Shoppers increasingly start with a question rather than a search: "best vegan leather work bag under £150" or "which candle brand uses soy wax". The answer comes from an AI assistant, and the products it mentions get the click. This is where GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation) come in.
Make your product data machine-readable
AI tools and search engines work best with clear, structured information. Start with:
- Product structured data on every product page. Google's merchant listing markup covers price, availability, shipping and returns, which helps products appear in shopping experiences on Google Search.
- A complete Merchant Center feed. Google uses your product data across Shopping surfaces, including free listings.
- Consistent facts. The price, stock and description should match on your page, your feed and anywhere else your products appear.
Supply your products to AI shopping directly
OpenAI invites merchants to apply to supply product data so products can appear in ChatGPT shopping results, with customers buying on the merchant's own site. It publishes a product feed specification for this. If your store already produces a clean Google feed, much of the data is the same.
Answer the questions shoppers ask
AI answers are built from pages that answer questions clearly. On product and collection pages, add:
- What it is made of, sizes and fit, and who it suits.
- Delivery times, returns and care instructions.
- Short FAQs in plain English.
Build trust signals
Assistants favour brands that other sources talk about. Reviews on your product pages, independent reviews, gift guides, press mentions and comparison articles all add weight.
Where to start
- Check product structured data on your top 20 products.
- Fix disapprovals and missing attributes in Merchant Center.
- Add a short FAQ to your best-selling collection pages.
- Look into applying to supply your products for ChatGPT shopping.
Get a quote and we will show you how your products look to AI assistants today.