If you think SEO is just about Google rankings, you're already behind.
AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews are now answering the questions your customers are asking — without sending them to a website. If your site isn't set up correctly, you're invisible to those answers.
The good news: there are three specific things you can add to your website that make a real difference. None of them require a complete rebuild. Here's what they are and why they matter.
1. Schema Markup
Schema markup is a small block of code that tells search engines and AI tools exactly who you are and what you do. Think of it as a structured business card for the internet.
Without it, AI has to guess your business name, address, hours, and services from reading your website like a human would. With it, that information is handed over in a format AI can read instantly and trust.
The most important type for local businesses is called LocalBusiness schema. It includes your business name, address, phone number, hours, service area, and the types of services you offer. When AI tools answer questions like "who does X near me," they pull heavily from schema data.
What to include in your schema:
- Business name, address, and phone number
- Business hours and service area
- The types of services you offer
- Your Google Business Profile URL
- Social media profile links
- Founder or owner name
If you have a website developer, ask them to add LocalBusiness schema in JSON-LD format. If you're on WordPress, plugins like Yoast or RankMath can generate it for you.
2. FAQs Written for AI Answers
AI search tools are essentially giant question-answering machines. They scan millions of websites looking for clear, direct answers to specific questions. If your website has well-written FAQs, you become a source those tools can quote directly.
The key is writing FAQs the way people actually search, not the way businesses like to describe themselves. Instead of "What are your services?" write "How much does a website cost for a small business?" or "What does an SEO audit include?"
Each answer should be complete on its own, written in 2 to 4 sentences, and avoid jargon. When AI pulls a snippet to answer someone's question, it usually grabs the first clear, direct answer it finds. Your FAQ is that answer.
Tips for writing AI-friendly FAQs:
- Start the question with Who, What, How, or Do you
- Answer in the first sentence — don't bury the lead
- Write as if answering a real customer on the phone
- Add FAQPage schema so AI can identify your Q&A format
- Aim for 8 to 12 FAQs per service page
You can add FAQs to any page on your site. Service pages and your homepage are the highest priority.
3. A robots.txt File (and the New llms.txt)
A robots.txt file is a simple text file that lives at the root of your website and tells crawlers which pages they can and cannot access. Every website should have one. Without it, AI crawlers and search bots are navigating your site completely blind.
The most important thing your robots.txt needs to do is allow legitimate search crawlers to access your public pages and point them to your sitemap. Your sitemap is the map of every page on your site, and robots.txt is how you hand that map to the bots.
There's also a newer file gaining traction called llms.txt. It's designed specifically for large language models like ChatGPT and Perplexity. It's a plain text summary of your business, what you do, and what makes you different, written in a format AI can process easily. Think of it as a pitch document for the robots.
A simple robots.txt looks like this:
``` User-agent: * Allow: /
Sitemap: https://yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml ```
This tells all crawlers they can access everything and points them to your sitemap.
All Three Together
Schema markup tells AI who you are. FAQs give AI something to quote when someone asks a question you can answer. And robots.txt makes sure AI can actually find and read your site in the first place.
None of these are optional anymore. As AI search continues to grow, businesses that have these three things in place will show up. Businesses that don't will become invisible, regardless of how good their product or service is.
The window to get ahead of this is still open. Most local businesses haven't done any of this yet. If you move now, you're not catching up. You're leading.
Not sure if your site has these? Contact Egmer Marketing and we'll check it for free.