ShapedSI Journal · Web & software
AI search visibility in Canada: build pages worth citing
Help buyers find you by answering the questions they ask before choosing a provider: what fits their business, what the work includes and how the options compare. Useful comparison pages and specific examples give people material to make a decision. AI search may cite those pages, but the business goal is a relevant enquiry that your team can follow up.
In this guide
01
Start with a buying decision
Write down the questions that come up before someone hires you. For a website studio, these might be: should I build the site myself, why does my current website get no enquiries, and who can connect a quote form to our team? Start with customer conversations and search data where available. Questions invented during planning are hypotheses until you see evidence of demand.
Assign each question to the page that can answer it best. Improve an existing page when it already serves that purpose. Create a new page when the decision is different enough to need its own explanation. A comparison helps someone choose an approach; a troubleshooting guide helps them diagnose a problem. Both should explain a useful next step.
02
Write comparisons that help someone choose
Compare the same work across each option: writing, design, form delivery, measurement, maintenance and ownership. Explain when a do-it-yourself approach is sufficient and when hiring help makes sense. Disclose that you sell one of the options. A reader should leave with a decision they can defend, even if they choose someone else.
Use real examples you have permission to publish. If you illustrate how a contractor might receive a quote request, label it as an example and show the steps. For named competitors, check features and prices against their current documentation and record the date. Do not turn an imagined advantage or an unrelated success story into a claim about your own results.
03
Make the answer findable and usable
Put the direct answer near the start, followed by details, evidence and a clear enquiry route. Link to the page from relevant service pages and other useful guides. Keep the public brand, contact details and service area consistent. Review the page on a phone and confirm that its main answer is available as text.
Google says its AI search features use established SEO requirements, with no special AI files or schema needed. OpenAI identifies OAI-SearchBot as its search crawler; GPTBot controls potential training use separately. Check access to public pages without exposing private material. Being crawlable makes discovery possible; it does not establish that a page is indexed or recommended.
04
Follow the visit through to a useful enquiry
Preserve the original landing page and available referral information when someone moves from an article to your contact form. OpenAI says ChatGPT referral links include utm_source=chatgpt.com. That is a useful signal when present, but missing referral data does not tell you where a person first heard about you. Record a customer’s own answer separately when they volunteer it.
Count accepted enquiries separately from contact-button clicks. Then review which enquiries fit your service, which become meetings and which become customers. Record missing tracking as unknown. A source label is evidence of an observed visit, not proof that one article caused a sale. Keep personal enquiry details in your customer system, outside analytics events.
05
Run a small publishing and review cycle
Begin with one buyer group, a comparison, a practical use case and an answer to a recurring question. Capture a baseline, publish the pages, check discovery and review the enquiries. At 30 days, look for technical failures and early signals. At 60 and 90 days, decide what to improve using comparable periods and enough observations to support a decision. These are review points, not promises of results.
If you test AI answers, save the exact question, date, product or model, cited URLs and whether the business was mentioned. Keep brand-free questions separate from questions naming the business. API tests can be useful diagnostics, but they do not reproduce every consumer app. ShapedSI scopes this work as AI Search & Client Discovery, with content, an enquiry path and a review of the evidence.
Bring this to the conversation
A working brief.
- One buyer group and a real buying decision
- A fair comparison with source dates and a clear publisher disclosure
- A specific use case with examples labelled
- Public-page access, useful internal links and a tested enquiry route
- Landing page and referral capture, with qualified enquiries reviewed separately
- A baseline and review dates; missing evidence recorded as unknown
A few useful questions.
Can you make ChatGPT recommend my business?
No provider controls the recommendation. The work is to make your services easier to discover, understand and evaluate, then measure the enquiries you can observe.
Is this AEO or GEO?
Those terms are often used for visibility in AI answers. Our scope names the work: buyer research, useful pages, technical checks, enquiry attribution and review.
Do comparison pages replace ordinary SEO?
No. They answer a particular buyer decision and still need accurate information, useful internal links and a working website.
Original sources
Sources and further reading.
Platform guidance checked October 17, 2026. The sources explain discovery controls and referral signals. The publishing sequence and review schedule are ShapedSI’s proposed working method, not platform requirements or a forecast.
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