Answer Engine Optimisation: How Derbyshire Businesses Get Found by ChatGPT and AI Search
A client rang me last month worried that his trade counter in Derby had dropped off the map. His Google rankings hadn't moved. His reviews were fine. But when his own daughter asked ChatGPT for a local supplier, his firm didn't come up. A competitor two miles away did.
That is answer engine optimisation in one phone call. Search has quietly split in two. There is still the Google results page most of us grew up ranking for, and now there is a second layer where AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews read the web and hand a customer one answer, no scrolling required.
I've spent 18 years building marketing systems for SMBs across Derbyshire and the East Midlands, and this is the biggest shift in how customers find a business since mobile search took over. In this post I'll explain what answer engine optimisation actually means, why it matters for a local business right now, and the practical steps you can take this month to make sure AI tools mention you instead of the business down the road.
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Check your AI visibilityWhat Is Answer Engine Optimisation and Why It Matters Now
Answer engine optimisation, or AEO, is the practice of shaping your content so that AI tools can lift it straight into a direct answer. Where SEO is about earning a place on a results page, AEO is about earning the single summarised response that a user sees and never clicks past.
Around 60 percent of searches now end without a click at all. The user gets their answer inside the search engine or the AI chat window and moves on. For a Derbyshire plumber or a Nottingham accountant, that means the old measure of success, being on page one, is no longer enough on its own. You need to be the answer, not just a link near it.
AEO grew out of things many of us already recognise, featured snippets and the "people also ask" box. It has simply expanded to cover ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, all of which lean on structured data, clear language and topical authority to decide what to repeat back to a user.
AEO and SEO aren't rivals, they're the same job with a different finish line
I get asked whether AEO replaces SEO. It doesn't. Traditional SEO is still about earning a strong position on a results page, and that groundwork, keyword research, site structure, page speed, backlinks, is exactly what AEO builds on top of. The difference is the finish line. SEO aims for a click. AEO aims for a mention, whether or not that mention ever turns into a visit to your site.
There's a related term worth knowing, generative engine optimisation, or GEO. Where AEO is about being the direct answer, GEO is about being cited as a source within a longer AI-generated response. In practice, the two overlap so heavily that most Derbyshire SMBs don't need to treat them as separate projects, the same groundwork serves both.
The behaviour change behind the numbers
Customers now consult an average of ten sources before deciding, often switching between phone and laptop as they go. AI tools are trying to shortcut that entire process for them. If your website, your Google Business Profile and your reviews don't tell a clear, consistent story, the AI has nothing solid to summarise, so it picks whoever does.
How AI Search Changes the Way Local Customers Find You
I worked with a family-run garden centre near Ashbourne last year. Strong reputation, three decades of trading, decent rankings. When we tested a handful of AI prompts a customer might realistically type, the business barely appeared. The information was accurate but scattered: opening hours in one place, services in another, no clear answer to "does this garden centre deliver in Derbyshire".
We restructured the site around direct questions and answers, tightened the Google Business Profile, and added schema markup so machines could read the same story a human would. Within eight weeks, the business began showing up in AI-generated answers for local searches it had never appeared in before.
Why this matters more for local businesses than national brands
National brands have decades of mentions, reviews and press coverage already baked into the web. A local joiner in Belper or a beauty salon in Long Eaton doesn't have that luxury, which means every inconsistent listing or thin review profile costs proportionally more. AI tools fill gaps with whatever information is easiest to find, and if that isn't you, it's whoever put in the work.
This is also where the East Midlands has an advantage most business owners don't realise. Local search intent, "near me" style queries, is exactly the kind of question AI tools are built to answer well, because it's specific and geographically bound. Get the fundamentals right and a small Derbyshire business can genuinely outcompete a national chain for that particular customer.
The businesses winning at AI search aren't necessarily the biggest. They're the ones that answer the question clearly, in plain language, in more than one place online. Stuart Baddiley, Optimise Your Marketing
Why AI tools sometimes get it wrong
AI hallucination is the polite name for an AI confidently giving a wrong answer. I've seen it recommend a business that closed two years ago and misquote a firm's opening hours by a full day. It happens when the underlying information across the web is outdated, contradictory or thin.
The fix isn't complicated, it's consistency. Keep your website, your Google Business Profile and every directory listing lined up with the same facts, published in clear language, and refreshed whenever something changes.
A Chesterfield joinery firm went from invisible to recommended
After we rebuilt their content around direct questions and fixed inconsistent business listings, a Chesterfield joinery client began appearing in AI-generated answers for "bespoke kitchen fitters Derbyshire" within two months, with enquiries up alongside it.
See how we approach SEOThe Six Things That Get a Business Mentioned by ChatGPT
A recent study testing over 80 possible ranking factors found six that consistently influenced whether ChatGPT recommended a business. Every business owner in Derbyshire and the East Midlands should know these.
1. Brand mentions
How often your business is named across the web, not just on your own site. Directory listings, local press, supplier pages and customer forums all count.
2. Reviews
Both the volume and quality of reviews on third-party sites. A handful of five-star reviews from 2019 carries less weight than a steady flow of recent, detailed feedback.
3. Relevancy
Whether your content actually matches the words a customer is likely to use. This is where keyword research still earns its place, even in an AI-first search world.
4. Age
Older, established brands are trusted more by AI systems, much as they are by customers. After 18 years trading from Cromford Mills, this is one factor I don't have to manufacture, and it's worth highlighting your own history rather than burying it.
5. Recommendations
Listicles, "best of" roundups and comparison articles that mention your business by name. Getting included in these, even modest local ones, feeds directly into AI recommendations.
6. Authority
Backlinks from credible, high-authority domains. This hasn't changed from traditional SEO, it has simply become more important, not less.
Practical Answer Engine Optimisation Steps You Can Start This Week
None of this requires a rebuild of your entire website. It requires a clear-headed look at what's already there and a plan to tidy and structure it.
Audit what AI tools currently say about you
Open ChatGPT or Perplexity and type the questions a real customer would ask. "Best [your service] in [your town]" is a good start. Note what comes back, who gets mentioned, and where you're missing entirely.
Answer questions directly, near the top
Put your clearest answer to the most common question in the first few lines of the relevant page, then expand underneath. AI tools and impatient humans both reward this.
Tidy your business profiles
Name, address, phone number, hours and services need to match exactly across Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places and any local directories you're listed on. Inconsistency is the single biggest driver of AI hallucination about local businesses.
Add schema markup
FAQ schema, article schema and organisation schema give AI tools a structured version of your content to read, rather than asking them to guess. Most website platforms have a plugin or built-in option for this now.
Build genuine authority, don't chase shortcuts
Guest contributions, local press coverage and expert-led content that gets cited elsewhere all move the needle. This connects directly to brand positioning as much as it does to search.
Monitor and adjust
AI search changes fast. Set a monthly reminder to re-run your test prompts and check what's shifted. This is the same discipline behind testing and measuring any other part of your marketing.
Where Answer Engine Optimisation Fits Into the BIG12 Framework
Answer engine optimisation isn't a separate discipline bolted onto your marketing, it's an extension of pillars most Derbyshire businesses already know: SEO, Google, brand and test and measure, all working together. I built the BIG12 framework specifically so business owners could see how these pieces connect instead of treating each one as its own project.
If your business profile is inconsistent, your reviews are thin, or your content never directly answers a question, AI search will simply choose a competitor who has that sorted. The good news is that fixing it strengthens every other pillar of your marketing at the same time, not just your visibility in ChatGPT.
See where your marketing stands against all 12 pillars
The BIG12 Scorecard shows you exactly which pillars, including AI visibility, need attention first.
Get your BIG12 scoreThe challenge is never learning. It is doing.
Every business owner I meet in Derbyshire and the East Midlands can grasp answer engine optimisation in the time it takes to read this post. Auditing your visibility, tidying your profiles, adding schema markup, none of it is complicated in theory.
The gap isn't understanding, it's finding the hours between running the business and actually doing the work. I see it constantly with clients who know exactly what needs fixing but never quite get to it, because the phone keeps ringing and the job in hand takes priority.
That's the space Optimise Your Marketing works in. We don't just hand over a list of things to fix, we do the fixing, benchmarked against a framework built over 18 years of working with real SMBs, not theory.
Book a free 90-minute audit with Stuart
We will look at your current marketing, benchmark it against the BIG12, and give you a practical set of actions to take. No sales pitch. No fluff. Just 18 years of honest advice applied to your business.
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