Guides · Best-of · Verified July 2026

The best ways to get your business found in AI search (Australia, 2026)

The short answer

An Australian small business has four routes into AI-search visibility in 2026: DIY ($0 — Google Business Profile, reviews, structured pages, Bing); software (Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit, US$99/month, tells you where you stand but not who does the work); an agency (bespoke, typically $1,000+/month retainers); or a managed subscription — Propeller includes AEO with the website itself at $199/month. The right route depends on who is going to do the actual work.

By Chris Elder, Founder ·Published 4 Jul 2026 ·Updated 4 Jul 2026 ·8 min read

Disclosure: Propeller publishes this guide and sells one of the four options (the managed subscription). The other three routes are presented honestly — including the free one, which we’ve documented step-by-step in a companion how-to guide.

Why is this suddenly worth money?

Because AI answers name a handful of businesses where a results page listed ten blue links, being in that handful is winner-takes-most. ChatGPT passed 800 million weekly users in October 2025, and Google now shows an AI Overview on roughly 16% of searches — with commercial queries the fastest-growing slice. The businesses being cited today are accumulating an advantage that compounds.

Terms triggering Google AI Overviews settled at ~16% of all queries in late 2025; the commercial-intent share grew to ~19%.

Source: Semrush AI Overviews Study, 10M+ keywords, 2025

What are the four routes?

Route	Cost (as published, Jul 2026)	Who does the work	What you get	Best for
DIY	$0 + your time	You	GBP, reviews, structured pages, llms.txt, Bing — all learnable	Owners with more time than budget
Software / tools	Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit US$99/mo per domain; Pro SEO plan US$139.95/mo	You, guided by data	Visibility measurement across AI engines, prompt tracking, gap analysis	Marketing-literate businesses who’ll act on reports
Agency	Typically $1,000–$3,000+/mo retainers (quoted); e.g. Wolf IQ positions “recommended by AI” via growth plans	They do	Bespoke strategy, content and authority building	Established businesses with marketing budgets
Managed subscription	Propeller Growth $199/mo AUD incl. the website itself (free build)	They do	Site rebuilt answer-first + schema + llms.txt + Bing/IndexNow + ongoing updates	Owner-operators who want it handled

Route 1 — DIY: what would it take?

Everything an AI needs from you is publishable without a developer: a complete Google Business Profile, a steady stream of replied-to reviews, pages that answer questions directly, consistent name-address-phone details across directories, and twenty minutes in Bing Webmaster Tools. We’ve written the full playbook — how to get recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI — and it stays true whether or not you ever spend a dollar. The honest catch: the structural website work (schema, answer-first rewrites, speed) defeats most DIY attempts, and consistency is a monthly habit, not a weekend.

Route 2 — Tools: what does software like Semrush actually do?

Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit (US$99/month per domain) tracks whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI mention your brand, which prompts surface competitors, and where your gaps are — built on the industry’s largest prompt dataset. What no tool does is the work: it will tell you your site lacks structured data and your answers aren’t liftable; someone still has to fix that. Buy a tool when you have someone who will act on its reports; otherwise you’re paying US$99/month to be told what you already suspect.

Route 3 — Agencies: when do they earn the retainer?

A good agency brings strategy, content production and authority-building a small business can’t replicate — at retainers that typically start around $1,000/month and climb. Sydney’s Wolf IQ, for instance, builds its positioning around “websites that rank on Google and get recommended by AI”, attached to bespoke builds of $5,000–$25,000. For an established business where each new client is worth five figures, that maths works. For a $150-job lawn-care business, it rarely does.

Route 4 — Managed subscriptions: what’s the trade?

The subscription model bundles AEO into the website service itself: Propeller’s Growth plan ($199/month AUD, month-to-month) includes the free custom website build, hosting, unlimited content updates, and the full AEO layer — answer-first structure, structured data, llms.txt, Bing submission and the ongoing consistency work — done for you. The trade-off is standardisation: you get a proven system applied well, not a bespoke content strategy. For owner-operators, that system is usually exactly what’s missing.

Which route should you take?

Time-rich, cash-poor: DIY with the free playbook. Budget a weekend to set up and an hour a week forever.
You have a marketer (or are one): add Semrush’s toolkit for measurement and work the gaps it finds.
Established, five-figure clients: interview agencies; ask specifically what they’ll change on your site for AI extraction, not just rankings.
Owner-operator who wants it handled: a managed subscription. Propeller’s is $199/month with the website included — and you can see the demo before paying anything.

Frequently asked questions

Can a small business really get mentioned by ChatGPT?

Yes — assistants recommend businesses they can find, read and corroborate, and most Australian small-business websites are so poorly structured for machines that doing the basics puts you ahead. There is no pay-to-play: visibility is earned through a complete Google Business Profile, steady reviews, machine-readable pages and consistent details across the web.

What does AEO cost in Australia?

As at July 2026: DIY costs $0 plus your time; AI-visibility software like Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is US$99/month per domain (plus US$139.95/month for its Pro SEO plan if you want the full stack); agency SEO/AEO retainers typically start around $1,000–$3,000/month; and managed subscriptions like Propeller's Growth plan include AEO with the website itself at $199/month AUD.

Is AEO just SEO with a new name?

They overlap heavily — fast sites, useful content and authority help both — but AEO adds machine-specific work: structured data, llms.txt, answer-first page structure, question-form headings and Bing presence (ChatGPT reads Bing's index). Good SEO gets you ranked; AEO gets you named in the answer.

How do I measure whether AI search is sending me customers?

Two ways. Test monthly: ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity the questions your customers would ask and record whether you're named or cited. And measure referrals: in GA4, traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com is AI-sourced — small volumes today, but it converts well because the assistant pre-sold you.

Want to know what AI says about your business right now?

Send us your website — we’ll show you what ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI currently answer, and build a free demo of the site that fixes it.

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