LLM SEO
LLM SEO is a colloquial term for optimising a website so that large language models mention and cite it — another name for answer engine optimization.
The term is common in practitioner discussion and rare in formal writing. It is used interchangeably with AEO and GEO.
It can mislead slightly, because much of the work targets the retrieval layer that sits in front of the model rather than the model itself. What gets fetched and quoted is usually more tractable than what a model learned in training.
Why it matters
Recognising these labels as synonyms prevents buying the same service three times under different names, which is a live risk in this market.
An example
An agency proposal offers "LLM SEO" at one price and "GEO" at another. Reading the deliverables side by side shows the same list: crawler access, structured data, content restructuring and third-party profiles. The labels were different; the work was identical.
Common mistakes
- Believing the work changes what a model learned. Most of it influences what gets retrieved at query time, not the model's training.
- Buying LLM SEO, GEO and AEO as three separate services.
Questions
- Is LLM SEO a real discipline?
- The work is real; the name is informal. It describes the same practice as answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization, and is most common in practitioner discussion rather than formal writing.
- Can I change what an LLM knows about my business?
- Not directly or quickly. What you can influence is what an AI system retrieves when it searches, and whether independent sources describe you consistently. Those feed both live answers and, eventually, future training.