The practical AI Search Optimization guide
An AEO audit that ends with a page task.
Check accessibility, business understanding, buyer answers, and evidence. Use AEOchamp to diagnose the gaps, then leave the audit with a specific URL, owner, and next action.
Put it into practice
Define the audit
Audit one buying journey, not the whole internet.
Choose a product, an audience, and three questions that precede a purchase. For approval software, these might be “How do clients approve a design without an account?”, “Can we keep an approval record?”, and “Which tools fit an agency with external reviewers?” List the homepage, workflow page, pricing page, and relevant help article.
Write the correct product description before running analysis. Include the category, audience, core job, and one real limitation. This gives you a reference for deciding whether a model’s interpretation is accurate. A broad synonym is not automatically a failure; an incorrect business model is.
Collect evidence
Use four checks with four different outputs.
| Check | How to investigate | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Inspect important URLs in Search Console. Check response status, indexing restrictions, canonical targets, and whether the main answer is available as text. | The exact URL and confirmed obstacle. |
| Business understanding | Run AEOchamp Domain Clarity and open model answers. Compare category, audience, and job with your reference description. | Incorrect claim, model, and relevant page. |
| Buyer fit | Open a relevant AEOchamp User Intent question. Read Organic, Mentioned, completed model pairs, and competitors. | The buyer situation and the reasoning that needs investigation. |
| Page usefulness | Read the destination page as a buyer. Look for a direct answer, actual workflow, restrictions, and proof. | The missing detail and the source that can support it. |
Google’s guidance for generative AI search is a useful starting point for search eligibility and content fundamentals. Check technical issues in your search and website tools; a recommendation score cannot diagnose an indexing block.
Interpret the analysis
Use AEOchamp to locate a misunderstanding.
Domain Clarity helps you see whether a model recognizes the business and what it thinks the business does. If several models call your SaaS a consultancy, inspect the homepage and About page for an explicit software category and an actual interface example. Do not fix the wording merely to reproduce every model’s preferred label.
User Intent
Every buyer question.
Your place in the answer.
See where your business comes up, where a competitor takes the lead, and where being known still isn’t enough to be suggested.
Organic visibility
38/ 100Your brand is withheld from the question.
Mentioned score
79/ 100The model is given your domain.
Visibility gap
+41pointsKnown when named. Less visible unprompted.
Your score beside the market leaders
Five pinned buyer questions. Select a question to explore its model results.
| User intent | Organic | Mentioned | Gap | Top competitors | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
14 | 78 | Acme91Globex86Initech81 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Inside this intent · individual model results3 illustrative model results
| ||||||||||||||||||||
32 | 84 | Umbrella90Hooli85Stark82 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Inside this intent · individual model results3 illustrative model results
| ||||||||||||||||||||
61 | 88 | Globex89Acme86Wayne80 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Inside this intent · individual model results3 illustrative model results
| ||||||||||||||||||||
8 | 57 | Umbrella88Stark84Hooli79 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Inside this intent · individual model results3 illustrative model results
| ||||||||||||||||||||
75 | 88 | Umbrella87Wayne83Initech78 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Inside this intent · individual model results3 illustrative model results
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Start with what buyers need.
Five baseline intents turn your business profile into concrete questions your potential customers might ask.
Find the missed recommendation.
A score of 14 organic and 78 mentioned is a +64 gap: a strong fit when named, but a weak presence without the prompt.
Go beyond the average.
Expand an intent to compare individual model results and see which competitors appear beside each score.
User Intent compares recommendation fit when the business is withheld versus introduced. A positive gap can help prioritize an unbranded buyer question, but it does not establish the reason for the gap. Read the actual recommendations: a competitor may have a different capability or simply be more familiar to that model.
Decide what to do
Turn the audit into three tasks at most.
| Finding | Task | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Homepage leaves software versus agency unclear | Add a product-category sentence and a real interface screenshot. Product lead verifies both. | High: fundamental positioning. |
| External review question has no clear answer | Update the existing workflow page with account requirements, steps, and permission limits. | High: purchase decision. |
| A search answer cites another how-to page | Compare the cited instructions with your guide and add missing useful detail where supported. | Investigate: a citation alone does not explain selection. |
For each task, record the URL, evidence, owner, estimated effort, and a completion check. Keep confirmed problems ahead of speculative rewrites. Use the existing-page improvement guide to make the edit and the measurement guide to review it.
The audit is complete when someone can implement the next task without repeating your research. “Improve AI visibility” is not a task. “Explain that clients can review without an account, and show the confirmation screen on the approval-workflow page” is.
Your questions, answered
What should an AEO audit include?
Check whether important pages are accessible and indexable, whether models describe your business correctly, whether your pages answer buyer questions, and whether their claims have evidence. Record specific actions rather than one overall grade.
Is confidence an AEO audit score?
No. Confidence describes the model’s assessment of its business understanding. Read the description and compare it with your actual offering before treating a high number as success.
What should I fix first?
Start with a confirmed access problem or a materially wrong explanation on an important buyer page. Prioritize work by customer impact, evidence, and effort.
From advice to a clear next step
Find your next useful page improvement.
Use Domain Clarity and User Intent to investigate business understanding and buyer-question fit. Turn the finding into a specific page task.
Start your free AEOchamp check