The AEO Standard: what an AI-readable practice page contains

Part 1 · Identity

1. Who you are

Before an AI assistant names you, it checks whether the web agrees about who you are. When your name, address, phone and people match everywhere, you read as one practice. When they don't, it hedges or names someone else.

• Publish one record of the practice on your own website. One page on a domain you control that states your name, address, phone, hours, services and the people who provide them. Every other listing should agree with it.
• Use one name, character for character. For example, "Riverside Orthopedic Associates", "Riverside Orthopaedics" and "Riverside Ortho Assoc." read as three different practices to a machine. Pick one and use it everywhere.
• Use one address format and one phone number. Pick one suite format and one phone format, and use the number that rings your office. Rotating call-tracking numbers make your record disagree with itself.
• Name every practitioner. Full name as licensed, credential, role and the state that licensed them. In medicine, law and money, people trust the individual as much as the practice.
• Fix the listings your field actually uses. The main maps and business profiles, your field's real directories, licensing records, and hospital, bar or custodian pages. Fifty listings are fifty chances to disagree.
• Fix wrong listings instead of adding new ones. When two records disagree, correct or remove the wrong one. A third correct listing doesn't settle the argument.
• Keep one bio per practitioner. The same paragraph on your site, your directory profiles, the hospital staff page and the bar or adviser record.
• Update everything within 30 days of a change. A move, a departure, a new office, a dropped service. Old records outlive a change by years, and AI tools often repeat the old one. Put it on a calendar.

Part 2 · Answers

2. The answers on your own site

An AI assistant can't quote a paragraph you never wrote. If your fees are explained only on a directory profile or in a review reply, the directory gets quoted.

• Answer on your own site. Publish the answer on a page you own.
• Use the client's words first, then yours. People type "toothache that wakes me up", not "irreversible pulpitis". They type "getting cut out of a will", not "spousal elective share". Lead with their words, then the professional term.
• Put the answer first. State the answer in the first sentence or two, then qualify it. AI answers tend to lift the top of a passage, so background placed first gets repeated as background.
• Make the headings the questions. One question per heading, asked the way a person would, with the answer right under it. "How much does a living trust cost?" works better than "Fee Structure".
• Answer the five questions for every service. What it is, what happens, what it costs, how long it takes or what recovery looks like, and how someone starts.
• Say something true about price. A range with what moves it is better than silence. If you can't give a number, say how you bill, what a first visit or consultation costs, and what drives the estimate.
• State the facts that decide fit. The insurance plans you take, written the way they appear on a patient's card. Whether you're taking new patients or clients. Who you see and who you refer out. Telehealth, and in which states. How to request an appointment.
• Write each answer to stand alone. A passage that starts "as mentioned above" breaks when it's lifted out of the page.
• Name your town once, honestly. Say your city and the areas you serve in plain sentences. Skip the page for every suburb you've never worked in.
• Don't publish what you can't stand behind. Every answer is a claim your license is attached to. If you can't support one, keep it a draft until a qualified person approves it.

Part 3 · Structure

3. The code underneath

Structured data is a short block of code on a page that states your facts in a format machines read without guessing: your name, your address, your hours, your services, your questions and answers. It helps a machine read what the page already says. It doesn't get you into an AI answer on its own.

• One block per page. A theme, an SEO plugin and a scheduling widget each adding their own is a common mistake on practice sites. Keep one.
• Use the most specific type for your field. For example, Dentist, Physician or MedicalClinic for medical practices, LegalService or Attorney for law firms, FinancialService for advisory firms. Skip ProfessionalService; schema.org has retired it.
• Connect your people to the practice. Each practitioner gets their own entry, linked to the practice, so a machine knows the Dr. Alvarez on two pages (an example name) is one person.
• Define the practice once. Describe it in one place and point to it everywhere else. Twelve slightly different descriptions bring back the problem from part 1.
• Match the FAQ code to the page, word for word. Every question and answer in your FAQ code should appear on the page in the same words. Code for text visitors can't see contradicts your own page.
• Match your services, address and hours to your record. Structured data that disagrees with your listings is worse than none.
• Don't mark up what doesn't exist. No ratings you assembled yourself, no reviews the page doesn't show, no awards or credentials nobody gave you. In most of these fields, a self-made rating also breaks advertising rules.
• Keep the answers readable without JavaScript. If your fees appear only after a script runs, some readers never see them. Accordions and tabs are fine when the text is in the page. Test with scripts turned off.
• Date the page truthfully. A published date and a last-updated date, both real. A plugin that changes the date every night is telling a small lie every day.
• Build to WCAG 2.1 AA. It's the accessibility level the HHS rule points to. The HHS accessibility deadline for most practices that take Medicaid or Medicare Part A is May 11, 2027 (May 10, 2028 if you have fewer than 15 employees). Not sure the rule covers you? Ask your counsel.

Part 4 · Evidence

4. Credentials

In these fields, the question under every question is whether you're qualified. State your credentials exactly, and link to the public record that confirms them.

• State credentials exactly. Degree, the certifying body named in full, the year, the state, and the license number where it's public. "Board certified" without the board named tells a reader nothing.
• Link to the public record. These lookups are free: state medical and dental license lookups, certifying board verification, state bar member directories, the SEC's adviser search and Form ADV, and FINRA BrokerCheck.
• Link to things other people wrote about you. A hospital staff listing, a university faculty page, a court admission roll, a bar committee roster, a byline in a professional publication. Most practices have a few they've never linked.
• Keep the practice's credentials apart from the person's. A facility's accreditation isn't the physician's certification, and a firm's memberships aren't an attorney's admissions.
• Never imply a certification you don't hold. That includes placement: a certification logo beside someone who lacks it, or a membership styled like board certification.
• Put a name and a date on your explainers. Clinical, legal and financial articles say who wrote or reviewed them, with the credential and the review date.
• Keep an evidence file. One document listing every factual claim on your site and what backs it up. It takes an afternoon, and it's what you'll want if a board or regulator asks.

Part 5 · Compliance

5. The rules in your field

Read this first. We are not lawyers, and nothing here is legal or compliance advice. Rules differ by state, board, bar and registration type, and they change. Check each item with your own counsel or compliance reviewer.

• Back up every claim, or cut it. Medical boards, state bars and securities regulators agree that marketing may not be false or misleading. Nobody can back up "leading" or "top", and an AI assistant can't use them either.
• Handle past results and performance carefully. Many state bars require a disclaimer that prior results don't guarantee a similar outcome. Investment advisers showing performance must meet detailed requirements, including net-of-fees results alongside gross and set time periods.
• Check testimonials against your own rules first. Some medical boards restrict patient testimonials. Some state bars restrict them or require disclaimers. The SEC Marketing Rule, in effect for advisers since November 2022, requires clear disclosure of client status, compensation and material conflicts. FTC endorsement rules apply on top. Nothing on this list requires a testimonial.
• Never publish patient information without written authorization. That includes a patient who posted first. Confirming that someone is your patient is itself a disclosure, so review replies are an easy way to create a HIPAA problem. Reply generically, or privately.
• Keep ad tracking off patient pages. Don't place ad pixels on pages that collect patient information. If an outside company's work touches patient information, it should sign a Business Associate Agreement. A BAA alone doesn't make tracking lawful.
• Respect the regulated words. Specialist, board certified, expert, certified, fiduciary and fee-only each carry a controlled meaning in at least one of these fields, often varying by state. Lawyers: don't use "specialist" or "certified" unless the certifying body is named, and Florida, New York and Texas add their own rules.
• Carry the labels and approvals your field requires. Some states require attorney advertising to be labeled as such. Broker-dealer communications to the public need principal approval under FINRA's rules, and some must be filed. Websites count.
• Keep your marketing consistent with your regulatory record. Your Form ADV, bar registration, license record and website should describe the same firm, services and people.
• Send anyone in crisis to 988 first. Mental-health practices: any page that touches distress should tell a person in crisis to call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or call 911, or go to the nearest emergency room, before anything about the practice.
• Write the compliant version first. The rules that make you more specific, attributed and qualified also make the page easier for a machine to read correctly.

Part 6 · Measurement

6. How to check whether it worked

Most reporting in this area is one screenshot of one AI engine on one good day. Here's how to measure in a way someone else could repeat.

• Write the questions down before you start. The exact questions, in the exact words, before the first run. Twenty to forty is plenty. Changing the wording between runs turns a measurement into a story.
• Ask each question more than once. AI answers change from run to run. The same question asked twice in an hour can return different names. One run tells you very little; three to five start to show a pattern.
• Ask more than one AI engine. ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews draw on different sources. Being named by one and missing from another is normal. Reporting only the one that names you is marketing.
• Write down the conditions. Date, engine, whether you were signed in, and location, since "near me" answers change by city. Without them, two answers can't be compared.
• Track three outcomes. Named, not named, and named with something wrong. The third matters most: a closed office, a partner who left, a service you dropped. That goes back to part 1.
• Read the trend, not the day. One engine on one day is a sample. Look across weeks and engines, and distrust any report, ours included, that gives one number without the spread.
• Only report what you can repeat. If you can't hand someone the question, the date, the engine and the conditions, you don't have a measurement.
• Measure what you control, too. Whether every listing agrees, whether each service page answers the five questions, whether the code matches the page, and whether the credential links work. These move first.

Standing exclusions

What this will never ask you to do

• Pay for placement. Nothing here can be done by buying something.
• Buy links. Part 4 asks for mentions you earned.
• Collect testimonials. Rules on testimonials differ by board, bar and registration, and some forbid them.
• Publish an llms.txt file. Google says its Search ignores it, and no AI engine has confirmed using it. Be wary of anyone selling one as a deliverable.
• Publish pages by the hundred. Nine hundred neighborhood pages is not part 2. Part 2 asks for your real questions, answered once, by someone qualified.
• Hire us. Every item here can be done in-house.

Self-check

The short checklist

The handoff

If you'd rather not do it yourself

• See where you stand.

  The Free AI Check asks one live AI engine one question a client would ask, in your city, and shows you the answer as it came back. About two minutes, no card.

  Run the free check →

• Part 6, done for you once.

  The Search & Ask Workup asks your clients' questions on Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, adds live Google search data, and ends in a fix list in order.

  See the Workup →

• Parts 2 and 3, for your main pages.

  The Answer Kit drafts answers for your homepage and up to six service pages using only what they already say, with the FAQ code. You approve every answer.

  See the Answer Kit →

• Part 6, every month.

  AEOptim Visibility re-asks your questions every month, several runs each, and tells you whether a change is real.

  See AEOptim Visibility →

• Parts 1 and 4.

  Web Everything's Listings Cleanup puts one accurate record on your site and corrects every directory that matters to match.

  See Listings Cleanup ↗

• All of it, built in.

  Web Everything builds practice websites this way.

  See Websites ↗

Prices for the AEOptim products are on the pricing page.

Corrections

Tell us where it's wrong

We update this article when an AI engine or a rule changes in a way that matters, and the date at the top says when. If you think something here is wrong, write to human@aeoptim.com and say which part. We'd rather fix it than defend it.

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This document is general information about publishing and structured data. It is not legal, medical, or investment advice, it creates no professional relationship, and no AI mention, ranking, or outcome is promised by following it.