More and more Kiwis are asking ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI for recommendations instead of scrolling a page of blue links. If your business isn't part of those answers, you're invisible to a fast-growing slice of your market. The good news: getting cited by AI is very doable, and it overlaps a lot with plain good SEO.
"AI SEO" is the work of making your business easy for AI search engines to understand, trust, and quote when they answer someone's question. Think ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini. They don't show ten links, they give an answer and cite a few sources. The whole game is becoming one of those cited sources.
How AI search is different
Classic Google asks "which pages best match this query?" AI search asks "what's the answer, and which sources can I trust to back it up?" That changes what matters:
- It wants clear, self-contained answers it can lift directly.
- It leans on structured data to understand who you are and what you offer.
- It weights named, identifiable authors and real businesses, not anonymous pages.
- It strongly favours businesses mentioned across multiple trustworthy sites, not just on their own website.
Here's the reassuring part: do solid classic SEO and you're most of the way there. A handful of AI-specific moves do the rest.
1. Answer real questions, clearly
AI engines love content that answers a specific question in a sentence or two, no waffle, no preamble. Add genuine FAQ sections to your key pages, using the exact questions your customers ask, with short, complete answers. This page does exactly that at the bottom. When the answer is clean and self-contained, it's easy for an AI to quote you.
2. Use structured data (schema)
Structured data is invisible code that tells search engines and AI plainly: this is the business, this is the author, this is a FAQ, here are the answers. It's one of the biggest AI-SEO levers because it removes guesswork.
In plain terms: schema is like adding clear labels to everything on your site so a machine doesn't have to interpret it. FAQ, Article, Organisation and author markup are the ones that matter most for getting cited.
3. Put a real name to your content
AI models specifically look for content attached to an identifiable person, it's a trust signal. An "About" page, a visible author byline, and the right schema linking content to a real person all help. Anonymous sites get cited less. (Notice this article has James's name on it, that's not vanity, it's AI SEO.)
4. Get mentioned elsewhere (the big one)
This is where most NZ businesses are weakest, and where the real gains are. AI models tend to cite businesses that show up in multiple reputable places, directories, industry bodies, supplier and partner sites, local roundups. A business that only exists on its own website rarely gets recommended by AI. Even a handful of quality mentions materially shifts your odds of being cited.
- Claim relevant directory and industry listings.
- Keep a complete, active Google Business Profile, it confirms you're a real NZ entity.
- Earn the occasional mention or link from partners and local sites.
5. Keep it current and consistent
Consistent business details everywhere (name, contact, what you do) and recently-updated pages tell both Google and AI that you're a real, current business worth trusting. Stale or contradictory info does the opposite.
What to expect
AI citation isn't an on/off switch, it builds as your site, schema and external mentions mature. The foundations (clear answers, schema, named author) you can put in place now; the off-site mentions compound over weeks and months. As with classic SEO, the businesses that show up are the ones doing the steady work.
The honest summary
AI SEO isn't a separate dark art, it's good SEO plus a few deliberate moves: answer questions clearly, add structured data, put your name to your work, and get mentioned in trustworthy places. Do that and you give ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI every reason to recommend you.
If that sounds like a lot to keep on top of, that's exactly what a marketing partner is for. We'll set the foundations and do the steady work so your business turns up in the answers, not just the links.