How do you get a UAE business found on Google and in ChatGPT?

What is the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO?

The names are new. The work is mostly the same. Google states that there are no additional requirements, and no special optimisations, for a page to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: the page has to be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet, like any other search result.

Step 1: can search engines and AI assistants read your site?

Nothing else matters until this is true. A page that is not indexed cannot rank and cannot be cited.

• Verify the site in Google Search Console and submit your sitemap.
• Check that each important page is indexed, using the URL inspection tool.
• Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Make sure the text is in the page itself, not only loaded later by script, and not inside images.
• Do not block the crawlers you want. In robots.txt, OAI-SearchBot is the crawler behind ChatGPT search results, PerplexityBot is Perplexity's, and Googlebot covers Google Search and its AI features.
• Use IndexNow to tell Bing and other participating search engines the moment a page is added or changed.

Step 2: do your pages answer the questions buyers ask?

Search engines and AI assistants both look for the page that answers the question most directly. Write for that.

• Put the answer in the first two or three sentences, then explain.
• Use the customer's question as the heading.
• Publish the facts people need to choose you: prices, delivery times, areas served, languages.
• Use tables for comparisons and lists for steps.
• Show when the page was written and last updated, and keep it current.
• Name your sources when you state a fact that is not your own.
• Make structured data match what is visible on the page.

A page that says exactly what a service costs and how long it takes is easier to quote than ten pages of adjectives. That is why ProLab publishes its prices and its 3-day delivery.

Step 3: do your business details match everywhere?

Search engines and AI models build one picture of your company from many places. If your name, phone number and website differ between your site, your Google Business Profile, Instagram and LinkedIn, that picture splits into several weak ones.

• Use one business name, one phone format and one website address everywhere.
• Claim and complete your Google Business Profile: categories, services, hours, photos, products.
• Add the same details to Bing Places and Apple Business Connect.
• Link your website to your social profiles, and your profiles back to your website.

For local searches, Google says results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, which it also calls prominence. You cannot change distance, so work on the other two: a complete profile for relevance, and reviews and mentions for prominence.

Step 4: are other people talking about you?

A business that only describes itself is hard to trust, for people and for machines. Mentions on sites you do not control are the hardest signal to fake, which is why they count.

• Ask every happy customer for a Google review, and reply to each one.
• List the business on the directories buyers in your sector actually use.
• Publish something worth quoting: a price guide, a checklist, a comparison.
• Answer questions in public where your customers ask them, under your own name.
• Keep at it. One mention a week for a year beats fifty in one day.

What is not worth your time?

• Special AI text files as a ranking trick. Google says it does not use them for Search.
• Rewriting good pages into fragments for AI. Clear writing for people is what gets quoted.
• Keyword-stuffed business names on Maps. They break Google's guidelines and risk suspension.
• Buying reviews or links. Both are against the rules and both are detectable.
• Publishing many thin pages. A few useful pages beat a hundred empty ones.

ProLab sets up SEO and AEO on every AI-powered website it builds, in Arabic and English. For an Arabic audience, read what a bilingual website really involves.