Answer engine optimization consultancy
Be the source answer engines quote.
We help ecommerce, travel and B2B brands earn citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude.
Answer Engine Consulting is an answer engine optimization (AEO) consultancy. We help brands earn citations from AI answer engines by becoming the source worth quoting, resolving as one recognised entity across the web, and showing up in the third-party sources engines actually retrieve from. Progress is measured as share of citation per prompt, not keyword rankings.
Clean markup is the entry fee, not the edge.
In 2026 every serious site has crawlable HTML, JSON-LD and an llms.txt file. An answer engine still has to pick one source for each claim it makes, and it picks the source that is specific, corroborated elsewhere, and attached to an entity it already recognises. That selection is what we work on. Markup makes you eligible. It does not make you the answer.
What earns a citation now
Four things engines reward, and how we work on each.
A source worth quoting
Answer engines lift sentences, not pages. A page earns a citation when it contains a claim specific enough to quote verbatim: a number you measured, a method with a name and steps, a definition that settles an ambiguity. We rebuild your highest-intent pages around claims like that, and publish the method behind each number so a model can attribute it to you.
One entity, everywhere
A model decides how much to trust a claim partly by whether it can resolve the author. That requires the same organisation name, description, founder and links on your site, your LinkedIn company page, review platforms and directories, tied together with Organization schema. One well-marked-up domain does not help when the other twelve mentions of you disagree with it.
Present where retrieval happens
When someone asks Perplexity which Shopify apps to install, or ChatGPT which boutique hotel to book, the engine retrieves from Reddit threads, review platforms, comparison sites and industry publications before it retrieves your homepage. We map the sources each engine cites for your buyers’ prompts and earn you a presence in them.
Measured as share of citation
We track a fixed set of buyer prompts across each engine and record which sources are cited in every answer. Your share of citation, prompt by prompt, is the number we report and manage against. Rankings and traffic are lagging indicators. The citation is the event.
How an engagement runs
The Answer Gap method.
- 01
Prompt inventory
The questions your buyers put to answer engines, grouped by journey stage, from “what is this” to “which vendor”.
- 02
Citation audit
Which sources each engine cites for those prompts today, and where, if anywhere, you appear.
- 03
Gap ranking
Commercial-intent prompts where you are absent, ordered by how winnable they are given who is cited now.
- 04
Source pages
Pages built around quotable claims, with structured data that says exactly what the prose says.
- 05
Entity and presence work
Consistent Organization data across the web, and placements in the third-party sources the audit surfaced.
- 06
Share-of-citation reporting
The same prompt set, re-run on a schedule and reported per engine, so movement is attributable.
Who this is for
Three markets where the answer decides the sale.
Ecommerce and DTC
Product recommendations in ChatGPT and Perplexity Shopping, category answers in Google AI Overviews, and less dependence on Amazon and paid acquisition.
Ecommerce resources →Travel and hospitality
Hotel and destination recommendations from AI travel assistants, more direct bookings, and less commission paid to online travel agencies.
Travel resources →B2B SaaS and services
Vendor shortlists, category definitions and comparison answers that buyers read before they ever talk to sales.
All resources →Pricing
Fixed scope, priced by the page.
Starter
$3,000 one-time
5 pages
A structured audit and pilot: answer gap analysis, five source pages built to be quoted, and a baseline share-of-citation report.
Package details →Growth
$5,000 one-time
up to 15 pages
Cluster-level coverage of one topic: up to fifteen source pages, entity consistency work, and a competitive citation analysis.
Package details →Authority
$8,000 per month
30 pages per month
Ongoing programme: thirty pages a month, third-party presence work, and monthly prompt-level visibility reporting.
Package details →Start here
Get the free AEO visibility report.
We run your top buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude and send you a baseline: where you are cited, where your competitors are, and which gaps are winnable. No commitment.
Answer Engine Consulting is led by Shayna Stewart and now operates as GTM Architecture. Every guide in the answers library remains at its original address.