Before you can improve your search visibility, you need to know where you stand. For most businesses, that means running an audit they have never done before: a systematic check of how visible their brand is in AI-generated answers, featured snippets, and structured search results.
The Three-Layer AI Visibility Audit
A complete audit covers three layers:
Layer 1: GEO visibility - how often and how accurately your brand is cited in AI-generated answers. Layer 2: AEO presence - which featured snippets, FAQ results, and structured data rich results your pages hold. Layer 3: SXO alignment - whether the traffic generated by Layers 1 and 2 is landing on pages that convert it.
Layer 1: GEO Visibility Audit
The GEO audit is manual and requires a structured question set.
Build a list of 20 questions that AI tools should be answering in your category. Prioritise questions that represent buying intent or competitive consideration.
For each question:
- Run it in ChatGPT (GPT-4o)
- Run it in Perplexity
- Run it in Google (check for AI Overview)
Record: does your brand appear? Is it cited positively? What brands appear instead of you? What is the content structure of the cited sources?
Score each question: 2 points for a direct citation, 1 point for a mention, 0 for no presence. A score below 15/40 indicates significant GEO gaps.
Layer 2: AEO Presence Audit
The AEO audit uses tools and manual checking:
Featured snippets: export your Search Console queries (positions 1-10) and manually check which return featured snippets. Note which you own and which you do not.
FAQ rich results: run your top 10 pages through Google’s Rich Results Test. Identify which have correctly implemented FAQ schema and which have errors.
Structured data: crawl your site with Screaming Frog and audit schema implementation across all key page types. Identify gaps (pages without Article schema, service pages without LocalBusiness or Service schema).
Schema errors: review Google Search Console’s Rich Results report for schema validation errors.
Layer 3: SXO Alignment Audit
The SXO audit focuses on whether visibility is translating into commercial outcomes:
Intent match: for your top 10 landing pages by organic traffic, compare the primary search query (from Search Console) to the page content. Rate the intent match as strong, weak, or mismatched.
Conversion rate by channel: compare conversion rates for organic traffic vs direct traffic. Significant underperformance from organic suggests intent mismatch or journey flow issues.
Core Web Vitals: run your homepage and top 5 pages through PageSpeed Insights. Record scores for LCP, INP, and CLS.
Building the Fix Roadmap
Organise all identified gaps into a prioritisation matrix:
High impact, low effort: immediate wins. These are typically schema fixes, heading reformatting for snippet targeting, and intent match corrections on high-traffic pages.
High impact, high effort: planned projects. These are typically new comparison pages, full AEO content rewrites, and Core Web Vitals fixes requiring development work.
Low impact, low effort: quick wins to fill the schedule. These are minor schema additions, FAQ expansions, and image optimisations.
Low impact, high effort: deprioritise. Do not spend significant resource on fixes that will not move the metrics that matter.