TL;DR — In one afternoon: list 25–40 buyer-intent prompts, probe 5 engines, score yourself on mention rate and citation share, audit your on-site + off-site AEO surface, and prioritize the fix list by impact per hour.
The one-afternoon audit
Set aside three hours. Grab a spreadsheet. Follow the steps.
Step 1: List your buyer-intent prompts (30 min)
Write down the exact questions a customer would type into ChatGPT the week before buying from you. Aim for 25–40 prompts across:
- Direct discovery: "best X for Y"
- Comparison: "X vs Y"
- Problem-led: "how do I fix Z"
- Objection-driven: "is X actually secure / fast / affordable"
Talk to sales. Steal from your support inbox. Look at "People Also Ask."
Step 2: Probe all five engines (60 min)
For each prompt, run it through:
- ChatGPT
- Claude
- Gemini
- Perplexity
- Copilot (or Bing Chat)
Log:
- Is your brand mentioned? (Y/N)
- Position (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.)
- Sentiment (positive, neutral, negative)
- Which competitors are mentioned
- Which sources are cited
Step 3: Score yourself (15 min)
Simple formula:
- Mention rate = mentions / prompts
- Citation share = your citations / total citations across the sample
- Competitor gap = your mention rate minus top competitor's mention rate
Anything below 20% mention rate is a fire drill. Anything below 40% is a real gap. 60%+ is defensible.
Step 4: Audit your on-site AEO surface (45 min)
Check:
- Do you have an
llms.txt? (Most sites don't yet.) - Do you have Organization, Article, and FAQPage schema?
- Are your top 20 pages dated and recently updated?
- Do you have comparison pages for your top competitors?
- Do all your pages have proper H2/H3 structure with question-shaped headings?
- Does your About page include named team members with LinkedIn links?
Step 5: Off-site audit (30 min)
- How many times are you mentioned on Reddit in the last 90 days?
- Do you appear in the top 3 industry roundups for your category?
- Is your Wikipedia entry (if any) current?
- Are your LinkedIn company + team profiles active?
Step 6: Prioritize the fix list (last 30 min)
Rank your findings by impact per hour:
- High impact, low effort → do this week
- High impact, high effort → schedule this quarter
- Low impact → skip
The top of most audits looks like this:
- Ship
llms.txt - Add FAQ schema to top 10 pages
- Publish 3 comparison pages
- Get 5 Reddit / newsletter mentions
Those four things move the needle for most brands in 4–6 weeks.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a full AEO audit take?
Three focused hours is enough for a first pass. A deep audit with historical comparison and competitor benchmarking takes 1–2 days.
What tools do I need?
A spreadsheet, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and a schema validator. Optional but useful: an AEO monitoring platform, Google Rich Results Test, and a Reddit search tool.
How many prompts is enough for a baseline?
25–40 across discovery, comparison, decision, and objection categories. Fewer is unreliable; more is unwieldy for the first pass.
What's a healthy AI visibility score?
Under 20% mention rate: fire drill. 20–40%: real gap. 40–60%: competitive. 60%+: defensible.
What's the top of most audit fix-lists?
Usually four items: ship llms.txt, add FAQ schema to top 10 pages, publish 3 comparison pages, and get 5 Reddit or newsletter mentions.
Key takeaways
- An afternoon audit beats months of vague concern.
- Under 20% mention rate is a fire drill; 60%+ is defensible.
- Prioritize the fix list by impact per hour, not perfection.
- The same four fixes appear in almost every audit — start there.
