# Site Axis: full text > Site Axis is an AI search optimization studio. We get businesses found on Google and named by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, then send a one-page action plan every Monday built from real search data. Website: https://siteaxis.co/ Contact: hello@siteaxis.co Location: Lancaster, Pennsylvania, serving the United States ## Plans and pricing ### Axis Weekly: $390/month (or $3,900/year) The Monday action plan. For owners and in-house teams who can make the changes themselves. - A one-page PDF action plan in your inbox every Monday - Google Search Console and Analytics connected and read weekly - AI visibility tracking on 25 buyer questions across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews - Monthly scorecard: rankings, clicks, AI mentions and citations - Plain-English steps ranked by impact and effort - Email support with a one business day reply ### Axis Pro: $1,200/month (or $12,000/year) We write the plan and then do the work. Available on websites and Shopify stores Site Axis builds. - Everything in Axis Weekly - We make the changes on the site or store we built for you, up to 12 a month - Two new or refreshed pages per month, written to be quoted by AI answers - Schema markup, internal linking, technical fixes and llms.txt (where your platform allows it) handled - Google Business Profile tuned and posted to weekly - AI visibility tracking expanded to 75 buyer questions - Monthly 30-minute review call ### Axis Partner: from $3,000/month For multi-location brands, franchises and agencies that need several sites tracked and improved. - Axis Weekly across multiple sites, stores or locations, or Axis Pro on the ones we build for you - Location and service page programs at scale - Custom question sets per market - White-label reports for agencies - Quarterly strategy session ### Care: $149/month (or $1,490/year) Hosting and peace of mind. - Managed hosting and SSL (Shopify hosts stores; we maintain the theme) - Daily backups, plus version history of your store theme - Uptime monitoring with alerts - Security, theme and app updates - One hour of edits per month ### Care + Weekly: $449/month (or $4,490/year) Your site looked after, plus the Monday plan. - Everything in Care - Everything in Axis Weekly ### Care + Pro: $1,249/month (or $12,490/year) Hands off. We look after it, grow it and report on it. - Everything in Care - Everything in Axis Pro ### Foundation Site: from $7,500 one-time (3 to 4 weeks) A fast, search-first site for a local or service business. - Up to 8 pages, designed and written for your buyers - Built search-first: schema, llms.txt, clean URLs, sitemap, sub-second loads - Every service and location answered on its own page - Google Business Profile and Search Console set up - 90 days of Axis Weekly included ### Flagship Site: from $16,000 one-time (6 to 8 weeks) A full content platform for businesses competing in crowded markets. - Up to 25 pages plus a guides library - Keyword and AI-question research before a single page is designed - Professional copywriting and an editorial plan for year one - Custom design system and brand polish - Migration of existing pages with redirects so nothing is lost - 90 days of Axis Pro included ### Shopify Store: from $9,500 one-time (4 to 6 weeks) A custom Shopify store built to rank on Google and show up when shoppers ask AI. - Custom theme designed for your brand and built in code, with no page-builder bloat - Up to 50 products loaded with search-ready titles, descriptions and photo alt text - Product, review and breadcrumb schema so Google and AI shopping results read your catalog - Payments, shipping, sales tax and checkout set up and tested with test orders - Google Merchant Center connected so products can appear in Shopping results - The store is yours: it lives in your Shopify account and you pay Shopify directly - 90 days of Axis Weekly included ### AI Visibility Audit: $950 one-time A deep, one-time look at how Google and the AI assistants see your business today, with a 90-day roadmap. Fully credited toward any website build or your first three months of a plan. - 50 buyer questions tested across five AI assistants - Technical crawl: indexing, speed, schema, AI crawler access - Competitor comparison: who gets named instead of you, and why - A recorded walkthrough and a prioritized 90-day roadmap ## Frequently asked questions ### What is AI search optimization? AI search optimization (also called generative engine optimization, GEO, or answer engine optimization, AEO) is the work of making your business the one that AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews name and link to when someone asks a question you can answer. It builds on classic SEO: the assistants mostly pull from pages that are already crawlable, trusted and clearly written. ### Is SEO dead now that people ask AI? No. Most AI answers are assembled from pages that search engines have already indexed and ranked. Strong SEO is the entry ticket. AI optimization adds the parts that decide whether you get quoted: direct answers, structured data, clear entity information and being mentioned on other sites the assistants trust. ### What exactly is in the weekly action plan? A one-page PDF every Monday. It shows what changed last week (clicks, impressions, rankings and AI mentions), then lists three to five specific actions ranked by impact and effort, each with the page, the change and why it matters. No dashboards to log into and no jargon. ### Who writes the plan, a person or AI? AI does the heavy lifting: it pulls your Search Console and Analytics data, runs your buyer questions through the AI assistants and drafts the plan. Our own playbook and guardrails shape every recommendation, and plans that suggest anything risky, like removing or redirecting a page, are flagged for human review before they go out. ### How fast will I see results? Technical fixes and new pages usually start showing in Search Console within two to six weeks. AI assistant mentions tend to move more slowly because they depend on how often each assistant refreshes what it knows. We report honestly every week, including weeks where nothing moved. ### Do you guarantee rankings or AI mentions? No, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Nobody controls Google or the AI assistants. We guarantee the work: a clear plan every week, implemented changes on the plans that include them, and honest reporting. ### Do I need a new website? Not to get started. Axis Weekly works on any website, including WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow and Shopify, because we only read your data and tell you exactly what to change. Axis Pro, where we make the changes ourselves, is only for websites and Shopify stores we build, so every change is made safely in code we wrote. If you want the work done for you, a search-first rebuild is the path, and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth it. ### Will you make changes on my existing website? No. On sites we did not build, we deliver the plan and you or your web person make the changes, usually in under an hour a week. Each action names the exact page and wording, so it is quick to do. We only edit websites and Shopify stores we built, because that is the only way we can guarantee a change will not break something. If you would rather hand the work off entirely, a Foundation Site or Shopify Store build moves you onto something we look after. ### Do you build Shopify stores? Yes. We build custom Shopify stores with a theme written in code for speed, product data written to be read by Google and AI shopping results, and payments, shipping and tax set up and tested before launch. The store lives in your own Shopify account, so you own it outright. ### Who pays for Shopify? You do, directly. Your Shopify plan, apps and payment processing are billed by Shopify to your account. Our build fee and any plan or care subscription with Site Axis are separate. ### Is there a contract? Plans are month to month and you can cancel any time. Pay annually and you get 12 months for the price of 10. Website builds are a fixed quote with a clear scope. ### What access do you need? For Axis Weekly: read-only access to Google Search Console and Google Analytics. For Axis Pro we already look after your site or store, so we only need manager access to your Google Business Profile. ### Do you practice what you preach? Yes. siteaxis.co runs on the same playbook and gets the same Monday plan our clients get. We publish our own numbers on a public scoreboard so you can watch it work before you buy. ## Guide: What Is AI Search Optimization (GEO and AEO)? A Plain-English Guide URL: https://siteaxis.co/guides/what-is-ai-search-optimization/ Updated: 2026-11-10 Short answer: AI search optimization is the practice of making your business the one AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews name and link to when someone asks a question you can answer. It is also called generative engine optimization (GEO) or answer engine optimization (AEO). It builds on SEO: assistants mostly draw from pages search engines can already crawl and trust, then favor sources that answer clearly, state specific facts and are corroborated by other sites. ## Why this matters now For twenty years, getting found online meant ranking on a page of ten links. That page still exists, but more searches now end with a written answer instead. Google shows AI Overviews above its results for many questions. ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini answer questions directly and cite a handful of sources. Microsoft builds Copilot answers into Bing and Windows. The practical change for a business owner is simple: an answer names far fewer businesses than a results page lists. If someone asks "who is the best roofer in Lancaster," the answer might recommend two or three companies. Being sixth on Google used to earn some clicks. Being left out of the answer earns none. ## How AI assistants decide what to say Each assistant works a little differently, but the broad pattern is the same: - Retrieve. For questions about current, local or specific things, the assistant runs searches. ChatGPT search uses its own crawler (OAI-SearchBot) plus partner search data, Claude searches the web with its own crawler (Claude-SearchBot) and a search partner, Perplexity runs its own index, and Google AI Overviews draw on Google's index. - Read. It reads the top pages it finds. Pages that load as plain HTML, answer the question early and state facts clearly are easier to use. - Compare. It cross-checks claims across sources. A business that appears consistently on its own site, its Google Business Profile, review sites and local articles looks more trustworthy than one that appears in a single place. - Write. It writes an answer and, usually, cites the sources it leaned on. For general questions the assistant may also answer from what it learned during training. You cannot change that quickly, but the same habits that help retrieval (clear facts, consistent information, mentions on reputable sites) are what shape a model's knowledge over time. ## AI search optimization vs SEO | | Classic SEO | AI search optimization | Goal | Rank a page high in results | Be named and cited in the answer | Unit of success | Position and clicks | Mentions, citations and the clicks they send | Content style | Keyword-targeted pages | Direct answers with quotable specifics | Trust signals | Backlinks, relevance, experience | All of those, plus consistency across many sources | Measurement | Search Console, rank trackers | Search Console plus asking the assistants directly, repeatedly The overlap is large. Google has said that the same fundamentals that help pages in Search help them appear in AI features, and that no special markup is required. That is good news: AI search optimization is not a separate trick, it is SEO done with more discipline about answers and evidence. ## The five things that move AI visibility ### 1. Pages that answer real questions Write one page per service, location and common question, and answer it in the first two sentences. Include the specifics people ask about: price ranges, timelines, service areas, what is included and who it is for. Vague marketing copy gives an assistant nothing to quote. ### 2. Access for crawlers Check your robots.txt. Some sites block AI crawlers without realizing it, sometimes through a security plugin or a hosting default. If you want to appear in AI search, allow the search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT), Claude-SearchBot (Claude) and PerplexityBot (Perplexity), along with Googlebot and Bingbot. Make sure your key content renders without JavaScript. ### 3. Structured data Schema.org markup (Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, Review, Article) labels the facts on your pages so machines do not have to guess. It is not a ranking switch, but it removes ambiguity about who you are and what you offer. ### 4. Consistent entity facts Your business name, address, phone, services and hours should match everywhere: your site, Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, Yelp, industry directories and social profiles. Conflicting details make assistants hedge or leave you out. ### 5. Third-party proof Assistants trust what others say about you. Reviews, local news coverage, trade association listings, supplier "find a dealer" pages and "best of" roundups in your market all count. Look at which sites the assistants cite for your category and work on earning a place on them. ## How to measure it There is no Search Console for ChatGPT yet, so measurement is manual or automated by tools. The reliable method is to pick a fixed set of questions your buyers ask, run them through each assistant on a schedule and record whether you are named, whether you are linked and who is named instead. Answers vary from run to run, so trends over weeks matter more than any single result. Alongside that, keep watching Google Search Console. AI Overviews traffic is counted in Search Console's web search totals, and rising impressions on question-style queries are a good leading signal. ## Where to start this week - Write down ten questions a customer would ask before hiring you. - Ask them in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google. Note who gets named. - Check your robots.txt allows the major search and AI crawlers. - Pick your most important service page and rewrite its first paragraph as a direct answer with specifics. - Make your Google Business Profile complete and consistent with your site. If you would rather have someone do this for you, our free AI visibility snapshot covers steps one and two, and Axis Weekly turns the rest into a Monday checklist. ## Guide: How to Get Your Business Mentioned by ChatGPT (2026 Guide) URL: https://siteaxis.co/guides/how-to-get-mentioned-by-chatgpt/ Updated: 2026-11-10 Short answer: To get your business mentioned by ChatGPT, make sure its search crawler (OAI-SearchBot) can reach your site, publish pages that answer buyer questions directly with specific facts, keep your business details consistent across Google, Bing, Apple and review sites, and earn mentions on websites ChatGPT already cites in your market. Then test the same questions every week to see whether you are named. ## First, understand where ChatGPT gets local answers When you ask ChatGPT a question about something current or local, like "best HVAC company near Ephrata," it usually searches the web before answering. OpenAI runs a crawler called OAI-SearchBot for this and also uses third-party search providers. It then reads a few pages, writes an answer and shows the sources it used. That means you are not trying to "train" ChatGPT. You are trying to be one of the pages it finds, trusts and quotes when it searches. Those are things you can influence this month. ## The checklist ### 1. Let OpenAI's crawlers in Open yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If you see User-agent: GPTBot or User-agent: OAI-SearchBot followed by Disallow: /, ChatGPT may be blocked from reading you. OpenAI separates its crawlers: - OAI-SearchBot finds pages to show in ChatGPT search results. Allow this if you want to be cited. - ChatGPT-User fetches a page when a user asks ChatGPT to look at it. - GPTBot collects content that may be used for training. Blocking it is a business choice and does not remove you from ChatGPT search. Also check your firewall or CDN. Some bot-protection settings block these crawlers even when robots.txt allows them. ``` User-agent: OAI-SearchBot Allow: / User-agent: ChatGPT-User Allow: / ``` ### 2. Be findable in Bing Bing's index has long been one of the sources behind ChatGPT's web results. Claim your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, and claim your business in Bing Places. It takes twenty minutes and many businesses have never done it. ### 3. Write answer-first pages Assistants quote sentences that stand on their own. For each service you offer, publish a page whose first paragraph answers the question a buyer would ask, in plain words, with specifics: We install ductless mini-split heat pumps across Lancaster County. Most single-zone installs cost $4,500 to $7,000 and take one day. We are a Mitsubishi Diamond Contractor and offer 12-year parts and labor warranties. That paragraph tells ChatGPT what you do, where, for how much, how fast and why to trust you. Compare that with "We provide comprehensive comfort solutions tailored to your needs," which says nothing quotable. ### 4. Keep your facts identical everywhere Name, address, phone, hours, service area and core services should match on your website, Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp, the BBB, and any industry directories. When sources disagree, assistants are less confident and more likely to recommend someone else. ### 5. Earn mentions on sites ChatGPT already cites Ask ChatGPT your buyer questions and look at the sources it shows. You will often see the same few sites: a local news outlet, a "best of" list, a trade association directory, a manufacturer's dealer locator, Reddit threads, review platforms. Those are your targets. Getting listed, reviewed or quoted on them does more for ChatGPT visibility than anything on your own site. ### 6. Collect detailed reviews Assistants summarize reviews. Reviews that mention the specific service, the town and the outcome ("replaced our furnace in Lititz in one day, fair price") give the model concrete material to repeat. Ask happy customers to be specific. ### 7. Add structured data Use Organization or LocalBusiness schema with your name, address, logo, service area and sameAs links to your profiles. Add Service and FAQPage markup to the relevant pages. This makes your facts unambiguous to every machine that reads your site. ## How to check whether it's working - Write 10 to 25 questions a buyer would ask. Mix generic ("best roofer near me") with specific ("who installs slate roofs in Lancaster County"). - Ask each one in ChatGPT with search on, ideally logged out or in a fresh chat so your history does not bias it. - Record three things: were you named, were you linked, and who was named instead. - Repeat weekly. Answers change from run to run, so look at the trend over a month, not any single day. You can also look for ChatGPT in your analytics. Traffic from ChatGPT often arrives with a referrer from chatgpt.com or a utm_source=chatgpt.com tag on the link. ## What not to do - Do not publish hundreds of thin, near-identical pages for every town. Assistants and Google both discount them. - Do not hide text or stuff keywords for bots. It does not help and can hurt you in Google. - Do not buy fake reviews. Beyond being against platform rules and FTC regulations, inconsistent review patterns are easy to spot. - Do not trust anyone who guarantees ChatGPT placement. Nobody controls it. Want to know where you stand right now? Our free AI visibility snapshot runs ten of your buyer questions through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google and shows you who gets named. ## Guide: How to Get Your Products Into ChatGPT, Google and AI Shopping Results URL: https://siteaxis.co/guides/how-to-get-products-into-ai-shopping-results/ Updated: 2026-11-10 Short answer: AI assistants recommend products using two kinds of sources: structured product feeds (from Google Merchant Center, Shopify and other commerce platforms) and ordinary web pages such as reviews, comparisons and your own product pages. To be included, keep a clean, complete product feed, put clear facts and structured data on every product page, earn reviews and mentions on other sites, and turn on the AI sales channels your platform offers. ## Shopping has moved into the answer Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity for "the best carry-on suitcase under $300" and you increasingly get product cards with photos, prices and links instead of a list of articles. Google shows products inside AI Overviews and AI Mode. Some assistants now let shoppers finish the purchase without leaving the chat. For a store owner, this is the same shift we describe in AI search optimization, with higher stakes: the answer usually names only a few products, and the shopper may never see a results page at all. ## Where AI product answers come from Assistants assemble product answers from two places. - Product feeds. Structured catalogs that list each product's title, price, availability, images and identifiers. Google Shopping draws on Google Merchant Center. Commerce platforms, Shopify among them, now syndicate store catalogs to AI assistants directly. - The open web. Your product pages, review sites, comparison articles, Reddit threads and press. This is where an assistant learns which products are well regarded and who they suit. The feed gets you into the catalog. The web decides whether you are recommended. ## What to do, in order - Get your product data complete. Every product needs a descriptive title (what it is, key attribute, size or model), a real description, accurate price and stock, good photos with alt text, and identifiers like a GTIN or MPN where they exist. Missing fields are the most common reason products are left out. - Connect Google Merchant Center. On Shopify this is done through Google's sales channel app. It feeds Google Shopping, free product listings and the products Google shows in AI answers. - Turn on the AI channels you are eligible for. In its Winter '26 Edition, Shopify introduced Agentic Storefronts, a sales channel that can share an eligible store's catalog with assistants including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. Availability, checkout and fees differ by assistant and are changing quickly, so check your Shopify admin's sales channels rather than any blog post, including this one. - Write product pages that answer questions. Shoppers ask assistants things like "is this good for small apartments" or "will it fit a 15-inch laptop." Put those facts on the page in plain sentences: dimensions, materials, who it is for, care, shipping times and return policy. - Add structured data. Product, Offer and AggregateRating markup lets search engines read price, availability and reviews without guessing. Most good Shopify themes include basic product markup; check it with Google's Rich Results Test. - Earn reviews and outside mentions. Reviews on your store, on Google and on independent sites, plus mentions in gift guides and comparisons, are what make an assistant confident enough to recommend you. ## How to tell if it is working - Ask the assistants the questions your shoppers ask, weekly, and record whether your products appear. - In Shopify, look at orders and sessions by sales channel. AI channel orders are attributed separately. - In Merchant Center, check for disapproved products and missing attributes. - In analytics, look for referrals from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and copilot.microsoft.com. ## What not to do - Do not stuff product titles with keywords. Feeds and assistants both favor clear, accurate titles. - Do not let feed prices or stock drift from your site. Mismatches get products disapproved. - Do not buy reviews. It breaks platform rules and FTC regulations, and it is easy to detect. Want to see which products the assistants recommend in your category? Our free AI visibility snapshot asks them for you. If you are building or rebuilding a store, see our Shopify store builds. ## Guide: What Is llms.txt and Does Your Website Need One? URL: https://siteaxis.co/guides/what-is-llms-txt/ Updated: 2026-11-10 Short answer: llms.txt is a proposed standard: a Markdown file at yourdomain.com/llms.txt that gives AI models a short, curated summary of your site and links to your most important pages. It was proposed in September 2024 by Jeremy Howard of Answer.AI. It is not an official standard, and Google has said its search systems do not use it, so treat it as a cheap, low-risk addition rather than a ranking lever. ## What the file looks like An llms.txt file is plain Markdown. It starts with your name as a heading, a one-paragraph summary in a blockquote, and then sections of links with short descriptions. Here is a simplified version for a local business: ``` # Hearthline Builders > Kitchen and bath remodeling in Lancaster County, PA. > Design and construction by one team since 2009. ## Services - [Kitchen remodeling](https://example.com/kitchens/): full remodels, typical cost $45k to $120k, 8 to 12 weeks - [Bathroom remodeling](https://example.com/baths/): typical cost $18k to $45k ## Company - [About](https://example.com/about/): licensed PA contractor PA012345 - [Reviews](https://example.com/reviews/) ``` Some sites also publish llms-full.txt, which contains the full text of key pages in one file so a model can read everything in a single request. You can see ours at /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt. ## Who actually reads it? This is where honesty matters. As of late 2026: - Google has said its search systems do not use llms.txt, and that normal SEO practices are what count for AI Overviews. - AI coding tools and developer documentation are where llms.txt has caught on most. Many software companies publish one so assistants can read their docs accurately. - AI assistants browsing on a user's behalf may read it if they land on it, but no major assistant has publicly committed to using it as a ranking or citation signal. In other words, llms.txt is not robots.txt. It does not control anything, and publishing one will not make ChatGPT recommend you by itself. ## So should you add one? Probably yes, for three reasons that have nothing to do with hype: - It costs almost nothing. It is one text file, maybe 30 minutes of work. - Writing it is useful. Summarizing your business in one paragraph and picking your ten most important pages forces the same clarity that helps your real pages get quoted. - It cannot hurt. Search engines ignore it if they do not use it. What you should not do is prioritize it over the things that demonstrably matter: crawlable pages, answer-first content, structured data, consistent business listings and reviews. If someone is selling you llms.txt as the key to AI search, be skeptical. ## How to add one - Create a plain text file named llms.txt. - Start with # Your Business Name and a one-paragraph summary as a blockquote (lines beginning with >). - Add sections (## Services, ## Company, ## Guides) with Markdown links and a short note on each, including facts like prices and service areas. - Upload it to the root of your site so it loads at yourdomain.com/llms.txt. - Keep it updated when prices or services change. A stale file is worse than none. On WordPress, several SEO plugins can now generate one for you. Review what they produce, because auto-generated files often list every page instead of the ones that matter. For the bigger picture, read our guide to AI search optimization, or get a free snapshot of how assistants see your business today.