AI Search Optimization Website Guide

AI Shopping continues to command headlines with every expert discussing how disruptive AI is to ecommerce and how critical it is to address this new shopping model. Everyone wants to talk about how changes are required, but nobody wants to discuss what those changes should be.

Here we are going to take a different approach, assume you already know about GEO and AIO, and that you are ready to get started applying AI search optimization to your business.

Much of this information carries over from traditional SEO. AI will try to crawl your website in the same way Google does, but realize an AI bot is not as sophisticated as Google’s crawler. It’s now more important to ensure the website is built correctly with bots in mind.

I’m going to get technical here, but Aries is always available to help explain these fundamentals… or you could ask ChatGPT.

What the website must do:

• Server-side render all commerce pages so content is visible without JavaScript. This is tricky as users demand a smooth experience. Using modern techniques like hydration or islands is essential.
• Hit sub-2s load times for bots. Slow pages are a problem and could be completely ignored. Realize that bots are not necessarily loading everything, so optimization is a bit different than traditional Lighthouse scores.
• Ship comprehensive structured data and keep it fresh.
• Keep pricing, availability, and specs current and real-time.

We have all moved towards headless commerce with React frontends. These delight customers with smooth and fast interactions, but headless done wrong (CSR-only) becomes invisible to AI. If AI encounters blank (JS-heavy) pages, it will not create the recommendation regardless of brand strength.

Aries puts focus on transitional websites using NextJS or AstroJS. This allows for:

• SSR by default for 100% crawler visibility.
• Edge-optimized, sub-second delivery.
• Structured data.
• Real-time sync from source-of-truth MACH APIs.

Ecommerce websites are one of the only pieces that companies fully control. It’s a great start for AI optimization to ensure faster inclusion, higher confidence, and fewer lost opportunities.

Modern composable stacks (MACH: Microservices, API-only, cloud-native, headless) map cleanly to what AI systems reward.

• Performance edge: Edge delivery and granular services routinely cut page times and ensure websites stay under the ~2s threshold where bots drop off. This is just doubling down on the fact that page speed is directly correlated to conversion rate.
• Real-time data: APIs keep all data in sync and updated. AIs do not want to share stale data.
• Full control over page schema: You can guarantee a clean, well-structured, and crawlable HTML.
• Multiple frontends mean AI-specific pages or guides can be quickly rendered. Many sites have started to add TXT or MarkDown files specifically designed for AI consumption.

Companies that have already invested in their tech stack are primed for AI adoption. Those still on slow legacy systems can gain in UX, conversion rate, and AI optimization by upgrading.

Make AI search optimization a core competitive practice, not a side-project. This may mean investing in content strategists or community advocates to regularly push content and information. You may also need a technical audit to ensure the content is fully readable. Here is our suggested timeline:

Within 30-days

• Ensure the website is visible to AI agents and the data is structured and clear. Ensure your robots.txt allows the right AI crawlers.
• Run an AI visibility audit on your top 20 commercial queries. Record results, gaps, and competitor placement.
• Identify the 10 subreddits where your category lives, begin participating, but avoid all promotion or discussion of your products or brands.
• Publish one piece of proprietary content and a canonical summary page. Cross-post across multiple websites for visibility.

Within 60-days

• Achieve your first authentic Reddit mention and one long-tail AI citation.
• Consider launching dashboards for AI visibility and referral attribution.
• Optimize page speed to ensure sub-2s load for all bot traffic.

Within 90-days

• Establish monthly governance for content freshness, research cadence, and community engagement.
• Create a 12-month content calendar across multiple platforms to ensure brand and product data is ingested by AI models.
• Add AI-optimized content in TEXT or MarkDown format.

Return to that shopper asking, “What’s the best sustainable denim under $150?” In that moment, the model isn’t weighing keywords or backlinks. It’s evaluating trust. (Well, technically, it’s probability based on data scraped from the internet, but that prevalence comes from trust.) Brands that show up with credible signals, usable structure, and real community proof become the answer. Everyone else is invisible.

The shift is simpler than it looks and harder than it sounds. It’s simpler because the goal is clear: stop chasing traffic and start earning authority. However, it’s harder than it sounds, as this requires a clear process, plan, and execution.

You need content and community participation that resonates with users, without turning them off by being overly promotional. You need a website architecture that delivers. If you run a composable stack, you are already one step ahead. Now you need to make it visible, accurate, and easy to cite.

Nothing is solidified. There will be a lot of trial and error, but market leaders will decide, ship, and learn faster than the rest. They will do the unglamorous foundational work and let their AI rankings build over time. If you wait until it’s all figured out, trying to avoid mistakes, it will be too late. Either the market will change again, or the authority of early movers will have compounded to the point where you can’t catch up.

There is an old joke, “Where do you hide a dead body? Page two of Google results.” The stakes are even higher when AI search results don’t have a page two.