For years, ranking meant a position on a list of blue links. That list is still there. It is no longer the only place a customer meets your business.
Someone in Dublin can still search Google and click a result. They can also read an answer written on the results page, or ask ChatGPT or Perplexity and never see the list. In the first case you want a rank. In the second and third you want the answer to name your page, or you are not in the conversation at all.
This is the pillar for that shift. It uses three waves so the work has an order. It does not report a private audit, and it does not promise a mention in any tool. The practical half is the same as good SEO: a clear entity, a page that answers a real question, and markup that matches the page. The markup itself is in the schema markup guide. The ranking work on Google is in the Page 1 guide.
The list. Ranking means a position.
Wave 1 is classic search. Google shows a list. The prize is a place on it, high enough that the right person clicks.
The page has to match the query, load, and be a page you would send a customer. Title, headings, and the first paragraph should say what the business does and where. Internal links should point at the service, the proof, and the next question. That is still the job. AI answers did not delete the list, and a business that ignores the list is invisible to everyone who still uses it.
If you only do one thing in Wave 1, make the primary page for each service say the service and the area in plain language, then link it from the homepage. The SME SEO guide is the longer version of that work for an owner who runs the business and the site.
The answer on the results page.
Wave 2 is an answer written above or inside the list. Google's AI Overviews are the obvious example. The customer may get the point without clicking.
The list is still on the page. A second layer now tries to answer the question in a short passage and cite a few sources. Your rank can be strong and the overview can still quote someone else, because the overview is looking for a sentence it can lift, not for the site with the best design.
Write that sentence on purpose. Open the page with the answer, then the detail. A heading that is the question, followed by two or three sentences that resolve it, is easier to lift than a page that circles the topic for six paragraphs. The FAQ at the bottom of a guide does the same job if each answer stands on its own.
The fact, the condition, and the limit. Who it is for, what you do, and what you do not promise. A paragraph that could be quoted without the rest of the page is the paragraph an overview can use.
The answer inside the tool. There is no position 3.
Wave 3 is ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the other chat tools. The customer asks in a box. The tool writes an answer. Your site is either a source or it is absent.
These products do not work the same way, and they change. A useful distinction still holds. Perplexity is built to show sources under the answer, so a page with a direct answer and a clear name is something it can point at. ChatGPT sometimes answers from the model and sometimes browses. When it browses, it can name a page. When it does not, it may describe a type of business without naming yours. Google can do both Wave 2 and Wave 1 on the same screen: an overview and a list.
You cannot force a citation. You can make the page a clean source. That means one topic, a name that matches the rest of the web, and claims you can stand behind. A page that says "best in Dublin" with nothing under it gives a tool nothing solid to repeat. A page that says what you do, where, and how a customer starts is a page a tool can cite without inventing the rest.
What "show up" means on each surface
A place on the list, and sometimes a citation inside an overview. Treat them as two outcomes. Build the page for the list. Write the answer so the overview has a sentence to use.
Perplexity
A numbered source under a written answer. The page should answer one question in the opening, use the business name, and link to the service it describes.
ChatGPT
A mention when the tool looks at the web, or no mention when it answers from memory. Publish the facts in public, in the same words, so a browse has a page to land on.
A citation is not a ranking.
A rank is a slot. A citation is a sentence that names you as the source of a fact. They reward different kinds of pages.
A page can sit at the top of the list and never be cited, if it never states a fact a tool can lift. A thin page of slogans, a gallery with no sentences, or a service page that only says "contact us" gives an answer engine nothing to quote. The click still matters for Wave 1. The quote never happens.
A page can be cited without being the top blue link. Tools pick a passage that answers the question in front of them. If your passage is the clear one, it can be the source even when another domain outranks you for the broad term. You do not control the wording of the answer they write around your sentence. You control whether the sentence exists, whether it is true, and whether the business it names is the same business as the one on your Google listing.
That last point is the entity. The name, the place, and the service have to be stable. "WebFluence Digital", "Dublin", and "SEO retainer" should not become three different phrases on three pages. Answer engines attach facts to entities. If the entity is fuzzy, the fact has nowhere to stick. Local facts belong with the local SEO guide and the Google Business Profile guide: the listing, the NAP, and the schema should tell the same story.
Wave 3 does not retire Wave 1. Keep earning the click. Also write pages that can be quoted. A business that only chases citations and lets the list slide will lose the people who still click. A business that only chases the list will be missing when the answer is written for the customer.
The schema and entity playbook.
Four jobs, in order. None of them is a trick. All of them give a tool a source it can name without guessing.
- One entity. Same business name, same city, same phone, same primary service on the homepage, the footer, the Google listing, and the schema.
- One page per real question. The title is the question or the job. The first paragraph answers it. The rest is the method, the limit, and the next step.
- Five schema types. Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, and Article, matching the visible page. The code and the validation steps are in the schema guide.
- Links between the cluster. This page, the Page 1 guide, the local guide, and the service page should point at each other. An entity with no internal links looks like a one-off post.
- Claims you can defend. If you cannot show it, do not write it. A cited sentence that is wrong is worse than no citation.
A page that can be cited
Use this shape for a service or a question you actually get:
Answer
Two or three sentences. What it is, who it is for, what it is not. No warm-up.
Method
The steps you actually run. Name the pages, the tools, and the decision. Skip the steps you do not offer.
Limit
Say what the work does not promise. A rank is not a citation. A citation is not a customer. A valid schema test is not a rank.
Next step
One link to the service or the pricing page. The reader who is ready should not have to hunt.
Then mark it up. Article for the guide. FAQPage for the questions on the page. Service if the page is an offer. LocalBusiness on the site so the place is explicit. Run the validator. Read the JSON against the footer. Ship it, then keep the sentences true when the offer changes.
If you want that done as a system rather than a one-off post, it is part of SEO for Irish SMEs: the pages, the entity, and the markup, measured against the queries you care about. The quote starts on the pricing calculator.
The same question, asked in three places.
Take a question a Dublin owner actually types: how much a website costs, or what local SEO is. The words barely change. The surface does.
On Google, Wave 1 is the list. A page that answers the question can earn a click. Our website cost guide is written for that query. The local SEO guide is written for the other. Both open with the answer, then the method. That is also what Wave 2 needs: if an overview appears above the list, it has a paragraph it can lift without inventing the price or the definition.
In Perplexity, the same question comes back as a written answer with sources underneath. The tool is not looking for your homepage slogan. It is looking for a page that states the fact and can be linked. If the cost guide says what a site includes and what it does not, that page can be source number two or source number five. The position on the Google list does not decide that. The clarity of the page does.
In ChatGPT, ask the question once with browsing and once without, if the product offers both. Without browsing, you may get a general answer that names no Irish company. With browsing, you may get a citation. Neither result is a ranking you can screenshot and call a position. Write down whether your domain was named, which sentence was used, and whether that sentence is still true. That note is the check. It is not a scoreboard, and it will not be the same next month, because the tools change what they show.
Do this for one money query and one definition query. If neither page can be quoted, you do not have an AI-search problem. You have a page that never says the thing. Fix the page. Then add the schema from the schema guide so the business behind the sentence is one entity, not three spellings.
What to ship before you worry about being mentioned.
Mentions follow pages that exist. This is the order that keeps Wave 1 intact while you make Wave 2 and Wave 3 possible.
Five steps, in order
Lock the entity
Write the trading name, the city, the phone, and the primary service on one line. Make the homepage, the footer, and the Google Business Profile use that line. If they disagree, stop and fix that before you publish anything new.
Pick three real questions
Use questions customers send, not questions you wish they asked. One page each. Answer in the first paragraph. Say who it is for and what you will not promise. Link each page to the service it describes.
Mark them up and check them
Organization and LocalBusiness once for the site. Service on the offer. FAQPage and Article on the new guides. Validate. Read the JSON out loud against the footer. If you would not say the JSON to a customer, do not publish it.
Link the cluster
The homepage links to the three pages. Each page links to one sibling and to the service. A guide that nothing links to is easy for a person to miss and easy for a crawler to treat as a dead end.
Ask the question back
After the pages can be fetched, ask each question on Google, in Perplexity, and in ChatGPT. Record whether you were named and which sentence was used. Change the page if the sentence is missing or wrong. Do not change it to beg for a mention.
What to leave out
Do not publish a page for every Dublin postcode you do not serve. A location page is for a place you actually work, with something specific to say, which is the same rule as in the local guide. Do not add a FAQ of twenty questions you copied from a keyword tool and do not answer in the body. Do not paste the brand name into every sentence. A tool can tell a stuffed page from a page that answers, and a customer can too.
Share the finished guide where your customers already are. The point of sharing is to put the URL in front of a person, not to manufacture a citation. LinkedIn, an email to past enquiries, and a straight answer on a forum you already use are enough. The page still has to stand on its own when someone arrives from a chat tool and has never heard of you.
None of this promises a mention in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or an AI Overview. It puts a true sentence on a page a tool is allowed to cite, under a business name that matches the rest of the web, while the Google list still has something worth clicking.