Should You Optimize for AI Search Yourself or Hire an Agency?
AEO can start with basic SEO fundamentals, but measurement and authority-building take more hands-on effort. Here's how to decide between doing it yourself and hiring an agency.
Updated 2026-07-07
Frequently asked questions
- Should You Optimize for AI Search Yourself or Hire an Agency?
- AEO can start with basic SEO fundamentals, but measurement and authority-building take more hands-on effort. Here's how to decide between doing it yourself and hiring an agency.
- Can my site appear in AI search without any special preparation?
- Yes. Pages that are indexable and eligible for snippets can appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode automatically. Google's official position is that there are no additional requirements for eligibility.
- Where should I start if I'm doing this myself?
- Start with a basic SEO check, review your robots.txt, add structured data (JSON-LD), and optimize images. Special files like llms.txt or AI-specific content chunking are unnecessary.
- How do I measure whether it's working?
- Search Console's Generative AI performance report, added in June 2026, tracks your visibility in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Interpreting that data and adjusting strategy, though, takes separate expertise.