AI Search Optimization Agency — Be Named in Generated Answers | VIDCO
AI Search Optimization is the practice of making a brand legible, credible and citable to systems that answer questions instead of listing links. It is the umbrella; GEO, AEO and...
AI Search Optimization is the practice of making a brand legible, credible and citable to systems that answer questions instead of listing links. It is the umbrella; GEO, AEO and entity work are capabilities inside it.
We use the broader term deliberately. Acronyms in this space are changing every few quarters — the underlying problem is not.
The mechanism you’re actually optimising for
A model does not browse your website and decide you are good. It reproduces patterns from what it absorbed. When it names companies in a category, those names overwhelmingly come from third-party sources that list and compare vendors — industry roundups, publications, community discussion, structured reference data.
This has a blunt implication most content plans get wrong: publishing more definitional articles on your own site does not move the number. We have measured this. In a 37-prompt baseline we ran, awareness-stage prompts produced zero vendor names — across every engine run. Every single naming event came from bottom-of-funnel prompts like “which companies should I hire for X”.
So the work is: be present where the model learned who matters, and be unambiguous about who you are.
The four workstreams
| Workstream | What it does | Why it matters to a model |
|---|---|---|
| Entity clarity | Consistent organisation identity, structured data, reconciled profiles across the web | The model must be able to resolve “your brand” to one unambiguous thing |
| Third-party citation | Earning mentions in the sources that list vendors in your category | This is where naming behaviour actually originates |
| Answer-shaped content | Pages that state a claim, support it, and are extractable | Content that resists summarising rarely gets cited |
| Technical access | Crawlability for AI user agents, clean markup, llms.txt |
Content that cannot be retrieved cannot be quoted |
How we measure AI visibility
Most agencies claim AI visibility. Very few publish how they measure it. Here is our method, in full:
| Step | What we do |
|---|---|
| 1. Prompt set | We build 50–100 prompts a real buyer in your category would type. None of them contain your brand name — the point is to see whether the model brings you up unprompted. |
| 2. Engine runs | Each prompt is run against the AI engines in scope, on a fixed date, and the raw answers are stored so you can audit them later. |
| 3. Scoring | Mention Rate (% of answers naming your brand) · Citation Rate (% citing your domain) · Share of Model (your mentions ÷ all competitor mentions). |
| 4. Competitor board | The same run tells you which brands the model currently treats as the category leaders. |
| 5. Re-measure | Same prompt set, same engines, 90 days later. Movement is comparable because nothing about the test changed. |
What we do not claim: engine coverage is stated explicitly in every report. A measurement against one model is not a measurement of Google’s AI Overviews, and we will never present one as the other.
What a realistic 90 days looks like
Moving from zero mentions to consistent naming is slower than ranking a page, because it depends partly on third parties. A plausible arc:
- Days 1–14: baseline measured; entity and technical gaps identified.
- Days 15–45: entity work shipped; answer-shaped pages published; outreach begins.
- Days 45–90: third-party placements land. This is the slow part and it is outside your direct control.
- Day 90: re-measure on the identical prompt set.
We will not put a target percentage in a proposal before measuring your baseline. Anyone who does is guessing.
Explore
- AI Search Optimization — the umbrella practice
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — getting cited by AI engines
- International SEO — multi-market organic growth
- Pricing — transparent engagement tiers
Frequently asked questions
Is AI Search Optimization different from SEO?
It overlaps heavily. Technical health, entity clarity and authority serve both. What differs is the measurement and the emphasis on third-party citation over on-site volume.
Which engines do you optimise for?
The work is largely engine-agnostic — entity clarity and citation help across all of them. Measurement coverage is a separate question and we state exactly which engines a given report covers.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend us?
No. Nobody can, and a guarantee is a reason to walk away. We commit to a measured baseline, a documented programme and honest re-measurement.
How is this priced?
See pricing. Most clients start with a fixed-fee AI Visibility Audit before committing to a retainer.
Where does your brand stand in AI answers?
Send us your domain. We run the baseline and send your Mention Rate, Citation Rate and competitor board — no charge, no commitment.
Need an SEO, AEO or GEO strategy?
The Vidco Group team is ready to work with you