Foundations
Start with the fundamentals.
The cornerstone reads on the shift from search to answers. What changed, why it matters for a local business, and what to do about it.
The frame
Everything else makes sense once you understand the shift.
Your customers stopped scrolling a list of links and started asking AI for a recommendation. That one change rewrites how a local business gets found, trusted, and chosen. The Foundations guides are the reads that explain it, with the moves that actually matter.
Start anywhere, but most owners read the cornerstones in order: what answer engine optimization actually is, why search broke and what to do now, how to teach the engines about your business once so the work compounds, and what changed for local SEO. Then go engine by engine: how to get cited by ChatGPT, by Google’s AI, and by Perplexity. Free to read, built to be acted on.
The cornerstones
Four reads, in the order that builds.
01
Cornerstone · 10 min
From SEO to AEO.
The shorthand for the whole shift. What changes when answer engines decide what gets seen, and what stays the same.
Inside
- How AI assembles an answer
- Why a few sources carry most citations
- What to optimize for now
02
Cornerstone · 10 min
Why search is broken, and what to do now.
The diagnosis and the playbook. Why the old link-and-rank game stopped working, and the moves that replace it.
Inside
- AI Overviews vs AI Mode, explained
- Four ways visibility breaks
- The four step playbook to fix it
03
Explainer · 5 min
Teach AI once. Reuse it forever.
The practical one. How to teach the engines about your business a single time so every future answer gets it right.
Inside
- What a reusable instruction is
- Where each engine stores it
- A 30 minute first setup
04
Explainer · 13 min
Local SEO and AEO: what changed, what still matters.
Answer engines changed how local businesses get found and recommended. Find out what remains the same and carries forward, what changed, and what to add to the work.
Inside
- The six local signals that carry forward
- Why first place wins the citation a quarter of the time
- The six additions that get you named
The platform guides
Then go engine by engine.
05
Platform guide · 11 min
How to get cited by ChatGPT.
The biggest engine, decoded. When it searches the live web, what it pulls from, and the five moves that put your name in the answer.
Inside
- The two paths an answer can take
- What its citations actually favor
- Where the five moves start
06
Platform guide · 12 min
How to get cited by Google’s AI.
AI Overviews and AI Mode, one guide. How Google’s answers choose their sources, and where years of local SEO finally compound.
Inside
- Overviews vs AI Mode, and query fan-out
- Why your GBP weighs most here
- The moves with Google-specific leverage
07
Platform guide · 10 min
How to get cited by Perplexity.
The engine that shows its work. Every answer lists its sources by number, which makes it the fastest engine to learn from and win.
Inside
- Why retrieval runs on every question
- The content shapes it favors
- Reading citations as seats to take
Read the shift. Then run the check.
See where your business stands.
Once the fundamentals click, the Citation Check shows you whether AI names your business today. The free 7 Day AI Visibility Snapshot runs the questions your customers ask across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity for a week and walks you through who gets named.