Choose an SEO agency that starts from your own data: your Search Console generative AI report, Bing's AI citation figures and your enquiries. It should explain which AI crawlers your site allows, refuse to guarantee AI mentions, and not sell llms.txt files or special AI markup, which Google says its AI features don't need.
The reassuring part is that Google's own documentation says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special optimisation: a page has to be indexed and eligible to appear with a snippet, and that's the requirement. So an agency that understands AI search mostly does ordinary SEO well, then adds three things: honest measurement of AI visibility, sensible crawler settings for the other AI services, and content built from the questions customers actually ask.
What Google and the AI companies say they actually use
Most confusion in agency pitches comes from mixing up training, search and user-triggered crawling. This table summarises the vendors' own documentation, which is the yardstick to hold any proposal against.
| Service | How it finds pages | What the documentation says | Where you can see results |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | The normal Google Search index | No extra requirements, AI text files or special schema; pages must be indexed and eligible for a snippet | Search Console: Performance report and the generative AI report |
| Google-Extended | A control token, not a separate crawler | Governs use of content for Gemini training and grounding; doesn't affect inclusion or ranking in Google Search | Your robots.txt file |
| Search generative AI control | A Search Console setting | Lets you exclude your site from AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover's AI features; inclusion is the default and the setting isn't a ranking signal elsewhere | Search Console settings |
| ChatGPT search | OAI-SearchBot | Sites that block it aren't shown in ChatGPT search answers, though they can still appear as navigational links; GPTBot is for training | Analytics referrals from chatgpt.com |
| Claude | Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, ClaudeBot | Search indexing, user-requested fetches and training respectively; each needs its own robots.txt rule | Analytics referrals |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User | PerplexityBot surfaces sites in results and isn't used for training; Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt because a person asked | Analytics referrals from perplexity.ai |
| Microsoft Copilot and Bing | The Bing index | Bing Webmaster Tools reports citations in Copilot and Bing's AI summaries | Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance |
Two sources are worth reading in full before any sales call: Google's page on AI features and your website and OpenAI's crawler documentation. Each takes about five minutes, and you'll hear the difference immediately when an agency paraphrases them correctly or not.
Build a baseline before any agency sees your site
An agency can only show progress against a starting point, and you should own that starting point. It takes about an hour.
- Search Console, Performance report. Note clicks, impressions and top queries for the last three months. Google counts traffic from its AI features inside these overall figures, under the Web search type.
- Search Console, generative AI report. This report counts how often links to your site were shown inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, by page, device, country and date. It shows impressions only: no clicks, click-through rate or queries, and the two features are combined. Google says it had rolled the report out to all websites by 31 August 2026, though a small site may see no data if it has too few impressions.
- Search generative AI control. Check the setting in Search Console is what you intend. Inclusion is the default, but it's worth confirming nobody switched it off.
- Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance. Microsoft added this report in February 2026. It shows total citations, average cited pages, the grounding queries behind them and page-level citation activity across Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.
- Analytics referrals. Filter referral traffic for chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com, gemini.google.com and claude.ai. Add "an AI assistant such as ChatGPT" as an option on your enquiry form's "How did you hear about us?" question.
- robots.txt. Open yourdomain/robots.txt and look for rules naming OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Security plugins and hosting dashboards sometimes offer one-click AI bot blocking, which can be switched on and forgotten.
A garden centre with a busy seasonal trade might end the hour with a baseline like this (illustrative figures):
| Measure | Last 28 days | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Google clicks (Web) | 1,940 | Top pages: opening times, bare-root roses, Christmas trees |
| AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions | 2,310 across 41 pages | Rose planting guide accounts for a third |
| Bing AI citations | 118 | Grounding queries include "when to plant bare root roses" |
| Visits referred by AI assistants | 34 | 21 from chatgpt.com, 9 from copilot.microsoft.com |
| robots.txt | PerplexityBot blocked | A security plugin setting nobody remembered choosing |
| Enquiries mentioning AI tools | 2 of 58 | Form option added this month |
That one robots.txt line is exactly the kind of thing a competent agency spots in its first week, and a weak one never looks at. For more on the measurement side, the tutorial on tracking whether AI search sends you customers goes further into analytics set-up.
A 20-minute prompt test you can repeat every quarter
Numbers tell you how often you appear; asking the assistants yourself tells you what they say. Use ten questions a real customer would type, run each in ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity, and record whether you're named, which sources are cited and whether anything is wrong.
Questions for a garden centre (add your town to each)
1. Where can I buy bare-root roses and get advice on planting them?
2. Which garden centres deliver compost and bark in bulk?
3. Where can I buy a real Christmas tree with delivery?
4. What time does [garden centre name] close on Sundays?
5. Is there a garden centre with a cafe that's good for young children?
6. Who sells fruit trees and will help me choose a variety?
7. Where can I get a lawnmower serviced before spring?
8. Which garden centre has the best range of houseplants?
9. Does [garden centre name] do click and collect?
10. Where can I buy peat-free compost in large bags?An illustrative answer to question 4 from one assistant:
According to a local business directory, [garden centre name] is open 10am to 4pm on Sundays. You may want to check their website before visiting, as hours can change seasonally.
The real Sunday hours are 10.30am to 4.30pm, and the directory listing is three years old. The fix isn't clever: correct the directory entry, confirm the hours on your Business Profile, and put the hours as plain text on your contact page instead of inside an image. When an agency proposes AI search work, ask to see their version of this test for your business. If they can't show which answers mention you and where those answers get their facts, they're guessing. The tutorial on getting your business recommended by ChatGPT and AI search covers the fixes in more depth.
Questions that separate AI-literate agencies from rebadged ones
Ask the same questions of every agency on your shortlist. The middle column is what a knowledgeable answer sounds like; the right-hand column should make you cautious.
| Question | An answer that shows understanding | An answer that should worry you |
|---|---|---|
| Which of our pages appear in Search Console's generative AI report? | Names pages, notes the report shows impressions only | "We use our own AI visibility score instead" |
| Which AI crawlers should we allow, and why? | Separates search crawlers from training crawlers and explains the trade-off | "Block them all to protect your content" or "allow everything, it doesn't matter" |
| Will you add llms.txt or special AI schema? | "Google says it doesn't need them; we'd only add one as a minor extra" | Presents them as the main deliverable |
| How do you use AI to write content? | Drafts from your staff's knowledge, fact-checked, published at a pace you can review | "Thirty AI articles a month" with no mention of who checks facts |
| Can you guarantee we'll be mentioned in ChatGPT? | "No, but we can measure citations and improve the odds" | Any guarantee, especially with a deadline |
| What will the monthly report show? | Generative AI impressions, Bing citations, AI referrals, enquiries | Rankings for phrases nobody searches, or a single proprietary score |
| What will you do about reviews? | Asks every customer the same way, follows Google's rules | Incentives, filtering unhappy customers out, or scripts asking for staff names |
| Whose accounts will you work in? | Yours: you own Search Console, analytics and the Business Profile, and add them as users | "We'll set everything up under our agency account" |
The content question matters more than it looks. Google's spam policies name "scaled content abuse", and one of its examples is using generative AI tools to produce many pages without adding value for users. An agency publishing thirty generic AI articles a month on your domain is spending your reputation, not building it. Good AI-assisted content starts with real knowledge, which is the approach in writing website articles with AI that still rank.
Two proposals for the same garden centre, scored
Here's how the garden centre might compare two illustrative proposals at a similar monthly fee.
Proposal A, "AI Search Accelerator": an llms.txt file and an "AI schema pack"; 30 AI-written articles a month on gardening topics; guaranteed mentions in ChatGPT within 90 days; a monthly "AI visibility score" from the agency's own tool; a 12-month minimum term.
Proposal B: fix crawl issues and the PerplexityBot block; rewrite 12 category pages with real stock facts and seasonal availability; eight care guides drafted from customer questions and checked by the plant team; a Business Profile clean-up; a review request process that follows Google's rules; monthly reporting on generative AI impressions, Bing citations, AI referrals and enquiries; three months, then rolling monthly.
| Criterion (weight) | Proposal A | Proposal B |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from our own data (20) | 4 | 18 |
| Honest about what can be measured (20) | 3 | 17 |
| Content built from real knowledge (20) | 5 | 16 |
| Technical and crawler hygiene (15) | 6 | 14 |
| Profile and reviews within the rules (10) | 2 | 9 |
| Contract terms and ownership (15) | 4 | 12 |
| Total (100) | 24 | 86 |
Proposal A isn't necessarily dishonest; some agencies believe the GEO packages they sell. But almost every line of it is either something Google says isn't needed, something no one can promise, or something that risks a spam problem. Proposal B is less exciting to read and far easier to check. If a proposal can't be scored against a table like this, ask the agency to rewrite it until it can.
Comparing quotes when every agency scopes the work differently
Agencies rarely quote like for like. One prices by the month, another by the project, a third by the page. Before comparing fees, convert each proposal into the same three lines: one-off work (audits, technical fixes, profile clean-up), recurring work per month (pages written or improved, reports, review handling) and your own time (interviews, fact-checking drafts, approvals). For Proposal B, the garden centre's version might read: one-off, crawl fixes and 12 category rewrites spread over the first two months; recurring, two care guides and one report a month; owner time, about two hours a month checking drafts plus a 45-minute interview with the plant team for each guide.
Then ask every agency the same two questions: what do we keep if we stop after three months, and what happens to work that's half finished? The answers show how much of the fee buys lasting assets (rewritten pages stay on your site after the contract ends) and how much buys activity that stops when you do (reports, posting schedules, monitoring). Neither is wrong, but you should know the split before you sign, and an agency that answers clearly is usually one that reports clearly too.
Content an AI answer can actually quote
AI answers lean on pages that state specific facts clearly. Generic copy gives them nothing to cite. A typical garden centre category page, before and after an agency that understands this:
Before: We offer a wide range of quality roses to suit every garden. Our friendly team are always happy to help you find the perfect plant.
After: We stock around 40 varieties of bare-root roses from November to March, including climbers, ramblers and shrub roses. Bare-root roses should be planted while dormant; our plant team runs a free 20-minute planting demonstration on Saturday mornings in December and January. Order by 2pm for next-day click and collect.
The second version answers four questions a customer might put to an assistant: what's in stock, when, how to plant, and how to collect. A good agency drafts pages like this with AI, but the facts come from the business. A prompt they might use, with the facts supplied rather than invented:
Rewrite this category page for a garden centre. Use ONLY the facts
listed below; do not add varieties, prices, dates or claims.
Keep it under 150 words, plain English, no superlatives.
Facts:
- Around 40 bare-root rose varieties, November to March
- Types: climbers, ramblers, shrub roses
- Free 20-minute planting demonstration, Saturday mornings,
December and January
- Click and collect: order by 2pm for next day
Current page text: [paste]When you review agency drafts, check every number against your own records. The failure to watch for in AI-drafted local content is a confident detail nobody supplied: a variety you don't stock, a delivery promise you don't make, a price from last year.
Reviews, profiles and posts that AI answers draw on
For local businesses, AI answers often lean on the same signals as the local results: your Business Profile, reviews and consistent details across the web. A three-chair barber shop is a good example of where agencies can help or harm. Google's review rules forbid incentives and review gating (only asking happy customers), and since April 2026 they also rule out staff quotas for reviews and asking customers to mention specific content, such as a particular barber's name. An agency pitching a "review campaign" with a script that says "please mention [barber's first name] in your review" is selling a policy breach.
Other details a knowledgeable agency will raise: public posts from professional Instagram accounts have been able to appear in Google and Bing results since July 2025, so the barber's captions (services, prices, booking link) do more work than they used to. Consistency matters beyond Google too: check your details on Apple Business (formerly Apple Business Connect) and on Bing Places, which now sits at bing.com/forbusiness. And the profile itself should stay yours. On a Business Profile, owners can add and remove users; managers have mostly the same access but can't manage users or remove the profile. Add the agency as a manager, keep yourself as the primary owner. There's more on how these signals feed AI answers in how AI Overviews are changing local search and in what AI can and can't do for local SEO.
Monthly reporting that reflects AI search honestly
Agree the report format before you sign. An honest monthly report for the garden centre, with illustrative figures, might contain:
| Line | Last month | This month | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions | 2,310 | 2,780 | Search Console generative AI report |
| Bing AI citations | 118 | 151 | Bing Webmaster Tools |
| Visits referred by AI assistants | 34 | 41 | Analytics |
| Enquiries citing an AI assistant | 2 | 5 | Enquiry form |
| Organic enquiries in total | 58 | 63 | Enquiry form and phone log |
| Pages rewritten or added | 0 | 6 | Agency log, with links |
| Prompt test (run quarterly): named in answers | 3 of 40 last quarter | 7 of 40 this quarter | Quarterly test sheet |
Just as useful is a line saying what the report can't show. Search Console's generative AI report gives impressions but not clicks or queries, so nobody can tell you exactly how many visits came from an AI Overview. An agency that writes that limitation into its own report is one you can believe on the other lines.
Access and ownership to settle before you sign
- Search Console. You should be the verified owner. Only owners can add or remove users, so add the agency as a full user, which can view all data and take some actions such as submitting sitemaps.
- Business Profile. Agency as manager, you as primary owner.
- Analytics and Bing Webmaster Tools. Your accounts, with the agency added as users.
- Content. Everything written for you is yours, including drafts and the facts sheets behind them. The ownership and disclosure wording in AI clauses for agency contracts adapts well to SEO work.
- Exit. A notice period you can live with, and a list of every change made to your site so the next agency, or you, can pick up where they left off.
Settle these and the rest of the relationship is easy to judge: you can see the same data the agency sees, so the monthly report is a conversation about your numbers rather than theirs.
AI search and SEO agencies: questions owners ask
Do I need an llms.txt file to appear in AI answers?
Not for Google. Its documentation says you don't need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode. If an agency adds an llms.txt file as a small extra, that's harmless. If it's the centrepiece of the proposal, you'd be paying mainly for something Google says it doesn't use, so ask what else the fee covers.
Should I block AI crawlers to protect my content?
Decide bot by bot. Training crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot, and Google's Google-Extended token, relate to model training, and Google says Google-Extended doesn't affect Search inclusion or ranking. Search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot are how those services find pages to cite, so blocking them removes you from their answers. Most local businesses want to be cited.
Can an agency guarantee my business appears in ChatGPT answers?
No. Answers change with the wording of the question, the user's context and the sources available that day, and no agency controls which pages are cited. The ads OpenAI says may appear on ChatGPT's Free and Go plans are a separate paid product. An agency can improve the odds by fixing crawl access and publishing specific, accurate pages, and it can measure citations, but a guarantee is a warning sign.
Is AI search worth paying an agency for in a small local business?
Check your own numbers before deciding. If analytics show only a handful of visits a month from AI assistants, spend first on the basics that feed every channel: accurate hours and services, a well-kept Business Profile and clear pages about what you sell. Those same fixes are what AI answers draw on, so the work isn't wasted either way.
Further reads
- How to Audit Your Website's SEO With AI in One Afternoon — Run a quick SEO audit yourself before you pay anyone.
- How to Choose a Marketing Agency That Uses AI Responsibly — The wider agency checks: disclosure, approvals and AI-written content.
- How to Audit Your Website for AI Content That Needs Fixing — Find thin AI-written pages an earlier agency may have left behind.
- AI Washing: How to Spot Software That Oversells Its AI — The same scepticism applied to software that oversells its AI.
- How Wedding Businesses Get Found When Couples Ask AI for Suppliers — A sector example of how AI answers pick which suppliers to name.
- AI Software Contracts: Auto-Renewals, Price Rises, Notice Periods — Notice periods and renewals, which apply to agency retainers too.
- How to Get Your Products Recommended in ChatGPT Shopping — How ChatGPT picks products in 2026, how your data reaches it from Shopify, Etsy or your own site, and the fixes that make a recommendation more likely.
- How to Do Keyword Research With AI for a Small Business Website — Brainstorm and group search phrases with AI, check them against Google's free data, and build a keyword map for each page, with a bookshop worked through.
- Does Google Penalise AI-Written Content on a Business Website? — What Google's rules actually say about AI-written pages, how to tell a penalty from a page that never ranked, and a value check for every draft.
- What Is Generative Engine Optimisation and Does Your Business Need It? — Where the GEO idea came from, how AI answer engines choose sources, a decision table by business type, and five checks that cover most of it.
- AI Website Builder or Web Designer: What Each Really Costs — Builder prices for Wix, Framer, Durable and Hostinger, what designers charge according to Clutch, and a three-year cost that counts your own hours.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Google Search Central, AI features and your website; Search Console Help, Generative AI performance report (Search) and Search generative AI control; Google's common crawlers page (Google-Extended); Google spam policies; OpenAI crawler documentation; Anthropic support article on its crawlers; Perplexity crawler documentation; Microsoft's announcement of AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools; Google Business Profile Help and Search Console Help on users and permissions; Apple Business and Bing Places for Business pages.