Most of the AEO advice I read is about structured data, entity schemas and knowledge graph optimization. All valid, all important. But also all things the average business owner is not going to tackle on a Tuesday afternoon.
And that is the problem. There are tens of thousands of businesses in the Netherlands with a solid website, a healthy customer base and zero clue about Answer Engine Optimization. Those owners have no time for JSON-LD and no budget for an agency. But they do have customers who use ChatGPT to find a plumber, a lawyer or a caterer.
This article is for them. Five things you can do today. No technical knowledge required. Real impact.
1. Make sure you exist at all (to AI)
This sounds obvious, but it is step one, and most businesses skip it.
ChatGPT and Perplexity do not build their knowledge from your website alone. They look at the whole web, and especially at structured sources. If your business does not appear in the Dutch Chamber of Commerce (KvK) register with public details, on industry platforms, on review sites or in news coverage, you simply do not exist in the AI universe.
What you can do today: search your own company name in ChatGPT and see what it says about you. Literally. Open ChatGPT, type "What do you know about [your business]?" and read the answer. In most cases it is wrong, incomplete, or outright made up.
That is your starting point. Every error you see now is something potential customers see too.
Next, make sure your business is listed in at least three of these places: your trade association, a relevant review platform (Trustpilot, Google Maps) and a local news article or press release. AI models weigh these sources more heavily than your own homepage.
2. One page, one question, one answer
The biggest mistake I see on small business websites: the homepage tries to be everything. About us, our services, our mission, our customers, our coffee machine.
AI gets lost on pages like that. It scans, finds no clear structure, and bounces.
What does work: build a separate page that answers exactly one question. Not "everything about our services", but "How much does a loft conversion cost in the Utrecht region?" or "What permits do I need for a bed & breakfast in Amsterdam?"
It does not need to be an elaborate landing page. Five hundred words is enough, as long as it is a concrete answer to a concrete question your customers actually ask.
Start with one page. If you see it working, add a second. This is quite literally the only AEO principle you really need to grasp: AI cites answers, not marketing copy.
3. Google Business Profile is your AEO safety net
We associate AEO with ChatGPT and Perplexity, but the mechanism behind it is broader. Many AI models use Google's local data as a trust signal. A complete, active Google Business Profile is therefore not just good for Google Maps, it is an AEO foundation.
Fill in every field. Yes, including holiday opening hours. Yes, including categories. Yes, including the question-and-answer section nobody uses.
It sounds over the top, but AI models check whether a business looks "complete". A half-filled profile screams "not serious". A full profile with recent reviews, photos and posts says "active, trustworthy, citable".
And those reviews? Every new review with specific wording about what you do is extra context AI can use. "Quick service, good communication" is nice. "Quote within 48 hours, heat pump installed in a single day, everything left tidy" is AEO gold.
4. Write the way you talk, not the way you write
This is where most businesses lose the most points. Standard company copy is written for people who are already on your site. Formal, distant, packed with jargon.
AI looks for natural language. It wants sentences that sound like the way people ask questions. "What are the advantages of a hybrid heat pump compared with a fully electric one?" That question should appear literally on your page, as a heading, not buried inside a rambling paragraph.
Write your content out loud. Read it back. Does it sound like a person? Or does it sound like a brochure?
Quick test: swap every "we" and "our" in your key paragraphs for "you" and "your". If the text stops making sense, you are writing too much about yourself and too little for your customer.
5. Stay current, even when nothing changes
The last point is the easiest and the most underestimated: AI models have a strong preference for recent information. A page last updated in 2023 is cited less often than a page with the same content that says "last updated July 2026".
That does not mean you have to produce new content non-stop. It means: add a visible date to your core pages, update them at least once a quarter (even if it is only a small wording tweak), and do not let your blog, if you have one, go quiet for six months.
One blog post a month on a practical topic in your field is worth more than a homepage that never changes. AI reads activity as authority.
Start small, start today
AEO is not a binary switch you turn on or off. It is a process of sending more and more AI signals that you are the best answer to someone else's question.
The fifteenth page you optimize will probably deliver more than the first. But you have to start somewhere. My advice: pick one service, write one answer page, and see what changes in what ChatGPT says about you two months from now.
The businesses that start now will have a lead in a year that is almost impossible to close, not because AEO is so complicated, but because most competitors are still doing nothing.
Read our complete AEO guide for businesses here, including the technical side of structured data, llms.txt and FAQ schemas that you can outsource to a developer.
This article was written by Team WeArkMedia. We help businesses become findable in AI search, with no fuss and measurable results.