Why a half-hour audit is enough to start
You can review the parts of your website that matter most for Google AI features in roughly half an hour, because Google says that work is still SEO. Google refreshed its official documentation on June 29, 2026, explaining how to get a website ready for the AI-generated answers that appear in Google Search.
That page places AI Overviews and AI Mode optimization inside ordinary SEO rather than in a separate field. A quick look at the basics you already own will therefore tell you more than any new tool or trick.
Clear these items off your list before you begin
Google named several tactics that its AI features do not need, and skipping them frees your thirty minutes for useful work. Marketers often call this work Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) or Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), yet Google files both terms under SEO for its own results.
- An llms.txt file, which Google says its systems do not require.
- Splitting pages into small chunks for machines, since Google reads full pages without trouble.
- Extra schema.org markup written only for AI, because standard structured data already does that job.
- Inauthentic brand mentions planted to game AI citations in your favor.
First five minutes: your Google Business Profile
Check your Google Business Profile first, since Google's own guide asks businesses to keep local and product details accurate for AI answers. Open the profile and confirm four items: your hours, your phone number, your categories and your most recent reviews.
If you sell products, give Merchant Center the same quick look. The guide ties accurate local and product details in these tools to your visibility inside AI responses, so a stale entry is worth fixing today.
Next five minutes: can Google reach your pages?
Confirm that Google can crawl and index your important pages, because a page outside the index cannot appear in any AI feature. Open your robots.txt file and read it line by line for rules that block pages you want found.
Then load a key service page and check whether its main text depends on JavaScript to show up. Finally, review your CDN settings, since a service like Cloudflare can block AI crawlers without anyone on your team noticing.
Ten minutes in Search Console: find the gap
Search Console shows the clearest sign of AI Overviews at work, so give it the largest share of your time. Compare impressions with clicks over recent months and note any queries where impressions climb while clicks slide.
That gap often means an AI Overview answered the searcher before the visit happened. A Seer Interactive study from April 2026 measured organic CTR roughly 37 percent lower on queries that showed an AI Overview than on queries without one.
The study covered more than 2 billion impressions, 53 brands and over 5 million queries. Informational searches feel the effect most, since AI Overviews appear on about 39 percent of them compared with 12 percent of navigational searches.
Write down the informational queries that show this gap. Those pages are your best candidates for deeper content later this month.
Five minutes on your opening sentences
Take your three most important pages and read only the first sentence under each major heading. Each one should give a clear, specific answer before any background, because that opening line is what AI systems pull out.
Mark every section that opens with a warm-up instead of an answer. Rewriting those lines is a small fix you can schedule for later this week.
The final five minutes: depth and FAQ sections
Check each page you reviewed with one blunt question: does it say anything beyond common knowledge? Generic pages get summarized by AI without sending visitors your way, while pages built on direct experience, original data and specific expertise earn citations.
Then check whether your key service pages carry a question and answer section. Google, Perplexity and ChatGPT frequently pull that format into their AI summaries, so a missing FAQ is a clear gap to log.
What your notes should show when the timer ends
When the timer runs out, you should hold a short list of fixes sorted by effort. That list matters because ranking well no longer guarantees a place in the AI summary above the results.
Studies from early 2026 measured how often AI Overview citations and top 10 organic results line up, and the match ranged from 17 to 54 percent. AI Overviews also reach more than 2 billion users every month, which raises the stakes for every page on your list.
- Profile fixes, such as stale hours or missing categories, take minutes and belong at the top.
- Crawl problems come next, because a blocked page cannot be cited anywhere.
- Thin informational pages with a Search Console gap deserve deeper content written from your own experience.
- Missing FAQ sections on service pages can be added one page at a time.
Treat AI citation presence as its own visibility measure from now on, alongside your ranking position. Repeating this audit gives you a simple way to watch both.
One audit covers several AI platforms
The same checklist helps outside Google, since customers also turn to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini with their questions. Every platform cites sources in its own way: Perplexity cites them in the vast majority of answers, while ChatGPT cites less often but gives each citation more weight.
Clear structure, real expertise, specific details and mentions in credible outside sources tend to earn citations across all of them. Projections suggest close to one in three US internet users will use generative AI search during 2026, so this review serves a growing share of your audience.
Next steps for Michigan small businesses
Google has confirmed that no special shortcut exists for AI Overviews, so a site that was well optimized before still starts ahead. If yours was not, the improvements that once helped pages rank are the same ones that help them get cited now.
If your audit turned up more than you can fix alone, contact AppWT or schedule a call and bring your list. AppWT can help you sort the findings and start with the fixes that matter most for your visibility.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a separate GEO plan on top of this audit?
No, a fully separate plan is not required. Google's June 2026 guide describes GEO and AEO as extensions of standard SEO, so a complete Google Business Profile, authoritative content and solid technical work handle most of what classic search and AI search both reward.
What should I conclude if my audit shows impressions rising while clicks fall?
AI Overviews are a likely cause, mainly on informational searches where click-through rates drop. Commercial and transactional searches show AI Overviews far less often, and people who click through after AI-assisted research tend to convert at higher rates.
Should I add an llms.txt file or AI-specific schema during the audit?
Skip both. Google's official guidance states that neither an llms.txt file nor special AI-specific schema is required for its generative AI features, and the standard structured data you would use for normal SEO is enough.
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