SEO and AEO: ranked on Google, named by AI.
Two jobs, one engagement. We fix the technical, local and content groundwork that decides where you rank on Google, then structure your site, your schema and your listings so ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews can quote you when a buyer asks them who to hire.
What is the difference between SEO and AEO?
SEO gets your pages ranked in Google's results and map pack. AEO, answer engine optimization, gets your business named inside an AI answer from ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews. IG Digital Lab does both, because they now run on overlapping signals: clean structure, correct schema, consistent listings, and content that answers the question directly.
The split matters when you plan a budget, much less when the work actually happens. One page, written as a direct answer to a question a buyer really asks, marked up correctly and served fast, does duty on both surfaces. Where the two genuinely diverge is measurement: rankings, impressions and clicks on one side, and whether an assistant names you at all on the other.
Get found on Google
- Technical health: speed, crawlability, indexing, Core Web Vitals
- Google Business Profile and the local map pack
- Keyword and intent research, then pages that match it
- Site structure, internal linking, sitemap and canonical hygiene
- Citations and NAP consistency across the directories
- Measured in Search Console: impressions, positions, clicks
Get named inside AI answers
- Entity clarity: models know who you are and what you do
- Structured data and schema an AI can parse without guessing
- llms.txt: a direct briefing for AI crawlers
- Answer-first content shaped the way people ask assistants
- Brand mentions in the sources those models actually trust
- Measured by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI monthly
If your buyers are local, the map pack and the profile usually move first, and we cover that on the Sacramento SEO page. If you want the mechanics of the AI half in more depth, we wrote them up in how to get recommended by ChatGPT and Perplexity.
What does an SEO and AEO engagement include?
Eight workstreams: technical SEO, Google Business Profile, keyword and intent research, answer-first content, citations and NAP cleanup, schema and entity markup, IndexNow and Bing submission, and monthly AI-answer tracking. IG Digital Lab scopes them after a free audit, so you pay for the ones your site actually needs.
Nothing here is a package you buy sight unseen. The audit tells us which of the eight are already fine, which are broken, and which have never been done at all, and the quote follows from that. The full ladder of what work costs is on the pricing page.
Technical SEO
Speed, mobile rendering, crawlability, index coverage, canonical tags, sitemaps and internal linking. We also keep the text that matters in server-rendered HTML, because a crawler that has to execute JavaScript first often does not bother.
Google Business Profile
Primary and secondary categories, services, service area, hours, photos, posts, questions and replies to reviews. For anyone with a storefront or a service radius, this is usually where the first measurable movement shows up.
Keyword and intent research
We map the phrases your buyers actually use, separate the ones that end in a purchase from the ones that end in reading, and decide which page is going to own each of them. That map drives everything after it.
Answer-first pages
Pages shaped around real buyer questions, with the short answer stated before the supporting detail. That order helps a person skimming on a phone, and it gives an assistant something quotable instead of a block it has to summarize.
Citations and NAP consistency
Search engines and assistants both cross-check what you publish against what directories say about you. We settle on one exact spelling of your name, address and phone, push it to the aggregators and major listing sites, and clean up stale records carrying an old number.
Schema and entity graph
JSON-LD for Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage and Person, wired together with stable identifiers so the pieces resolve to one business rather than six unrelated fragments. This is what lets a model use your name with confidence.
IndexNow, Bing and llms.txt
New and changed pages are pushed to Bing and the other IndexNow participants at publish time instead of waiting on a crawl, and an llms.txt file gives AI crawlers a direct briefing on what your site is and which pages to read.
AI-answer tracking
We keep a standing set of the questions your buyers would put to an assistant, run them on the same cadence every month, and archive the replies. Without that record, "are we showing up in AI yet" has no honest answer.
What do you actually receive?
Four things: a written baseline audit, the technical and schema work implemented on your site rather than handed over as a to-do list, the pages and profile built, and one short monthly report covering Search Console, Google Business Profile and what the AI assistants answer. Everything we produce stays yours.
Baseline audit report
Where you stand today, in writing: a crawl of the site, index coverage and Core Web Vitals, current queries and positions from Search Console, the state of your Google Business Profile and listings, and a transcript of what the major AI assistants say about your business right now. Everything afterwards is measured against it.
Technical fixes and markup, shipped
Not a list of recommendations for someone else to implement. We ship the fixes: speed and crawl issues, canonical and sitemap hygiene, JSON-LD schema wired to a single entity, an llms.txt file, and IndexNow submission so changes reach Bing the day they go live.
Pages and profile, built
The pages your keyword map called for, written answer-first and published on your site, plus a Google Business Profile filled out properly and a citation sweep that puts one consistent name, address and phone across the directories that feed both search engines and assistants.
One monthly report you will actually read
Three surfaces on one page: Search Console (impressions, positions, clicks, indexed pages), Google Business Profile (views, calls, direction requests), and the AI-citation check with the assistants' own words pasted in. What moved, what did not, and the next action. No dashboard login you never open.
Why we add AEO on top of SEO, not in place of it
Industry data on the shift from traditional search to AI-generated answers, and why the two disciplines no longer substitute for each other.
Overlap between AI citations and Google top-10
Industry research shows roughly 88% of the URLs cited in AI-generated answers are NOT in the top 10 Google results for the same query. Ranking on Google and ranking in AI answers require different strategies.
Source: AEO/GEO industry research, 2024-2025Brand mentions vs. backlinks in AI citation models
Industry analysis of AI citation patterns shows that brand mentions in sources AI models trust correlate approximately 3× more strongly with being cited than traditional backlink counts, a fundamental shift from how SEO worked.
Source: generative engine optimization research, 2024-2025AI search share is rising every quarter
ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews now handle a material and growing share of informational and local-intent queries. Businesses that establish AI visibility now will compound the advantage as the shift accelerates.
Source: AI search usage trend data, 2024-2025Who benefits most from SEO and AEO?
Any business where buyers research and compare before they call, and where a search result or an AI answer is the first thing they see.
Personal Injury Law Firms
"Best personal injury lawyer near me" is increasingly answered by AI. We get PI firms named in those answers before a search result is ever clicked.
Immigration & Family Law
Clients in urgent legal situations increasingly turn to ChatGPT for trusted referrals. Entity clarity and Q&A content directly drive citation.
Med-Aesthetic & Wellness
Treatment comparisons, clinic recommendations, and "who's best for Botox in [city]" queries. AI answers those now. Be named in them.
Home Services & Contractors
Emergency and seasonal service queries are high-intent. AI-cited businesses get calls before the searcher even checks a review site.
Healthcare Practices
Patients use AI to research providers and symptoms. Structured entity presence and authoritative Q&A content are the levers.
Professional Services (B2B)
Consultants, accountants, and agencies are increasingly researched via AI prompts. AEO is early-mover territory: establishing presence now compounds.
How long until results?
Technical fixes and Google Business Profile work land within weeks. Competitive organic rankings normally need 3 to 6 months of steady publishing and cleanup. AI answers are the least predictable of the three, because they depend on content, citations and your review base, so IG Digital Lab reports what the assistants actually say each month rather than promising a date.
Technical and profile work
Speed, crawl and indexing fixes, schema, llms.txt and IndexNow submission are engineering tasks with a finish line. A Google Business Profile that has never been filled out properly often moves within the first reporting cycle, which is why we do it early.
Fastest, and the most under our controlOrganic rankings
Positions on competitive commercial terms move slowly, because everyone above you is also working. We look for movement in Search Console impressions and average position inside the first month as the leading signal, but no honest agency guarantees a ranking or a date.
Typical for a site with no existing authorityBeing named by AI
AI answers rarely improve on a smooth curve. Assistants ignore you, then name you, then describe you accurately. Getting there depends on structure and listings, which we fix, and on reviews, which only your customers can give you. We report the transcripts either way.
Honest constraint, stated before you signPricing starts at $2,500, scoped after a free audit
An SEO and AEO launch is a One Process implementation: $2,500-6,000. Ongoing work (content, listings, citation tracking) runs $300-500/mo (Care) or $750-1,500/mo (Active), depending on how much happens each month.
Every engagement starts with a free audit: we show you exactly where you stand before you commit to anything, and search work sits next to the rest of what we build.
Frequently asked questions
What business owners ask us before starting SEO and AEO work.
What is the difference between SEO and AEO?
SEO gets your pages ranked in Google's results and map pack. AEO, answer engine optimization, gets your business named inside an AI answer from ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews. IG Digital Lab does both, because they now run on overlapping signals: clean structure, correct schema, consistent listings, and content that answers the question directly.
Do I still need classic SEO in 2026?
Yes. Most buying searches still end on Google, and AI assistants lean on the same open web, the same Google Business Profile data and the same listings that classic SEO cleans up. Skipping SEO to chase AI answers removes the foundation those answers are built on, which is why we sell the two as one engagement.
Do you do local SEO and Google Business Profile work?
Yes. For a local business the Google Business Profile is usually the fastest single lever: categories, services, hours, service area, photos, posts, questions and review replies. We pair it with citation and NAP cleanup so your name, address and phone match everywhere a crawler or an assistant looks.
How long before I see results?
Technical fixes, schema and profile work land in the first few weeks. Competitive organic rankings usually take 3 to 6 months of steady work. AI answers move in steps rather than on a curve, and they depend on content, citations and your review base, so we report what the assistants actually say every month instead of promising a date.
Why doesn't ranking on Google automatically get me into AI answers?
Industry research shows only about 12% of URLs cited by AI systems overlap with Google's top-10 results for the same query. AI engines weight factors like entity recognition, structured data, llms.txt discoverability, and brand mentions in trusted sources, not just backlinks and page rank.
What is llms.txt and why does it matter?
llms.txt is an emerging convention (similar to robots.txt) that tells AI crawlers what your site is about, what pages to read, and how to describe your business. Implementing it correctly increases the chance AI models pick up your entity and use it in responses. We implement it as part of every SEO and AEO engagement.
How is this different from what my current SEO agency does?
Most SEO agencies optimize for Google's link graph and keyword index, and stop there. We do that work and then optimize for how AI models read, represent and cite an entity: structured data, natural language questions and answers, llms.txt, listing consistency, and brand presence in the sources those models trust. One engagement, not two vendors.
Find out where you stand on Google and inside AI answers.
Book a 30-minute audit. We check the site, the profile and the listings, then ask the assistants your buyers' questions live on the call, before you spend a dollar.
No commitment. Call or text (916) 618-0502. You keep the findings either way.
Ready to transform your business?
Tell us what you need. We reply the same business day.