Products and services are increasingly being found via AI platforms such as Perplexity and ChatGPT; traditional search remains important. This article shows why AI visibility is key and how to achieve it.
Customer Benefit
- More qualified inquiries: The right pages appear in AI answers.
- Control & compliance: Steer visibility while preserving data privacy.
- Measurable: Citation rate, time-to-citation, qualified leads.
Starting Point
- AI platforms deliver answers instead of link lists.
- Many SMEs are structurally not AI-discoverable.
- Goal: Prioritize what should be public; hide what must remain internal.
Solution Concept
- AI sitemap + Frontmatter v1.3 for machine readability.
- JSON-LD/OG consistent with canonicals & freshness signals.
- robots.txt by design: allow what should be visible; block internal content.
- Monitoring via Matomo + Server-Logs.
Methods and Tools
- Tools: n8n (Workflow), Frontmatter v1.3, JSON-LD/OpenGraph, robots.txt, sitemap_ai.xml, Matomo/Plausible, Caddy.
- Planning + Realisation: Experience Innovation.
- Basis: KMU Opensource KI Hub
Project Contribution and Role
- Tolksdorf.digital: Analysis, concept, setup (AI sitemap/frontmatter/robots), CMS implementation, monitoring & evidence, training.
Reference Customer
- Ammann Components, Tägerwilen
Reference Contact
- On request
Frequently asked Questions (FAQ)
Why should an AI find a company’s website?
- So your offerings appear in answers, not just search results—boosting relevance and conversion.
May an AI platform use my data at all?
- Yes, for public content and within robots/terms. You control this via robots.txt, noindex, and license notices.
Are my data truly safe when an AI reads them?
- Public pages are meant for that. Sensitive content: don’t publish it; protect access; block crawlers.
Will Google and Bing become irrelevant?
- No. They remain core infrastructure; many AI systems build on them. You need both: classic SEO and AI visibility.
What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?
- Optimizing to show up in direct AI answers (structured content, Q&A, clear signals).
What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
- Optimizing for generative systems (long-form answers). Focus: context, structure, freshness, source clarity.
What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
- Tech + content + authority so pages are found in traditional search.
Why is SEO important for SMEs?
- SEO provides the baseline visibility. Without it, AI systems often lack reliable signals.
How can older websites be made accessible to AI platforms?
- Incrementally modernize: add an AI sitemap, backfill Frontmatter/JSON-LD, set canonicals, review robots, prioritize key pages.
If more and more people are searching with AI platforms, what does that mean for searching on the internet?
- Often ready-made answers get served instead of lists of links—this saves time, but requires critical review.
- AI summarizes sources and cites them (sometimes well, sometimes incompletely)
- Sources require
- Demand becomes part of the search
- Hybrid search with PI platforms and search engines
- Have reports generated by the AI platform for download
Sources and Further Reading
- How people use ChatGPT (NBER Working Paper): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34255/w34255.pdf
- SME Opensource AI Hub (Overview): https://tolksdorf.digital/kmu-opensource-ki-hub
- Frontmatter v1.3 (concept): https://tolksdorf.digital/ai/sitemap_ai.xml
(https://tolksdorf.digital/ai/sitemap_ai.xml) - Tolksdorf.digital Specification Frontmatter v1.3: OpenGraph & Schema.org (v1.3): https://tolksdorf.digital/ai/spec/index.html