How to Get Your B2B Company Recommended by AI

Run your own AI audit

Before building anything, understand where you stand. Open ChatGPT and Perplexity in a private browser window and run ten to fifteen queries a buyer in your category would ask during research. Write them the way buyers actually phrase them, not the way your marketing copy does. Examples:

• "What are the best platforms for [your use case]?"
• "Who should we evaluate for [your category]?"
• "What do companies use to solve [the problem you solve]?"
• "What is the difference between [your approach] and [alternative approach]?"
• "How do mid-market companies typically handle [your domain]?"

Record who appears in each answer, what sources are cited, and whether your company appears. Repeat across Gemini and Claude. You now have a baseline: your current citation rate and a map of who is winning the queries you care about.

Identify your answer gaps

Look at the queries where competitors or directories appear and you do not. For each one, ask: does your website have a page that directly answers this question? Not a page that mentions the topic tangentially in a blog post. A dedicated page with a clear, specific answer.

Most B2B companies find that the answer is no for the majority of buyer research queries. Product pages explain what you do. Case studies show results. Blog posts cover trends. But the specific question a buyer typed into ChatGPT does not have a dedicated answer page. That is the content gap that AEO closes.

Prioritize gaps based on two factors: query volume (how often buyers ask this) and displacement difficulty (how entrenched is the current citation source). Start with high-volume queries where the current citations are directories or generic articles rather than strong competitors with established domain authority.

Build dedicated answer pages

For each query on your priority list, create a standalone page. The format matters. AI engines cite sources that give direct, useful answers to the question being asked. The format that works:

• Title that matches the query as closely as possible
• Opening paragraph that gives the direct answer without preamble
• Specific supporting detail: examples, data, considerations
• Clear attribution to your company and its expertise in this area
• Structured formatting: headings, short paragraphs, lists where appropriate

Each page should be 600 to 1200 words. Long enough to be substantive, short enough to stay focused. Do not write a general overview when a buyer asked a specific question. The more precisely your page answers the query, the higher the probability that an AI will cite it in response to that query.

Implement schema markup

Schema markup is the machine-readable layer that tells AI engines what your company does without requiring inference from marketing copy. The three types that matter most for B2B AEO:

• Organization schema on your homepage: company name, description, service types, industry served, and contact information in structured format
• Service schema on your core product or service pages: what the service is, who it is for, what problems it solves
• FAQPage schema on your answer pages: each question and answer pair marked up so AI engines can pull them as direct responses

Schema implementation requires editing your page HTML or working with your CMS. The markup itself is straightforward JSON-LD that sits in the page head. Validate it with Google's Rich Results Test after implementation.

Build external authority

Content and schema make your company citable. External authority signals make AI engines confident citing you over competitors. For B2B companies, the highest-value authority signals are:

• Coverage in trade publications relevant to your category
• Mentions in analyst reports, even if not a full profile
• References in community discussions: relevant subreddits, industry forums, LinkedIn articles
• Partner and integration pages that link to and describe your product
• Podcasts, webinars, and conference presentations where your company is cited as a resource

This takes more time than on-site work and cannot be rushed. A credible external mention from a trusted publication carries more authority weight than many directory listings. Focus on quality and relevance over volume.

Measure and expand

Run your original audit queries again every four to six weeks. Track your citation rate for each query over time. When you start appearing on queries you were previously absent from, analyze what changed and apply the same approach to your next priority cluster. Expand your content library to cover adjacent queries as your baseline citation rate improves on the initial set.

Consistent measurement is the feedback loop that tells you what is working and where to invest next. Without it, AEO is guesswork. With it, it is a systematic program with compounding returns.