How to get your store found in Google and in AI answers

People still search Google for products. But more of them now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI answers instead, and get a short list of recommendations without ever seeing ten blue links.

If your store isn’t showing up in either place, you’re paying for every visitor through ads. This post explains what SEO, GEO and AEO mean for a Shopify brand, and what you can fix this month.

Three names for one goal

You’ll see these terms everywhere, so here’s the short version.

• SEO (search engine optimisation) is about ranking in normal search results on Google and Bing.
• GEO (generative engine optimisation) is about being mentioned in answers written by AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity.
• AEO (answer engine optimisation) is about being the direct answer to a question, in featured snippets, voice assistants and AI overviews.

They overlap a lot. All of them reward pages that are clear and easy for a machine to understand. Fix the basics and you help with all three at once.

Start with your collection pages

Most founders put their SEO effort into the home page or a blog. For an online store, collection pages often matter more.

A collection page like “women’s running shoes” or “organic dog treats” matches what people type when they’re ready to buy. Yet on most Shopify stores, these pages are just a heading and a grid of products.

To make them work harder:

1. Pick one main search term per collection. Use the words customers use, not your internal names.
2. Put that term in the page title, the H1 and the URL.
3. Add a short intro above the products. Two or three sentences explaining what’s in the collection and who it’s for.
4. Add helpful text below the products. Answer the questions people ask when choosing. Sizes, materials, differences between options.
5. Link between related collections so search engines and shoppers can find their way around.

Make product pages answer real questions

AI tools pull from pages that answer questions clearly. So do Google’s featured snippets. Your product pages should do the same.

Read through your reviews and support emails. What do people ask before they buy? Then answer those questions on the page, in plain words.

A simple checklist for each product page:

• A unique description. Not the manufacturer’s copy that ten other stores also use.
• Specific details. Dimensions, materials, ingredients, care instructions, compatibility.
• A short FAQ. Four to six real questions with direct answers.
• Clear photos with descriptive alt text. Describe what’s actually in the image.
• Reviews on the page. Real customer words add detail that you’d never think to write yourself.

Get the technical basics right

You don’t need to become a developer, but a few technical things decide whether search engines can read your store properly.

• Page speed. Heavy apps and huge images slow your store down. Remove apps you don’t use.
• Structured data. This is code that tells search engines the price, availability and reviews of a product. Most Shopify themes include some, but check it’s complete with Google’s Rich Results Test.
• Duplicate pages. Shopify can create several URLs for the same product. Make sure canonical tags point to the main version.
• Broken links and redirects. When you delete a product, redirect its URL to the closest alternative instead of leaving a dead page.
• Mobile layout. Check every key page on your phone. Most of your visitors are probably shopping there.

Google Search Console is free and shows most of these problems. Set it up if you haven’t.

Help AI tools find and trust you

AI answers are newer, and nobody outside these companies knows exactly how they choose what to recommend. But a few things seem to help, and they’re good practice anyway.

Be specific about what you sell and who it’s for. Vague brand language is hard for an AI to summarise. “Handmade leather wallets for people who want something slim” is easy.

Be mentioned in other places. AI tools often draw on what other sites say about you, like comparison articles and forum threads. Getting your products into genuine roundups and conversations helps. Creator content can help here too, which is where influencer marketing overlaps with search.

Keep your facts consistent. Use the same product names and prices on your own site as on your marketplace listings.

Write content that answers buying questions. Guides like “how to choose a running shoe for flat feet” are the kind of thing people ask AI tools. If you’ve answered it well, you have a better chance of being cited.

Common mistakes

• Chasing huge keywords. Ranking for “shoes” isn’t realistic. Ranking for “wide fit leather work boots” might be.
• Blog posts nobody searches for. Company news and vague lifestyle posts rarely bring buyers. Write about questions customers actually ask.
• Copying supplier descriptions. Duplicate text gives search engines no reason to pick your page.
• Changing URLs without redirects. You can lose rankings you spent years building.
• Expecting results in weeks. SEO usually takes months to show up in sales. Plan for that.
• Writing for robots. Stuffing keywords makes pages worse for people, and modern search engines notice.

Why this suits a revenue-share model

SEO, GEO and AEO is one of Kreso’s revenue-share services. We’re paid from the growth we help create, so traffic that doesn’t turn into sales doesn’t help either of us.

That shapes the work. We start with the pages closest to a purchase, like collections and best-selling products, before writing a single blog post. And we measure search by revenue, not by rankings alone.

Search also supports everything else. Better product pages lift your ad results, and they make the most of the traffic a good Shopify store build can handle. Organic visitors who join your list then feed your email and SMS flows.

A simple plan for this month

You don’t need to fix everything at once. Here’s a realistic order:

1. Set up Google Search Console and look at which pages already get impressions.
2. Rewrite your top five collection pages with clear titles and helpful text.
3. Add FAQs to your ten best-selling products.
4. Remove apps you’re not using and compress large images.
5. Write one guide that answers a real buying question in your category.

Then check back in a few months and see what moved.

If you’d like help deciding where to start, or want someone to look at your store with fresh eyes, we’re happy to. Book a free strategy call and we’ll walk you through what we’d do first.