AI VISIBILITY · BORIS KATSAROV

Optimisation for AI search and answers

When a customer asks ChatGPT which product to buy and where to buy it, the answer should include your store. I work on this as part of the SEO plan, not as a separate service on a separate invoice.

AI Overviews

THE ANSWER ABOVE THE RESULTS IN GOOGLE

ChatGPT · Perplexity

WHERE SEARCH IS A CONVERSATION

1 report

TOGETHER WITH THE SEO WORK

WHAT IS CHANGING

Your customers no longer search the same way

They ask, they do not search

Instead of three words in Google, the customer writes a full question with budget, size and conditions. The answer is one paragraph, not ten blue links.

The answer comes before the site

AI Overviews sits above the results. If your store is not among its sources, the customer may never reach you at all.

The machine reasons

To cite you, the AI has to find the page, understand it and pull out the exact sentence. That is a question of format, not volume.

Research happens outside the store

Comparison and choice happen in the chat. The site comes last — if your name was mentioned along the way.

FOR ONLINE STORES

What this means for your store

The difference between a blog and a store matters. For a store, AI answers are built on data you already have: prices, availability, attributes and reviews.

Comparison questions move into the chat

“Which brand is better”, “what should I get for 250 euro” — these searches used to land on comparison pages in the store. Now some of them are answered without a click. If your pages are not among the sources, you do not appear in that conversation at all.

Product data becomes your public face

When the machine answers about a product, it does not retell your marketing copy — it reads the price, availability, specifications and reviews. An inaccurate feed or missing schema means your product is described wrongly, or does not appear at all.

Reviews carry more weight than before

Models look for confirmation outside your site: reviews, articles, forums, media mentions. That is why digital PR is part of AI visibility work, not a separate topic.

Brand search becomes the indicator

When AI mentions your store in an answer, people rarely click straight away — they search your name in Google later. That is why growth in brand queries is the first honest signal that the work is paying off.

THE SOLUTION

Four pillars AI visibility stands on

This does not cancel traditional SEO — it builds on it. The same technical base serves both, but the format and the proof are different.

1. Technical foundation

Access for AI bots, fast loading, clean HTML and structured data for product, price and availability. If the machine cannot get in and read, nothing else matters.

2. Information architecture

One topic — one page, with clear answers to specific questions. We connect categories, products and guides so it is obvious what is what.

3. Content format

A short answer up front, facts in a table, dates and an author. That way the machine can pull the exact sentence without guessing.

4. Brand authority

Media mentions, reviews and consistent company data. AI cites sources it trusts — this is where digital PR and AI visibility meet.

AUDIT

What I check at the start

Two weeks on the store and over 20 checks in four groups. At the end you know exactly what is stopping you from being cited and what gets fixed first.

Access for the machines

Which AI bots are allowed and which are blocked in robots.txt
Whether the content is visible without JavaScript
Server response time to bots
Security and firewall rules blocking them without your knowledge
Whether the important pages are in sitemap.xml

Structured data

Product schema with price, availability and condition
Organization and Person — who is behind the store
FAQ and HowTo where there are real questions
sameAs to the profiles that confirm the brand
Consistency between schema, feed and page

Content format

A short direct answer in the first lines of the page
Facts in a table, not a story in a paragraph
Last updated date and author
One topic — one page, no duplication
The same claims everywhere on the site

Authority and trust

MEASUREMENT

How we see whether it works

There are no rankings in the classic sense. We track three things, all in the same monthly report.

How often you are cited

We fix a list of real customer questions and check how many of the answers include your store — before and after the changes.

Searches for the store name

When AI mentions you, people search for your name. That shows up in Google Search Console and is the most honest early signal.

Traffic and orders from AI

We separate visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews in GA4 and watch how many of them end in an order.

GLOSSARY

The terms without the marketing noise

Term	What it means for your store
AI Overviews	The generated answer at the top of Google, assembled from several sources. The goal is to be one of them.
LLM	Large language model — what sits behind ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
Citation	When the model names your page as a source of the answer. This is the main metric I track.
Unlinked mention	AI says your name without giving a link. It drives brand searches, not clicks.
Structured data (schema)	A machine-readable description of product, price and availability. Without it the model guesses.
llms.txt	A file telling AI tools which content matters. New, optional, but cheap to maintain.
GEO / AEO	Marketing acronyms for the same work. I do not sell them as a separate service.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The questions I hear most often

How is this different from ordinary SEO?

The base is the same. The difference is the format: instead of competing for a click, we compete to be the source the machine cites.

Will it replace SEO?

No. AI models feed on the same pages that rank in Google. A store that is weak in search is weak in AI answers too.

What is an AI Overview?

The generated answer at the top of Google, assembled from several sources. Our goal is for your store to be one of them.

Can we do only this, without SEO?

I do not recommend it and do not sell it separately. If the category pages are not in order, there is nothing to cite.

How long does it take?

The technical changes are made quickly; whether the machines cite you more often shows after a few months. We measure it against the same list of questions every month.

What is a Google AI Overview?

A generated answer at the top of the results, assembled from several sources and shown before the ordinary links. If your store is not among the sources, some customers get their answer without ever seeing you.

Am I losing traffic to AI answers?

For some informational queries — yes. For queries with buying intent people still open stores. That is why the priority is to be cited where the decision is made, not on every topic indiscriminately.

Can AI use my content without citing me?

Yes, it happens. It becomes less likely when you have your own data, names and phrasing that appear nowhere else — then the source has to be named.

Do I need llms.txt?

It is useful and takes minutes, but it is not magic. I add it after bot access, structured data and page format are in order.

Should I block AI bots to protect my content?

If you block them, you become invisible in the answers. For an online store that is rarely worth it — your product data is public anyway.

Where do we start if the budget is limited?

With bot access and structured data on the product pages. Those are the cheapest changes with the fastest effect.

LET’S TALK

Let’s talk about your store.

Your name, store URL, email and a few sentences about the store. I reply personally within one business day with a proposal for a first call.

+359 896 409 201