ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot are increasingly the first stop for people looking for local services, product recommendations and expert answers. Being cited by these systems drives real traffic. Here is exactly what they look for and how to make your business visible to them — starting with schema markup.
AI search engines do not rank pages the way Google does. They extract entities — businesses, people, products, places — and verify them against multiple sources. When someone asks "best accountant in Leeds" or "which schema generator works without WordPress", the AI looks for businesses with clear, consistent, machine-readable information across authoritative sources.
Schema markup is one of the clearest machine-readable signals available. It gives AI engines structured facts about your business — what you do, where you are, what you specialise in, how to contact you — in a format they are built to read.
description — a clear factual summary of what your business does. This is the field AI engines most commonly extract verbatim when citing a business in response to a query.
knowsAbout — a list of your specific areas of expertise or specialisation. For a solicitor: conveyancing, family law, employment law. For a restaurant: wood-fired pizza, Italian cuisine, private dining. These match your business to specific queries.
sameAs — links to your verified profiles on Wikipedia, Wikidata, your Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, and authoritative directories. The more consistent your presence across verified sources, the more AI engines trust your entity.
aggregateRating — AI engines factor in review signals when recommending businesses. A verified aggregateRating with a high score and review count strengthens your citation likelihood.
foundingDate, legalName, vatID — entity disambiguation fields that help AI engines confirm they have identified the right business and not a different company with a similar name.
Schema markup is the foundation, but AI citation also depends on your content structure. Use clear question-and-answer sections that directly answer common queries in your field. Use concise, factual language in your headings and first paragraphs — AI engines extract from these.
Get listed in authoritative directories in your industry. For a UK local business: Yell, Thomson Local, 192.com, Checkatrade (for trades), Trustpilot. These sameAs signals verify your entity across multiple sources.
Run our AEO Checker on your page for a complete picture of your AI search signals — it goes beyond schema markup to check content structure, entity signals and citation readiness.
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