AI Search Visibilityfor local businesses.
Direct answer
AI Search Visibility is whether your business shows up when prospects ask AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews) for the queries customers actually ask. It is a different layer than Google search, with different ranking signals, different fixes, and different measurement. Velox Digital diagnoses it for free, fixes it for $199 in 30 days, and rechecks the same prompts after to show whether the work moved the needle. No ranking or citation guarantees on any tier.
Most SMB-focused agencies do not work on this yet. Most enterprise tools that do work on it are priced for in-house marketing teams ($15–40k / yr Webflow AEO, $299–999 / mo Bluefish / LLMrefs / Enrich Labs). The work is achievable at SMB pricing. This page explains how it works and what we can do about it. For the methodology disclosure (engines, prompt counts, definitions, limitations, recheck rules), see /ai-visibility-methodology.
How AI search tools decide what to surface.
The major AI engines use overlapping but distinct signal stacks. What works on one does not automatically work on another. The Sprint addresses the signal groups all of them share, plus engine-specific tuning where it makes sense.
Google AI Overviews
Pulls from Google's search index. LocalBusiness schema, Google Business Profile completeness, review velocity, and on-page topic coverage matter most. AIO is closer to "well-tuned local SEO + structured data" than to a fundamentally new system. If your Google rankings are healthy and your schema is clean, AIO often surfaces you.
Perplexity
Live web search every query. Returns per-claim citations. FAQPage schema is read directly. Strong topical content with clear question-answer structure tends to be cited heavily. Wikipedia / Wikidata corroboration helps for entity disambiguation but is not strictly required.
ChatGPT Search
Reads via Bing index plus its own crawler. Heavy reliance on entity graph (Wikidata, Crunchbase, LinkedIn). For local businesses, Google Business Profile + LinkedIn + a clean LocalBusiness JSON-LD on your site materially improves your odds. ChatGPT also uses persistent memory of prior sessions for some users, which is out of our control.
Closed-model memory (Claude, Gemini, Grok)
Trained-knowledge baseline plus optional web search. When grounded with live web search (which our paid scans force), they behave more like Perplexity. When run without grounding, they answer from training-data memory, which we cannot influence directly. The Sprint focuses on the signals that move the grounded mode.
The 5 signal groups we improve.
The Sprint is structured around these five groups. Each group has its own audit, its own implementation pass, and its own recheck contribution. The free check sees signals from groups 1–3 indirectly; the $199 Sprint operates on all five.
- 01
Crawl + index basics
Robots.txt, sitemap.xml, canonical handling, indexable URL structure, internal linking, page-load speed. AI engines do not get to cite you if their crawlers cannot read you. This is the cheapest 80% of AI Search Visibility, and is solved on most Velox builds at launch by default.
- 02
Entity clarity + NAP consistency
Your business name, address, and phone number rendered identically across your site, Google Business Profile, Yelp, vertical directories, and (where applicable) Wikidata. Inconsistent NAP fragments your entity in the engine's graph and dilutes citation confidence.
- 03
Service + location coverage
Each major service you offer should have a dedicated service page with the service named in H1, the geographic area named explicitly, and the questions you answer for that service surfaced inline. AI engines cite the page that obviously answers the prompt, and that page has to exist first.
- 04
Structured data (schema)
LocalBusiness JSON-LD on every relevant page, FAQPage schema on FAQ blocks, Service schema on service pages, Review / AggregateRating where applicable, BreadcrumbList for navigation. Schema is the machine-readable summary of what a human would understand from the page.
- 05
Third-party corroboration
Citations on the entity-graph platforms AI engines read: GBP, Yelp, Wikidata, vertical directories your customers actually use. AI engines triangulate from multiple authoritative sources before generating a recommendation. One clean canonical site is necessary; multiple corroborating profiles are how you become the obvious answer.
What we can and cannot promise.
What we can promise
- The implementation work as specified will be delivered in 30 days
- Schema markup will validate cleanly (Google Rich Results, Schema.org validator)
- The same prompt set will be re-run at T+30 against the same engines
- Your before / after report will show real numbers, not curated highlights
- Methodology version is pinned per scan so comparisons stay valid
What we cannot promise
- ×That ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini / Grok will cite you for any specific query
- ×That your AI Visibility score will improve a specific number of points
- ×That improvements will hold (engines change citation behavior monthly)
- ×Lead volume, revenue, conversion rate, or any downstream business outcome
- ×That AI Search Visibility will replace your traditional SEO work
See /ai-visibility-methodology for the full disclosure on how we measure, what each tier runs, and the recheck rules. See Terms for refund policy and contract terms.
The questions buyers actually ask.
What is AI Search Visibility?
AI Search Visibility is whether your business shows up when prospects ask AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews) for the kinds of queries customers actually ask ("best plumber near me," "affordable dental implants in Brooklyn"). It is a different layer than Google blue-link search. Different ranking signals, different fixes, different measurement. Most agencies do not work on it yet.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO is about Google search results pages. AEO is about AI-generated answers. Most SEO work helps AEO indirectly (clean URLs, fast pages, accurate metadata), but AEO has its own explicit fixes (FAQPage schema, LocalBusiness JSON-LD, entity-graph linkage across Wikidata / Yelp / GBP, and topic-cluster content AI engines can quote) that traditional SEO agencies do not prioritize. Run both. AEO does not replace SEO.
Can you guarantee AI tools will recommend my business?
No. Anyone selling guaranteed AI-search rankings is misrepresenting the technology. AI engines change their citation behavior 40 to 60 percent month-to-month on the same query, and closed-model engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) cannot be deterministically tuned by external work. Velox sells the work done (schema deployed, citations added, content shipped, entity-graph cleanup completed) and a before / after recheck on the same prompts so you can see whether the work moved the needle.
Which AI engines do you test?
Free check runs Perplexity Sonar Online (single grounded engine, 5 prompts, live web search). $9 / $19 paid scans run 10 prompts across 6 engines: Anthropic Claude 3.5 Sonnet, OpenAI GPT-4o, Google Gemini 1.5 Pro, Perplexity Sonar Large, xAI Grok 2, Cohere Command R+. Every engine queries with live web search via OpenRouter's Exa-grounding suffix or native Sonar Online. No parametric-memory-only answers. Sprint baseline + recheck use the same 6-engine panel at 25 prompts each.
How long before changes show up in AI answers?
It varies by engine and signal type. Schema and FAQ deployments can be reflected within days on engines that re-crawl frequently (Perplexity, Google AI Overviews). Entity-graph corroboration on Wikidata / Yelp / vertical directories typically needs 2–4 weeks to propagate. The Sprint runs a T+30 recheck specifically because that window catches most of the early signal without waiting so long the comparison loses meaning.
What if I do not have a website yet?
Start at /web-design. Velox builds AI-search-ready websites from $299 setup (Starter, 1 to 4 pages) up to $799 setup (Pro, 9 to 15 pages). Schema, FAQ, entity signals, and AI-friendly metadata are baked in by default. A fresh Velox build does not need a Sprint on top right away. The Sprint is for optimizing an existing site you already have.
What does the $199 Sprint actually deliver?
A 30-day fixed-price implementation: 25-prompt baseline scan across 6 AI engines (with live web search), 1-page analysis briefing (competitor map + top 3 entity / content gaps + recommended next step), 15 paste-ready FAQ pairs with FAQPage JSON-LD, LocalBusiness + Service schema deployment, entity-graph audit + 5 Tier-1 citation adds, 3 topic-cluster articles live on your site with full schema markup, and a T+30 re-measurement against the same prompts. One-time, not a subscription. Optional $49/mo Visibility Maintenance after.
More questions? See the full FAQ.
Diagnosis or treatment.
Most prospects start with the free check. Some skip straight to the Sprint. Either path is fine.
$0 · Diagnosis
Run the free AI Visibility check.
5 prompts, 1 grounded engine (Perplexity Sonar Online with live web search), mention / no-mention output, top competitors named. No follow-up unless you ask.
Run the free check$199 · Treatment
Book the AI Search Visibility Sprint.
30-day implementation: 25-prompt baseline, schema, FAQ, content, entity graph, citation work, plus T+30 recheck on the same prompts. Optional $49/mo Maintenance after.
Book the $199 SprintNo website yet? Velox builds AI-search-ready sites from $299 setup at /web-design. The Sprint workflow runs against the launched site at no additional Sprint charge.