26.11.06 - Help AI describe your company correctly: 7 ways MetAI optimizes websites for AI search (AIO)

This is Debitto, CEO of MetAI.

“What does this company do?” “Which companies in Tokyo can set up local generative AI?” More and more people now ask questions like these to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude or Google’s AI Overviews instead of a search engine.

That is where AIO (AI Optimization, or AI search optimization) comes in. It is sometimes called LLMO or GEO. In this post we share what MetAI actually does on our own site (met-ai.tech) and on our clients’ sites.

SEO vs. AIO

• SEO aims to rank high in search results on Google and other search engines.
• AIO aims to have AI understand your company correctly and mention or cite it when it writes an answer.

AI builds its answers from what your site says. If that information is hard to read or out of date, AI may describe you wrongly, or leave you out altogether. AIO doesn’t replace SEO: it builds on top of it.

7 ways MetAI optimizes websites for AI search

1. Welcome AI crawlers

AI reads websites through bots called crawlers. Our robots.txt explicitly allows GPTBot (ChatGPT), ClaudeBot (Claude), PerplexityBot (Perplexity), Bingbot, Applebot and others. Many sites still block AI crawlers because of old settings, so this is the first thing to check.

2. Give AI a table of contents with llms.txt

llms.txt is a file that summarizes a site and each of its pages for AI. On met-ai.tech it covers every page and post, in Japanese, English and Spanish, and updates itself every time we publish. See ours.

3. Say exactly what each page is with structured data

Alongside the text people read, we add information in a format AI and search engines read easily (structured data):

• Company details (name, address, contact, CEO)
• What each service is
• Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
• Publish and update dates for posts
• Where each page sits in the site (breadcrumbs)

4. One page per language, so AI can answer in any of them

The Japanese, English and Spanish versions each have their own URL, and every page says which versions belong together (hreflang). When someone abroad asks AI in English or Spanish, it can answer from the page in that language.

5. Lead with the answer

AI looks for the part of a page that answers the question. Each of our pages starts with a short line on what the company or service does, states the numbers and names clearly (clients, languages, price ranges…) and gathers common questions in an FAQ.

6. Keep information current

AI can repeat outdated information as if it were current. Our sitemap includes the update date of every page, and every post shows when it was published and updated. We also regularly look for “upcoming” events that are already over and figures that have changed.

In fact, while writing this post we found that the description of our AI Virtual Human page still ended with its debut at NIIGATA AI EXPO in October, so we updated it to include the trial at NINNO3 in Niigata from December.

7. Make the site fast and reliable to read

met-ai.tech is a static site, with no PHP or database, served from a global CDN. Pages load fast and crawlers rarely hit errors. We also prepare share images for every page and language, for when the site is shared on social media.

Check your own site

• Ask AI: ask ChatGPT or Perplexity “What does (company name) do?” and check whether the answer is right and up to date.
• Look at robots.txt: open “your-site/robots.txt” and make sure AI crawlers aren’t blocked.
• Look for llms.txt: check whether “your-site/llms.txt” exists.
• Hunt for old information: past event announcements, old prices, services you no longer offer.

How MetAI can help

• Websites built with MetAI Builder: everything above is set up automatically every time you publish. About MetAI Builder
• AIO check of your current site: for WordPress and other existing sites, we review crawler settings, llms.txt, structured data and outdated content, and suggest improvements.

Get in touch for a free 30-minute consultation.