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Plain-language definitions of the terms behind the scorecard, written for agency owners rather than marketers.
What is AEO (answer engine optimization)?
AEO is the practice of making a business easy for AI assistants to cite accurately. Where traditional SEO competes for a position on a results page, AEO competes to be named inside a generated answer. For home care, that means structured data an assistant can verify, content phrased the way families actually ask questions, and consistent business details everywhere the assistant might look.
What is GEO (generative engine optimization)?
GEO is used more or less interchangeably with AEO. Both describe optimizing for systems that generate an answer rather than return a list of links. The practical work overlaps heavily: structured data, question-shaped content, review signals, and consistency across sources.
What is the Google Map Pack?
The Map Pack is the block of three local business listings Google shows above the regular results for location-based searches. Roughly 42% of local searchers click a result inside it. Being fourth or lower usually means being invisible, which is why we measure position across a grid of points rather than a single spot.
What is Share of Local Voice?
Share of Local Voice is the percentage of scanned grid points where a business appears in the top three. It answers a more useful question than average rank: how visible are you to someone searching nearby right now. A score of 0% means you never surface in the top three anywhere in your service area.
Why does structured data matter for AI visibility?
Structured data, or Schema.org markup, states facts about a business in a machine-readable format. Search engines and AI assistants use it to verify details with enough confidence to repeat them. Without it, a system that is unsure about your hours, services, or service area will often skip you rather than risk being wrong.
Do reviews affect whether AI assistants recommend a business?
Review volume, recency, and owner responses are among the clearest public trust signals available about a local business, and they feed both Map Pack ranking and the sources assistants draw on. Reviews from actual clients describing care outcomes tend to be more useful for this than reviews from staff describing the workplace.