Classic SEO is no longer enough. If you want AI to cite your business when someone asks about your services, you need a different strategy.
Something is happening quietly that will change how customers find your business. More and more people are asking ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity instead of searching Google. And when they ask "which web design agency to hire in Madrid" or "what is the best system for setting up an online store", the model responds with specific names. The question is whether yours is among them.
What AEO is and how it differs from SEO
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the set of actions that make AI-based answer engines mention you when relevant to your business. It is not the same as classic SEO, though they share a foundation. SEO ranks pages in search results. AEO gets a language model to include your company as an answer to a specific question.
The practical difference matters: on Google you can appear at position 8 and still get some traffic. On ChatGPT, either you are in the answer or you do not exist. There is no page 2.
Why AI models cite some websites and not others
LLMs do not index in real time like Google. They are trained on large volumes of internet text and cite sources that appear consistently and authoritatively in that corpus. This means that to appear you need two things: to be mentioned in sources that models use as reference, and to have your own content structured in a way that is easy to interpret.
The signals that carry most weight are the updated E-E-A-T: demonstrated experience (client cases, concrete results), expertise (technical articles with real depth), authority (mentions in sector press, reference directories, Wikipedia if applicable) and trust (reviews, verifiable testimonials, clear contact details).
Concrete actions you can take this week
Create an FAQ page with real questions. Not the ones you want to be asked, but the ones people type into Google and AI chats. "How much does a website cost?", "How long does it take for a new website to rank?", "What is the difference between a landing page and a corporate website?". Answer directly, in natural language, with data.
Implement organisation and FAQ schema markup. Structured markup does not guarantee that AI will cite you, but it makes your content easier to process. Organisation, LocalBusiness, FAQPage and Article are the most relevant types for a service SME.
Get mentions in publications that LLMs use as sources. Sector media, specialist blogs with authority, verified directories. You do not need to appear in a national newspaper — an interview in a sector publication with 10,000 monthly readers carries more weight than many of your own articles.
How to know if you already appear
The most direct way is to do systematic manual searches. Open ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and enter questions your customers might ask: "web development agencies in Madrid", "who does online stores in Spain at a good price", "how to know if my website needs an SEO audit". Note whether you appear and with what description.
Tools like Semrush AI visibility module or HubSpot AEO Tracker are starting to offer systematic tracking, although the market for AEO-specific tools is still maturing.
The window of opportunity is now. Most Spanish SMEs have not yet thought about this, and building authority in the sources that models use as reference takes time. Those who start earlier will have an advantage when AI search becomes the main channel.
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