impressions and positions in Search Console | Whether your wording is the one quoted for a question you answer | Ask the assistants who to call for what you do |
The longer versions: What is AEO?, What is GEO? and SEO vs AEO vs GEO each take one of these apart in plain English, and the guides page lists them together.
Why this changed.
The question moved
A search result gives ten options and lets the customer choose. An assistant gives two or three and the rest may as well not exist. That is a much shorter list to be on, and the businesses on it are not always the ones ranking highest in the old sense.
Plenty of local sites cannot be read
Page builders assemble content with JavaScript after the page loads. Google renders that and copes. Several AI crawlers largely do not, so what they receive is an empty shell. The business is not being beaten, it is not being read.
The honest limit
Nobody selling this can promise you a position, in a search result or in an answer, and you should walk away from anyone who does. What the work does is remove the reasons you get ruled out before the question is even considered. The fair way to judge anyone offering it is to look at what they have done to their own site.
We did all of it here first.
Six things that are true of this website right now, each one confirmable from outside. Nothing goes on this list that you would have to take our word for.
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Real HTML, not a shell
The navigation, the footer and every word of this page are in the HTML the server sends. A crawler that never runs JavaScript still sees the whole site.
Check it: view source on this page and search for the footer text.
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AI crawlers allowed by name
Our robots.txt names GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, OAI-SearchBot and Google-Extended, and allows each one. It also separates the crawlers that answer questions from the ones that train models, because those are two different decisions.
Check it: /robots.txt.
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Structured data on every page
Every page, not only the homepage, carries the business, the site and the page itself as machine-readable facts, plus breadcrumbs and FAQ markup where they apply.
Check it: paste any page of ours into Google's Rich Results Test.
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An llms.txt that is current
A plain-text summary of what we do, what it costs and where to look, written for assistants rather than people. It is an emerging convention and not a ranking factor. We keep it current, because one that has gone out of date misleads the assistants it is there to help.
Check it: /llms.txt.
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One H1, unique titles
Every page has exactly one H1, its own title and its own meta description, and a canonical URL pointing at itself. Basic, and routinely wrong on sites we are asked to look at.
Check it: the free audit below tests this on your site.
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A free audit that actually runs
Thirty weighted checks that run live in your browser against this page, so you can watch them happen. The scan of your own site is one we run at our end and email over, because a browser is not allowed to read another site's code.
Check it: run it on this page.
How the work actually goes.
Every job starts with the audit, because there is no honest way to quote before one. Four stages, in this order.
We audit first
We run the thirty technical checks, then look at your Google Business Profile, your structured data, and whether a crawler that does not run JavaScript can read you at all.
You get it in writing
A list separating the quick wins from the real work, written plainly enough that you could hand it to somebody else and they would know what to do with it.
We fix the foundations
Titles, headings, canonicals, sitemap, robots rules, structured data, llms.txt, Analytics and Search Console. The unglamorous layer everything else sits on.
Then content, if you want it ongoing
Pages rewritten to answer the questions people actually type, submitted through Search Console, and a written report each month showing what changed. The content programme adds new articles on top, eight a month.
What it costs.
Five ways in. Which one fits depends on whether you want this fixed once, worked on every month, or whether what the site needs is new articles. Australian dollars with GST included, so the listed price is the total.
01One-off
Setup, small site
$899
one-off, up to about 10 pages
The whole technical foundation on a site you already own, with no ongoing fee attached.
- Unique titles and meta descriptions on every page
- Single-H1 correction, alt text, canonicals
- Clean XML sitemap and robots rules
- LocalBusiness, Service, breadcrumb and FAQ structured data
- llms.txt and AI crawler access
- Google Analytics and Search Console set up
- Add the image and visual review and it becomes the $1,049 whole-site fix
02One-off
Setup, larger site
$1,299
one-off, 11 to 40 pages
The same scope on a bigger site. Above 40 pages we quote it properly rather than guess.
- Everything in the small-site setup, across every page
- Duplicate and thin page resolution
- Internal linking pass across the whole site
03Setup plus monthly
SEO, AEO & GEO plan
$899 setup
then $349/mo
month to month, no minimum term, no cancellation fee
For a site that needs the foundation fixed and then kept moving, without signing up to a campaign.
- Setup covers the audit and the full technical foundation, plus:
- 2 pages optimised every month
- 150 to 300 words of new or expanded content per page
- Structured data and internal links updated on those pages
- Submitted through Search Console and available AI indexing routes
- 2 Google Business Profile posts a month
- A written monthly report
04Campaign
Advanced Local SEO Campaign
$849/mo
ongoing, the full local search campaign
A much larger monthly scope, for businesses competing hard in a local market.
- Google Business Profile content and review replies
- A new suburb or service page each month
- Citation building
- Ongoing local search work against your competitors
05Monthly
Content programme
$999/mo
no setup fee, three months minimum, then month to month
Eight new articles a month, written from the facts you give us, for a site whose foundation is sound and whose pages nobody has time to add to.
- 8 articles a month, published on two fixed days a week
- Every article drafted with AI writing tools, then checked against your facts by a person here before it goes live
- Internal links, structured data and a featured image on each one
- Published on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow and other supported platforms, or on a site we built
- A written monthly report from your own Search Console
- No bought links and no link exchanges
If you are unsure which one fits, run the free audit first. It will usually point at one of these, and every so often it points at none of them, which is also a useful answer. To see these five next to the website builds and the AI agents instead of on their own, the Brisbane website cost guide lists the whole ladder on one page.
Where the work stops.
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Not included
Backlink building, paid advertising, competitor monitoring, review collection, and Google Business Profile creation or verification, which Google requires the owner to do personally. New articles are their own line, the content programme above, and are not inside the setup or the monthly plan.
The rest is available and quoted separately. Ads and campaigns live on Marketing.
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Not for sale by anyone
Nobody can sell you a guaranteed position on Google, a guarantee that an assistant will recommend you, or a set number of leads a month. None of those sit within anyone's control, and being promised one is the clearest sign you are being sold to.
What we will tell you is exactly what we changed, and what happened after.
Which way in suits you.
Four situations, and the option each one points to. The audit settles it either way.
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Fix it once
The site looks right but search engines and assistants misread it. The one-off setup, $899 up to about 10 pages or $1,299 for 11 to 40, fixes the foundation with no ongoing fee.
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Keep it moving
You want steady monthly progress without signing up to a campaign. The plan is $899 setup, then $349 a month for two pages optimised, two Google Business Profile posts and a written report, month to month.
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Compete for the same suburbs
Several businesses are chasing the same local searches. The Advanced Local SEO Campaign, $849 a month, adds Business Profile content, review replies, a new suburb or service page each month and citation building.
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Say more than the site says now
The foundation is sound and the site needs more to answer with. The content programme, $999 a month, publishes eight checked articles a month, three months minimum, then month to month.
Search questions, answered.
Short versions here. The guides have the long ones, and the FAQ covers cost, timing and getting named by ChatGPT.
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What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?
SEO is ranking in a list of links. AEO is being the source quoted when a system answers a question directly. GEO is being visible to AI assistants themselves, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. A site can do well at one and be invisible to the other two.
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Do I need all three?
Most of the groundwork is shared. Titles, structured data, readable HTML, crawler access and an llms.txt file serve all three at once, which is why the setup is one price rather than three.
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Can you guarantee a ranking or an AI recommendation?
No. Only Google decides where Google ranks a page, and only the company behind an assistant decides whether it names a business, so nobody outside them can honestly sell either. What we can do is remove the reasons you are ruled out, and tell you exactly what we changed and what happened after.
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Is the monthly plan a lock-in?
No. The SEO, AEO and GEO plan is month to month, with no minimum term and no cancellation fee. The content programme is the exception, at three months minimum, then month to month.
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Do you build backlinks?
No. Backlink building is not part of the setup or the monthly plan, and the content programme uses no bought links and no link exchanges.
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Are the articles written by AI?
They are drafted with AI writing tools, then checked against your facts by a person here before anything goes live. Nothing publishes automatically.
Find out if you're readable at all.
Thirty checks, run live and free. There's no call attached, and the findings are yours whether you hire us or not.