3 Things You Can Do to Your Website Today So AI Recommends You

There's a shift happening in the way people find businesses online. And most websites are completely missing it.

People are no longer just Googling things. They're asking AI. They're opening ChatGPT, Perplexity, or even Google's AI overview and typing in questions like "Who's the best home organizer in Austin?" or "What's a good website designer for health coaches?"

And AI answers them. With names. With recommendations. Like a friend who actually knows the space.

Here's the stat that really got us thinking seriously about updating our website for AI search: AI referral traffic converts at 14.2% compared to Google's 2.8%. That means the people who find you through AI are already warmed up, already sold on the idea, and ready to take action. Those are the buyers you want.

So the question isn't whether AI search matters (it does). It's whether your website is set up to be the one AI recommends.

What Is AEO and Why Does It Matter for Your Business?

You've heard of SEO, Search Engine Optimization. The goal there is to rank higher on Google's results page.

AEO is Answer Engine Optimization. (or sometimes referred to as AI Engine Optimization) The goal is to be the business AI recommends when someone asks for help.

SEO says: "Be higher on the list." AEO says: "Be the one they mention by name."

Here's the good news if you've already been working on your SEO. Most things you do to help your SEO also help your AEO, and most things that help your AEO also help your SEO. They're just optimizing for different outcomes. So you're not starting over. You're building on what's already there. (That is great news!)

The businesses getting recommended by AI aren't necessarily the biggest or the most well-known. They're the clearest, the most consistent, and the most credible.

AI looks for three things when deciding who to recommend: clarity (does it understand exactly what you do?), authority (are you referenced in credible places online?), and pattern recognition (do you show up the same way, everywhere?).

The three fixes below speak directly to all three.

Fix #1: Add FAQs to Every Page of Your Website

This one is underused and wildly effective.

Most people think FAQs are just a nice-to-have at the bottom of a contact page and often popular on a services page. But for AEO, FAQs are one of the most powerful things you can do one your website to send the AI bots the right signals. When someone asks an AI a question, AI looks for websites that directly answer that question. FAQs written in plain, conversational language are essentially a cheat code for getting pulled into AI responses.

The key is that each page on your website has a different purpose, so your FAQs should match that purpose.

Your Home Page is about broad awareness. AI wants to know who you help, what you do, and who it's for. A good FAQ here might be: "What types of businesses do you work with?"

Your About Page is about trust. AI wants to understand why you do this work, your experience, and your philosophy. A good FAQ here might be: "What makes your approach different?"

Your Service or Product Pages are about decisions. AI wants to reduce objections around cost, timeline, and process. A good FAQ here might be: "How long does it take to complete a website build?" or "Do I get access to you if I get stuck?"

Write 3 to 5 FAQs per page, use the exact language your ideal client would use when asking the question, and answer them directly and completely. Don't make AI (or people) dig for the answer.

It's also a cheat code to be able to say something plain as day that you KNOW your potential customer is wondering, but can't say it the exact way you want within the copy on the actual page. 

Fix #2: Add Schema Code to Your Website Pages

This one sounds more technical than it is. Stick with us.

Schema is behind-the-scenes code that tells search engines and AI exactly what each page is about. You can't see it when you look at a website, but the machines reading your site absolutely can.

Think of it this way. A website without schema is like a resume written in paragraph form. A website with schema is that same resume in clean sections with clear labels. Humans can read both. Machines strongly prefer the organized one.

Schema is how you label your content so AI can categorize it with confidence. And when AI is confident about who you are and what you do, it's far more likely to recommend you.

Here's a quick breakdown of what schema to use on each page:

• Home Page: Organization, FAQ, and Review schema
• About Page: Person, FAQ, and Breadcrumb schema
• Service or Product Pages: Service or Product schema (varies by offer type, which we will cover more in our next blog), FAQ, Review, and Breadcrumb
• Blog Posts: Article, Breadcrumb, and FAQ schema

We know adding code to your website sounds intimidating, which is exactly why we built a free tool to make it simple.

Our free Schema Tool at kandccreative.com/schema-tool walks you through it step by step. You answer a few questions, it generates the code for you, and then you paste it into your website. No technical background required. You don't even need to know what Schema code goes on what page, it will figure it all all out for you!

Fix #3: Create Business Profiles Everywhere (With the Exact Same Information)

AI isn't just reading your website. It's scanning the entire internet looking for consistent signals about who you are and what you do.

This is called pattern recognition. The more consistently AI sees the same name, title, description, and website URL across multiple platforms, the more confident it becomes in recommending you. Inconsistency, even something small like using "K+C creative" in one place and "K and C Creative" in another, creates confusion that makes AI less likely to trust you as a source. And if you and your business have evolved over time, it's likely you are guilty of being on the internet with many variations of "what you do." We are completely guilty. Our brand initially started as Business Coaching and then as we had more and more customers asking for help, it morphed into Website Copy and Design! So an intentional audit of how you are showing up on each of the platforms listed below is a must!

Here's where to create or update your profiles:

• Google Business Profile (non-negotiable, do this first)
• Bing Places (don't overlook this one, many AI tools use Microsoft and pull directly from Bing)
• LinkedIn (both a personal profile and a business page if relevant)
• All social media bios
• Author profiles on any blogs or publications where you've been featured
• Industry-specific directories (for coaches and service providers, this includes places like Alignable; for health professionals, this includes directories like Psychology Today, Healthgrades, Zocdoc, and your professional association's directory)

Here's what to keep consistent across every single one:

• Your business name (exact same spelling, every time)
• Your title or role
• Your description (what you do + who you help)
• Your website URL
• Your location, if relevant to your business

Set aside an hour, go through each platform, and make sure everything matches. It's not the super fun and glamorous work, but it is one of the highest-return things you can do for your online visibility right now.

A Note on SEO Not Being Dead

We want to be clear about something, because we've seen this framing cause unnecessary panic. And if you got here from social, I used the "SEO is dead" line as a hook to get you to stop scrolling. (Sorry, not sorry. It worked, didn't it?)

SEO is not dead. What you've done to build your SEO still matters. The blogs, the keywords, the Google Business Profile, the backlinks. All of it still helps. Remember, AEO likes Authority, so all those backlinks signal you are one popular girl (or guy) that people CARE to talk about. That is great!

What's changed is that ranking on page one of Google is no longer the only game worth playing. There's a new table, and it's growing fast. 72% of people now use AI at least once a day, up from basically zero three years ago. AI search traffic grew 7x between 2024 and 2025. That table is filling up quickly.

The businesses who win the next few years will be the ones who show up well in both places.

Where to Start if You Feel Overwhelmed

If you're looking at all three of these and thinking "I don't even know where to begin," start with adding FAQs to your pages first.

A couple of reasons. FAQs will be seen by the visitors already finding you. Those FAQs could help convert people who are already on your site. That's a win before AI even enters the picture.

Also, you're going to need those FAQs to create your schema anyway. So it's the logical first step.

Once your FAQ's are done. It's time for schema! Because this part can feel the MOST overwhelming, we made a tool to make it super easy to create and upload to your site.

Head to kandccreative.com/schema-tool and it walks you through the whole thing.

If you want someone to handle all of it for you, that's exactly what we do at K+C creative. Learn more at kandccreative.com.

You're not trying to trick AI. You're making it easy for AI to understand and trust you. And that starts with clarity, consistency, and a website that speaks the language AI is listening for.