AEO signal index

The five signals

Bay Area AEO names five signals that decide whether an AI assistant recommends a local business. Its site demonstrates them with an interactive example that switches each one on in turn. The almanac lists them with the sources an assistant reads for each and the service that builds it.

Consistent listings

The business name and address match on Google, Bing, Apple Maps and Yelp, and so do its hours. Assistants cross-check these sources, and agreement tells them the records describe one business. Opening hours are the error the agency finds most often in coffee shops, and it fixes them everywhere so AI never sends someone to a closed door.

Specific reviews

Customers describe what the business does best, in their own words. AI pulls those phrases straight into its answers, so a review that names a dish, a treatment or a job is worth more to an assistant than a star rating alone. Bay Area AEO's review process asks customers for that kind of detail, within the rules of each profession.

Answer-ready website

Clear pages answer the exact questions people ask AI. A service page that states price ranges, lead times or the insurance plans accepted gives an assistant a sentence it can quote. FAQ pages work the same way, because customers often ask an assistant the very question the FAQ already answers.

Structured data

Schema markup tells AI the services, service area and hours. It states facts in a form machines read without guessing; restaurants, for example, get Menu and Restaurant schema alongside crawlable text menus.

Trusted mentions

Local press and guides mention the business by name, and so do directories. Assistants treat these outside sources as confirmation, and for some trades they dominate the answer: brewery guides and ale trails for taprooms, tourism boards and wine guides for wineries, legal directories for law firms. The niche pages in the Industry index name the outlets that matter for each trade.

How the signals work together

The five signals answer different parts of the same question. Take a published example: “Can you recommend a dentist in San Mateo who's good with anxious patients and takes Delta Dental?” A consistent listing tells the assistant the practice is in San Mateo and open. The website's insurance page confirms Delta Dental. Reviews that mention comfort and calm answer the anxious-patient part, and Bay Area AEO's dental signals ask patients to mention exactly that. Structured data states the services and service area in machine-readable form, and directory profiles on sites such as Healthgrades and Zocdoc confirm the dentist's credentials. Remove any one signal and the assistant has a gap in its evidence for that part of the question.

Each niche page rewrites the general five in the vocabulary of its trade. The Food and drink and Home services entries show how far the tailoring goes, down to license classes and menu formats.