What should an AEO audit tell a B2B business?

An answer engine optimization (AEO) audit should show how buyers find and assess your business in AI answers, where useful information is missing, and which improvements deserve investment. Expect a recorded baseline, evidence, priorities and a plan to measure progress.

For a B2B software company, logistics provider or professional services firm, the goal is to help suitable buyers understand your offer and take the next step. A mention, a recommendation and a qualified enquiry tell you different things.

Readiness assessment

RelayGridrelaygrid.example

Explore a finding

!Buyer contentNeeds attentionBusiness informationClear·Technical accessCheck next

Evidence → finding → action

Buyer contentNeeds attention

Does it connect to our existing ERP?

relaygrid.example/integrations

RelayGrid

Connect your logistics stack.

Flexible integrations. All your tools, working together.

FindingThe page does not name supported systems.Next action

Confirm supported ERPs, connection methods and limits with the product team, then publish the specifics.

Business informationClear

Who is this product built for?

relaygrid.example/platform

RelayGrid

Shipment visibility for operations teams.

RelayGrid brings carrier updates and exceptions together for logistics and operations teams.

FindingThe product and intended buyer are clear.Next action

Keep this description consistent across the product, company information and relevant profiles.

Technical accessCheck next

Can a search crawler reach the product pages?

relaygrid.example/robots.txt

TXT · robots.txt

User-agent: *
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://relaygrid.example/sitemap.xml

FindingThe file permits access; successful retrieval still needs checking.Next action

Check the live response, indexing controls and rendered page content. A permissive robots.txt is one part of the evidence.

Define the buyer questions

Start with the products or services you want to grow and the buyers you can serve. Use sales conversations, proposals and customer enquiries to choose the questions. When evidence is thin, start small and label the assumptions.

Cover three kinds of question:

• Understanding the problem: What should a buyer consider before choosing a solution?
• Comparing providers: Which businesses fit the buyer’s situation and constraints?
• Checking your business: What do you offer, who is it for, and what evidence supports it?

Keep branded and unbranded questions separate. An accurate answer containing your company name does not show that an unfamiliar buyer would discover you.

A repeatable baseline preserves:

• Test conditions: Exact questions, dates, AI tools and modes, plus relevant location or account conditions.
• Responses and sources: The captured answers and their visible source links.
• Gaps and repeats: Missing tests, completed answers that omit your business, abstentions and repeated runs, each identified separately.

Ask why the sample matters to your business. A relevant question set can guide a specific decision; it cannot establish your share of the entire AI search market.

Check three parts of AEO readiness

Content and buyer fit

A useful audit identifies the buyer questions your website leaves unanswered. Check whether a visitor can find:

• Fit and scope: Who you serve, what your product or service includes and what falls outside it.
• Delivery: How implementation or delivery works and what the buyer needs to provide.
• Evidence: Relevant expertise, approved customer examples and claims someone on your team can verify.

Recommendations should draw on your actual expertise. Google’s helpful-content guidance emphasizes original information, clear sourcing and usefulness to the intended reader. Adding a target phrase is not a substitute for answering the question.

Technical foundations

For each confirmed access problem, the audit should name the affected page, show what was tested and explain the consequence. Does it block discovery, limit the information available, or prevent a buyer from completing the next step?

AI access is not one universal switch. Check the rules for the relevant platform:

• Google: Search Console provides a control for inclusion in Search generative AI features. Google’s inclusion control.
• OpenAI: The search crawler and training crawler have separate controls. OpenAI’s crawler documentation.

Fixing access removes a barrier. It does not guarantee a recommendation. Google likewise says its requirements do not guarantee indexing or serving. Google’s generative AI search guide.

External trust

Inspect relevant sources that appear in the answers. Separate your own statements from independent evidence, and check whether each source accurately describes your offer and experience.

A finding might call for an outdated profile to be corrected, an approved customer example to be made easier to verify, or a relevant publication to be investigated. It should explain how the observed source connects to the proposed action. A directory appearing in one answer is not evidence that paying for a listing will help.

Evaluate external work on its relevance and evidence, rather than an automatic posting quota. A company-written profile and an independent customer review are different sources. Preserve publication permission, real customer relationships and factual attribution.

Keep four measures separate

Agree on the measures before work starts. Record what changed and when it became public so a later comparison has a known starting point.

Work completedAI visibilityWebsite activityQualified enquiries

relaygrid.example/integrations

RelayGrid

Integration information is now specific.

Published change

Supported systems, connection methods and coverage limits are published together.

Published page checked against the approved brief.

Work completedConfirm that the agreed change is accurate, accessible and working. This verifies the implementation; it does not establish AI visibility.

ChatGPT＋

Which shipment tools connect to an existing ERP?

RelayGrid describes its supported ERP systems, connection method and carrier coverage limits on its integrations page.

RelayGrid · ERP integrationsrelaygrid.example/integrations

AI visibilityRecord mentions, recommendations and source citations under the same test conditions. A citation is not a website visit or an enquiry.

chatgpt.comReferral source

relaygrid.example/integrations

RelayGrid

A visitor opens the integration details.

Website activityTrack identifiable referrals and what visitors do next, subject to consent and reporting limits. Leave unknown attribution unknown.

New enquiry

CompanyLogistics technology team

What we need

We need shipment updates in NetSuite before expanding our carrier network. Can you help us confirm coverage?

A relevant use case for the product team to assess.

Qualified enquiriesAssess fit, need and the next commercial step. Use enquiry evidence and buyer-reported context; avoid assuming the source of every lead.

Completed improvements

Check whether the affected page is accessible, the product or service description is accurate and a buyer can find the evidence and submit an enquiry.

These are delivery checks: they show whether the changes work. They do not establish increased visibility or revenue.

Visibility in AI answers

Repeat the agreed questions under comparable recorded conditions. Track:

• Mentions and recommendations: Whether the business appears, and whether the answer explicitly recommends it.
• Accuracy: Whether the answer describes your offer and fit correctly.
• Citations: Links to your pages, counted separately from third-party pages about you.

Show counts alongside percentages. Keep unanswered tests, missing captures and repeated runs visible. Report new questions separately when the sample expands, so they do not distort the original comparison.

Use platform reporting where it is available, with each measure clearly labelled.

Google: Its generative AI performance report covers impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode. Sites with too few impressions may not see the report. Google’s report documentation.

Bing: AI Performance reports citation activity across supported experiences. Citation totals do not show ranking or placement in an answer. Bing’s AI Performance announcement.

Website activity

Where analytics can identify AI referrals, examine the pages those visitors reach and the actions they take. Record these separately:

• An enquiry-button click.
• A successful form submission.
• A booked conversation.

Google Analytics lets you designate important actions as key events. Your team still needs to define what counts as meaningful progress. A button click alone does not mean a suitable prospect contacted you.

State the limits of the setup: consent restrictions, missing referral information and unmeasured booking steps. Investigate an empty report before treating it as zero interest.

Qualified enquiries and opportunities

Define a qualified enquiry consistently: a prospect needs a product or service you offer, fits your customer criteria and has a credible buying need. Track which enquiries become conversations, proposals and customers.

Ask prospects two separate questions:

• Discovery: How did you first hear about us?
• Evaluation: What did you use to compare or assess us?

A buyer may hear about you through a referral, compare providers in an AI tool and return directly to your website. Both the referral and the later research matter.

Leave unknown attribution unknown. Keep reported buyer behaviour separate from measured website activity. Neither a new citation nor a rise in enquiries, on its own, proves the AEO work caused additional business.

Turn findings into decisions

Each priority should connect an observed gap to a buyer question or page, a proposed action, an owner and any remaining uncertainty. A detailed writing brief or implementation specification can then be scoped as delivery work.

The same page. A more useful answer.

BeforeAfter

relaygrid.example/integrations

RelayGrid

Integrations ↗

Your connected operation

Connect your logistics stack.

Flexible integrations that bring all your tools together. Built to fit the way you work.

Integration detailsBefore

Your systems

Works with leading enterprise platforms.

Getting connected

Seamless integrations for your operation.

Coverage

The flexibility your business needs.

RelayGrid

Integrations ↗

Your connected operation

Connect the systems you already use.

Bring shipment updates into your ERP. Confirm compatibility, data mapping and carrier coverage before rollout.

Integration detailsAfter

Supported systems

SAP S/4HANA and Oracle NetSuite.

Connection method

API connection; data mapping is agreed during onboarding.

Coverage and limits

Carrier coverage and update frequency vary by connection.

The improvement is specific, verified information a buyer can use. Test AI visibility separately after the change.

Choose review points around the release of the work and your sales cycle. There is no universal number of days after which a citation change proves commercial value. Small audiences may produce too few suitable enquiries for a confident early conclusion.

Agree what would justify each decision:

• Continue when the changes address a real buyer need and the evidence supports the next investment.
• Change direction when answers improve but visitors still cannot find the right solution or complete the next step.
• Pause or reduce scope when the opportunity is weak, more urgent problems exist or the data cannot support the spending decision.

Record other changes, such as a new offer, campaign or referral partnership. That context improves interpretation, even though a before-and-after comparison is not a controlled experiment.

Questions to ask an audit provider

Use these five questions before agreeing on scope:

• Which products, services, buyer questions, pages and AI experiences will the audit cover?
• Will we receive the recorded evidence and the limits of the sample?
• Which recommendations overlap with our SEO or website team's existing work?
• What will we be able to act on immediately, and what needs separate implementation scope?
• Who will measure the follow-up, and how will we decide whether to continue?

Google’s guidance for hiring SEO support recommends asking about results, communication, references and the reasons behind proposed changes. The same questions help when evaluating an AEO provider.

Start with website readiness

SUMI’s free 50-point readiness assessment reviews technical foundations, content, business information and external trust. It gives you findings and initial priorities to discuss with your team.

The deeper buyer-question and citation audit is a separate paid service. Ongoing implementation and measurement are scoped as a monthly partnership. Explore SUMI’s AEO service or request your free readiness assessment.