How to prepare your website for SEO, AEO and GEO

October 18, 2026·5 min read

You prepare a website for SEO, AEO and GEO with mostly the same work. Let crawlers in, make content readable without JavaScript, give each page a clear title and headings, tell machines who you are, and write answers that can be quoted. The six steps below go in order, and each has a check you can run.

What SEO, AEO and GEO mean

SEO is search engine optimization. It gets your pages ranked in Google and Bing results.
AEO is answer engine optimization. It gets your content used as the direct answer in featured snippets, AI Overviews and voice assistants.
GEO is generative engine optimization. It gets your brand named and cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini.

The three overlap. A page that crawlers can read and that answers a question clearly helps with all of them.

Step 1: run a website check and fix the top of the list

Start with a baseline. Our website check checks your home page and up to two more pages for crawling and indexing, on-page SEO, structured data and content. It gives one fix list sorted by priority and 0 to 100 scores for SEO readiness, AEO readiness and AI access.

The quick preview of your home page costs no credits, needs no account and takes about 20 seconds. Fix the first items on the list first. The list is sorted by priority, so the top matters most.

Step 2: let search and AI crawlers in

If a crawler cannot fetch a page, nothing else in this guide matters for that page.

Run the Robots.txt & AI Crawler Checker. It shows which search and AI crawlers, such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, are allowed, and the exact line to change.
Run the Indexing & Canonical Checker on your key pages. It shows whether Google and Bing may crawl, index and quote each page, which signal blocks it, and the tag or header to change. It does not confirm a page is in Google's index. Use Search Console for that.
Check your CDN or firewall bot settings. Bot protection can block AI crawlers even when robots.txt allows them.

Our technical SEO checklist covers the rest: redirects, canonicals, sitemaps and status codes.

Step 3: make content visible without JavaScript

Some AI crawlers, like GPTBot, read the raw HTML. Text that only appears after JavaScript runs may never reach them.

Run AI Crawler View on your home page and your main product page. It compares raw HTML with the rendered page and lists content, headings, prices, links and metadata that only appear after JavaScript runs. If your headline or pricing is on that list, render the page on the server or prerender it.

Step 4: fix titles, descriptions, headings and speed

Each important page needs its own title, a meta description and one clear H1, with headings that outline the page.

Run the On-Page SEO Checker on each one. It shows the title, meta description, search snippet and heading outline. Add the query you want the page to rank for, and it grades how well the page covers it.

Then check speed with the Core Web Vitals Snapshot. It shows real-user Core Web Vitals when available, plus a Lighthouse lab snapshot and its biggest opportunities. Fix anything rated poor first.

Step 5: tell machines who you are

Search engines and AI models need to connect your brand name to your site. Organization markup on your home page states that link in a format they read.

Build the JSON-LD with the Organization Entity Markup Builder. For other types, such as a product or an article, use the Schema Markup Generator. Both build markup from details you enter. Nothing is fetched.
Add the markup to your page, then run the Schema Markup Checker to find errors.
Run the Brand Entity Checker. It checks whether your brand name, logo, Organization markup and profiles consistently tie your brand to your site.

Use the same name, logo and one-line description on your site, your social profiles and every directory listing.

Step 6: write answers AI can quote

AI answers often quote short passages. Write each section so it answers its heading in the first sentence or two, then gives context and evidence.

Run the Citability Analyzer on a page. It reviews each section for a clear answer up front, context and evidence. It is an editorial aid, not a prediction of citations.
Run the Question Finder on your topic and page. It lists the questions Google shows for that topic and which ones your page leaves unanswered. Add a short answer for each gap.
Run the Author & E-E-A-T Checker. It checks for a visible byline, author markup, an author page, a publisher, and About and Contact links.

Our guide to citable content shows before and after rewrites. For Google's AI results, read how to show up in Google AI Overviews.

Then see whether AI names you. AI Answer Visibility asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini one question and shows whether they mention or cite your brand, and who they name instead. Ask the question a buyer would ask before choosing a product like yours.

If your site is brand new, search and AI answers take time. Pair this guide with how to get traffic to a new website so you get visitors while you wait.

Re-run the website check after your fixes

After each round of fixes, run the website check again on the same pages. The SEO readiness, AEO readiness and AI access scores show whether the fixes worked, and the fix list shows what to do next. The home page preview costs no credits and needs no account. For a full check with more pages, the price shows before it runs.