AI SEO for small business

"AI SEO" gets used two ways — using AI to do your SEO, and optimizing so AI assistants recommend you. For a small business in 2026, the second one is where the money moved: buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity who to hire, and the assistant answers with one or two names. This playbook covers what actually gets a small business into that answer.

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FAQ

Is AI SEO different from regular SEO for a small business?The foundation overlaps — clear site, good reviews, consistent listings. But AI SEO adds entity signals (Organization/LocalBusiness schema, llms.txt), citation density on the sources models trust, and quotable answer-style content. Rankings alone no longer guarantee you're the name AI gives.

What can a non-technical owner realistically do?Plenty: paste generated schema and llms.txt into your site, fix inconsistent name/address/category across directories, collect reviews on the platforms AI reads, and publish direct answers to the questions buyers actually ask. Cited generates the technical pieces for you.

Where do I start?Baseline first — run a free Cited scan. It scores whether 8+ AI engines recommend your business, shows who they name instead, and hands you the highest-impact fix in about 30 seconds.

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Most businesses score under 40/100 and have no idea. Find your score in 15 seconds, then fix it.

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