04 · SUPPORTING
AEO and SEO for SaaS, done properly.
The schema, llms.txt, pillar content, and technical AEO infrastructure that gets your SaaS cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Not just ranked in classic search.
- Outcome
- Cited by AI search, not just ranked.
- Duration
- Audit: 1 week · Retainer: ongoing
- From
- $1,800
- Currency
- USD
— In short
SolvSpot ships Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and SEO infrastructure for B2B SaaS. AEO Audit ($1,800, one-time) delivers a full audit of schema, llms.txt, content depth, internal linking, and E-E-A-T plus a 30-day prioritized fix plan. AEO Retainer ($3,200/month, 3-month minimum) ships four pillar articles per month, ongoing schema work, and monthly LLM-citation tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
#What changed in 2026
Through 2024, "doing SEO" meant ranking on Google. By mid-2025 the calculus had shifted: AI referral traffic (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) was growing 500%+ year over year and converting at 4–5× the rate of classic organic. By Q1 2026 most B2B SaaS marketers we talk to are seeing 15–30% of their inbound from AI engines. And the share is climbing every month.
The brutal news is that the playbook for getting cited by AI engines is meaningfully different from classic SEO:
- Schema markup matters far more. AI crawlers parse JSON-LD 10× faster than unstructured HTML; pages without schema get evaluated more shallowly or skipped entirely.
- FAQ content is the highest-citation surface. Conversational AI is built around question-answering. Pages structured as explicit Q&A pairs get pulled into AI responses disproportionately.
- Author identity (E-E-A-T) is load-bearing. AI engines preferentially cite content with a real, named author who has a sameAs network (LinkedIn, GitHub, X, prior published work).
- llms.txt is a real signal now. A growing list of LLM crawlers respect it, and the cost of providing it is approximately zero.
Most SaaS marketing sites we audit have none of this in place. That's not a criticism. The playbook only crystallized in the last 12 months. But the gap between what's currently shipped and what the new playbook requires is the work.
#What an AEO Audit covers
A productized one-week engagement. We audit:
- Schema coverage. Which pages have JSON-LD? Which types? Where are the gaps? Do the schemas validate against schema.org? Are entity references (
@id) consistent across pages? - llms.txt and llms-full.txt. Do they exist? Are they current? Do they cover every canonical page? Are they linked from
robots.txt? - AI crawler accessibility. Is GPTBot allowed? ClaudeBot? PerplexityBot? Google-Extended? Is content rendered server-side or trapped behind client-only JS?
- Content structure. Are FAQs explicit Q&A blocks? Are pillar articles long enough to be authoritative? Do they cite primary sources LLMs trust?
- E-E-A-T signals. Is there a real, named author? With a
Personschema? WithsameAsto authoritative profiles? Are dates visible and matchingdatePublished/dateModified? - Internal linking. Hub-and-spoke or flat? Are service pages reinforced by case studies and pillar articles? Is anchor text descriptive?
- Baseline citation rate. We query ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini with 10–20 ICP-relevant prompts and log mention/citation/link status. This is the number we'll move.
You get a 15–25 page audit deliverable plus a 30-day prioritized fix plan. Most teams either implement themselves or hand the fix-plan to a developer; about a third come back to us for the retainer.
#What the AEO Retainer covers
Three-month minimum, $3,200/month:
- Four pillar articles per month. Long-form (~2,000–3,000 words), hand-written, optimized for both citation and conversion. Topics drawn from a quarterly content plan tuned to your ICP, your product, and the buyer questions you actually get.
- Ongoing schema maintenance. Every new page validated, schemas refreshed when product changes.
- Monthly LLM citation audit. Same 10–20 prompts run every month, citation-share dashboard updated, trend report sent.
- Quarterly content plan refresh. We pull from your sales calls, support inbox, and competitor citations to surface the next 12 articles worth writing.
- Content briefing if you have in-house writers who'd rather we hand them topics + outlines + sources.
Five months in is when most clients see the inflection. Citation share against named competitors crosses 50%, AI-referral traffic hits the same volume as classic organic. We're playing a 6-month game; the retainer is structured for it.
#Topics we don't help with
We don't do:
- Backlink campaigns / link-buying / PBNs. Counterproductive in 2026; AI engines weight authoritative co-citation, not link volume.
- Programmatic SEO at scale. Different motion entirely. Talk to a programmatic specialist.
- AI-generated content at volume. Ironic, but: AI engines actively de-prioritize content that reads as AI-written. Hand-written long-form, with a real author and primary-source citations, is the entire game.
- Black-hat / cloaking / spammy schema injection. Detected, penalized, and an unrecoverable brand hit.
#How we report
Monthly trend report covers:
- Citation share by query, by engine, by competitor (the headline metric)
- AI-referral traffic by source (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude where measurable)
- Conversion rate of AI-referral traffic vs classic organic
- New content shipped + early citation pickup
- Roadmap for the next month
The reporting is the work product. We don't bill for "SEO activities". We bill for citation-share growth and we measure it explicitly.
#Ready when you are
The $1,800 audit is the lowest-risk way to start. Most teams who buy it either implement and report results back to us, or move to the retainer once they see the gap. Either way, you'll know exactly where you stand on AEO inside a week.
— Stack we use
— What's included
- Full AEO audit (schema, llms.txt, content, internal linking, E-E-A-T)
- 30-day prioritized fix plan
- Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools setup
- AI bot allowlist in robots.txt + canonical hygiene
- Pillar article topic plan tuned to your ICP and product
- Monthly LLM citation audit (ChatGPT / Claude / Perplexity / Gemini)
— Not included
- Backlink campaigns or link-buying (we don't do PBNs)
- Mass content generation with AI (we ship hand-written long-form)
- Programmatic SEO templates (different problem, different fit)
— Common questions
Everything we get asked, answered.
What's actually different about AEO vs SEO?
SEO optimizes for being a top-10 link in Google's classic results. AEO optimizes for being cited inside an AI-generated answer (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overview). The signals overlap (both reward authoritative, well-structured content) but AI engines weight schema, FAQs, and author identity (E-E-A-T) much more heavily than classic SEO. AI referral traffic now converts at 4–5× organic, so the leverage is significant.
How long until I see results?
Schema and llms.txt fixes show up in AI responses within 2–6 weeks (LLM index cycles are faster than Google's). Pillar content takes 3–6 months to compound. We track baseline citation rates on day one and report monthly so you see the trajectory.
Why is the audit only $1,800?
It's a productized lead magnet. Most teams who buy the audit either fix the issues themselves and write us a testimonial, or come back for the retainer once they realize they don't have the bandwidth. We're happy with either outcome.
Will AI scrape my content and 'replace' my site?
Maybe in some queries. But the data says AI-cited brands see *more* traffic, not less, because AI users click through to authoritative sources at higher rates than classic search users. Blocking AI crawlers (which many SaaS sites still do) is the wrong move; you become invisible. The right move is being the source AI engines prefer to cite.
Do you write the content, or do we?
Both options work. The retainer includes 4 hand-written pillar articles per month, written by us and edited with you. If your team already has writers, we shift to providing topic plans, content briefs, and editorial review. Same retainer price, different time allocation.
What's an LLM citation audit?
Each month we query ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini with 10–20 prompts your ICP would actually type. We log whether you're mentioned, cited, linked, or absent. Over time you see citation share grow against named competitors. That's the metric that actually matters in 2026.
— Ready
Tell us what you're shipping.
20-min scoping call gets you a fixed-price proposal within 48 hours.
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