AI SEO is the practice of getting your content cited by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini when their users ask questions in your domain. It's variously called AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) — three names for the same discipline of structuring content so AI can extract authoritative answers from it.

Why does Bailey Engineering publish its SEO progress publicly?

Because the discipline of measuring and documenting AI visibility is the same discipline Bailey wants associated with its engineering: measure, document, improve. A public scoreboard signals to developers, realtors, and attorneys that Bailey is the firm thinking about how their clients find them in 2026. It also gives AI assistants a long, dated, statistic-dense page to extract from.

How does Bailey measure AI visibility?

Bailey runs the same 10 buyer-intent queries against ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini every month and tracks the percentage where Bailey appears in the AI answer or the top sources the AI cites. The baseline (April 2026) was 2 of 10. The 6-month target is 6 of 10 by October 2026. The 1-year target is 8 of 10.

AI.IQ

How we're getting found by AI in 2026.

An open audit of Bailey Engineering's AI search visibility — what's done, what's next, and what we're learning. Updated monthly.

Last updated 2026-05-13

53%

43 of 81 items complete · 8 in progress

The vision: Intelligence-Driven Civil Engineering · Southern Idaho. Every item below ladders up to that.

AI visibility scoreboard

5 of 10

Bailey appears in 5 of 10 buyer-intent queries we run monthly across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. Target: 6 of 10 by 2026-10-31.

Last test run: 2026-05-13

The 10 queries we test

civil engineer land development Southern Idaho Treasure Valley
best land development engineers in Boise Idaho
civil engineer for subdivision platting Meridian Idaho
how long does subdivision plat approval take in Ada County Idaho
stormwater detention requirements Treasure Valley Idaho
land entitlement attorney civil engineer Idaho
what does R-1 zoning allow in Boise Idaho
can I split my lot in Eagle Idaho
Bailey Engineers Eagle Idaho reviews
civil engineering firm Caldwell Nampa Idaho

See per-query results →

The plan, by phase

Seven phases. Trickle, don't dump.

Each phase has a different leverage point. Schema fixes are the fastest wins. Content coverage is the slowest. Authority compounds.

Phase 1 — Foundation

Server-rendered, AI-bot-friendly infrastructure. Mostly done; close out the citation cleanup.

100%

13/13

New website uploaded and tested

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-26
Server-rendered site (Astro, zero-JS posture)

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-26
robots.txt explicitly allows GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Applebot-Extended

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-26
Sitemap-index registered

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-26
GA4 analytics installed

Completed 2026-04-26
ProfessionalService schema with NAP, geo, employees, areaServed

Completed 2026-04-26
WebSite schema with SearchAction (with name)

Completed 2026-04-28
BreadcrumbList schema on inner pages

Completed 2026-04-26
Publish /llms.txt at site root

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
Google Search Console — verify domain property and submit sitemap-index.xml

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-07
Bing Webmaster Tools — import GSC property + sitemap (covers Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-12
Google Rich Results Test on homepage + 1 service page + 1 city page (validate JSON-LD)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-11
Enable GSC email alerts (indexing, security, manual actions, mobile usability)

Completed 2026-05-11

Phase 2 — Schema & FAQ

The fastest AI-visibility wins on the site. Existing Dev.IQ articles already contain Q&A — extract and mark up.

100%

10/10

FAQPage schema on /dev-iq/faqs/ (top 6 entity-defining Q&As)

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
FAQPage schema on each of 12 Dev.IQ articles (cost + feasibility-studies + 10 collection articles via faq[] frontmatter)

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
Article schema with author + dateModified on every Dev.IQ article

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
Article schema auto-emit on /dev-iq/land-use-intelligence/<slug>/ (BaseLayout extension; covers existing + future LUI articles)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-11
Rename existing 11 FAQ articles to question form with location qualifiers (all 11 + body Common-Qs sections stripped via SSOT cleanup)

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
Service schema on /services/* pages, areaServed-linked to 25 cities

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-26
Add entity-defining FAQ block to homepage

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-12
HowTo schema on /dev-iq/our-process/ for the 10-phase process

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-11
Person pages for Shane, Kelli, Jonah, David, Zack, Cole, Ryan

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-12
Connect schema entities with @id references (LocalBusiness ↔ Service ↔ Person ↔ Article)

Completed 2026-05-12 Homepage WebSite (#website), ProfessionalService (#org); BaseLayout providerNode + Service + Article all reference #org; AI.IQ scoreboard Article uses #article. Person pages shipped 2026-05-12 with #person @ids and worksFor → #org linkage.

Phase 3 — Content Coverage

Question-formatted, location-keyed content targeting the 8 high-intent queries Bailey currently loses. Land developers are the #1 target audience — content additions skew toward developer-intent queries first, then attorneys/realtors.

18%

3/17

Publish 6 new FAQs targeting developer queries (plat timeline, stormwater, R-zoning, lot splits, utilities)

Target: 2026-06-30
Land Developer Playbook pillar page (/dev-iq/land-developer-playbook/) — umbrella linking raw-land-to-entitled-lots content for the #1 buyer persona
FAQ: subdivision phasing strategy for cash-flow-sensitive developers (Treasure Valley)
FAQ: ACHD/COMPASS traffic impact study — when it's required, what it costs, how it sequences against the plat
FAQ: annexation process for raw land (Boise, Meridian, Nampa) — pre-annexation agreements, timelines, fee schedules
FAQ: PUD vs traditional subdivision in Idaho — when each makes sense
FAQ: preliminary plat vs final plat — sequencing, what each gates, common delays
Multi-city comparison page (Caldwell + Nampa or Boise + Meridian) — targets Q10 'civil engineering firm Caldwell Nampa Idaho' and similar cross-city queries
Publish 5 new FAQs for realtor diligence

Target: 2026-07-31
Publish 5 new FAQs for attorneys

Target: 2026-08-31
Fill empty Multifamily / Commercial / Master Planned categories (2-3 each)

Target: 2026-09-30
City pillar page: Meridian

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-13
City pillar page: Boise

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-13
City pillar page: Nampa

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-13
City pillar page: Eagle

Target: 2026-10-31
City pillar page: Caldwell

Target: 2026-10-31
City pillar page: Star

Target: 2026-10-31

Phase 4 — Off-domain Authority

Earned mentions in trusted third-party content. Outside this codebase but tracked here.

0/6

30-day review push: 25+ Google reviews at 3.5★+

Evidence → Target: 2026-06-30
90-day review push: lift rating to 4.0★+

Evidence → Target: 2026-08-13
Monthly newsletter live

Target: 2026-07-01
LinkedIn cadence: 3 posts/week sustained for one quarter

Target: 2026-09-30
Author developer-facing guest content for NAIOP Idaho / Idaho Smart Growth on entitlement timelines + cost predictability
Pitch a developer-perspective op-ed to Idaho Business Review on Treasure Valley entitlement timelines (off-domain authority for land-developer queries)

Phase 5 — Local business presence

Owned NAP listings on the platforms that drive 'civil engineers near me' results across Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, and the major B2B directories. Same canonical NAP everywhere — inconsistency hurts local SEO.

67%

4/6

Google Business Profile — claim, verify (postcard, ~5–14 days), fill out hours/photos/services

Completed 2026-05-12 Profile claimed, verified, and filled out (categories, services, service-package products, hours). Active in Google Maps + Local Pack.
Apple Business Connect — Apple Maps + Siri presence on every iPhone in the Treasure Valley

Completed 2026-05-12
Bing Places for Business — import from Google Business Profile once verified

Completed 2026-05-12
LinkedIn company page — verify NAP, industry (Civil Engineering), founded year, specialties, address, hours

Completed 2026-05-11
ACEC Idaho member directory listing (verify membership status with Shane first)

Target: 2026-06-30
Idaho Society of Professional Engineers — directory listing (member-gated)

Target: 2026-06-30

Phase 6 — Measurement

Public AI visibility scoreboard, monthly re-tests, schema validation. Two audit tools: the 10 buyer-intent queries (AI search visibility) and isitagentready.com (agent readiness).

44%

4/9

Baseline AI visibility test (10 queries, 4 platforms)

Completed 2026-04-28
Build public AI visibility scoreboard page from items.json (now /dev-iq/ai-iq/getting-found-by-ai/)

Evidence → Completed 2026-04-28
Monthly AI visibility re-test (recurring)

Methodology: run each of the 10 buyer-intent queries through search engines that AI assistants ground on (DuckDuckGo HTML → Bing/DDG index, Brave Search → Brave index, Google → Gemini grounding when accessible). A query 'passes' if baileyengineers.com appears in the top 10 organic results of at least one major engine — Bing-indexed engines (DDG) approximate ChatGPT/Copilot grounding; Brave approximates Claude grounding. 2026-05-13 re-test: 5/10 — passes on Q1, Q2, Q3, Q5, Q9. Misses: Q4 (plat timeline), Q6 (entitlement attorney), Q7 (R-1 zoning), Q8 (lot split Eagle), Q10 (Caldwell-Nampa firm).
Google + Bing Search Console monitoring
Link GA4 ↔ Search Console — surfaces Organic Google Search Traffic, Search Queries, Landing Pages, Clicks / Impressions / CTR, and Search Console acquisition reports inside GA4

Completed 2026-05-13
All schema validated against Rich Results Test + Schema.org Validator monthly

Practice established 2026-05-12; first monthly validation pass clean against Rich Results Test on homepage + service + city + about-person pages. Recurring cadence mirrors the AI visibility re-test.
Adopt isitagentready.com as the canonical agent-readiness audit tool (tracks markdown twins, /.well-known/ discovery, content negotiation, etc.)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-11
Run /toprank:seo-analysis once GSC has 1-2 weeks of crawl data (full-site SEO audit baseline)

Target: 2026-05-22
Cloudflare AI Crawl Control monitoring — per-vendor crawl trend (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc.).

Cloudflare AI Crawl Control panel adopted as the canonical per-vendor 24h AI-bot signal (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, OAI-SearchBot). Reviewed alongside the monthly visibility re-test.

Phase 7 — Learning Section

Public-facing /learn/ — 4 tracks, 42 modules, 12 months. Trickle, don't dump.

0/9

Stand up /learn/ with four track indexes and Course schema

Target: 2026-06-15
Track 4 M1: Git and GitHub for engineers who don't write code

Target: 2026-06-30
Track 3 M1: AI for civil engineers — what to actually use it for in 2026

Target: 2026-07-15
Track 1 M1: Setting up a Civil 3D project so the next person can pick it up

Target: 2026-07-31
Track 2 M1: Civil engineering is a decade behind on data — here's why

Target: 2026-08-15
Q3 2026: 8 more modules across 4 tracks

Target: 2026-09-30
Q4 2026: 12 more modules across 4 tracks

Target: 2026-12-31
Track 3 M8: Building your own WAT system (keystone — pitch externally on publish)

Target: 2026-12-31 Foundation work 2026-05-13: Codex installed on Rebecca Johnston's machine with read access to projects, standards, email, OneNote, calendar, and Project Tracker. Validated useful project-status answers. Proves the AI-with-operations-access pattern works internally at Bailey. Next: connect to an external WAT to write articles based on operations data.
Track 3 M12: What we got wrong building Bailey's AI system (gated on Phase E retro)

Target: 2027-Q3

Phase 8 — Agent Readiness

Make the site discoverable and consumable by AI agents directly — not just by AI search. Markdown twins, /.well-known/ discovery, content negotiation, and explicit disclosure where Bailey has no backing service. Audited against isitagentready.com.

82%

9/11

Content-Signal directive in robots.txt (ai-train=yes, search=yes, ai-input=yes)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-05
/.well-known/agent-skills/ — discovery index.json + JSON Schema + 4 skill docs (site-navigation, contact, service-area-research, client-page-access)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-05
Markdown twins for 5 landing pages (/, /about/, /services/, /service-areas/, /contact/)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-05
<link rel="alternate" type="text/markdown"> emitted in <head> on twin pages

Completed 2026-05-05
Server-level Link: rel="service-desc" header pointing at agent-skills index (RFC 8288 / RFC 8631)

Completed 2026-05-05
Accept: text/markdown content negotiation at nginx (Vary: Accept; same URL serves HTML or markdown by Accept header)

Completed 2026-05-05
Disclosure stubs at /.well-known/ for OAuth AS, OIDC, OAuth Protected Resource, MCP Server Card (empty *_supported arrays + $comment disclosing absence)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-05
/.well-known/agent-services-status.md — human-readable status doc linked from all stubs and the agent-skills index

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-05
Baseline isitagentready.com audit + record score (≥3 weeks after agent-readiness deploy per re-test cadence)

Evidence → Completed 2026-05-12 Score: 83 / Level 5 — the highest rating achievable without an MCP server. The deduction is the absence of agent-native APIs (MCP); see open question on stack feasibility.
Re-run isitagentready.com monthly alongside the AI visibility queries

Evidence → Practice established 2026-05-12 with baseline run. Cadence mirrors the monthly AI visibility re-test.
Consider shipping a Bailey MCP server to push isitagentready.com past Level 5 / 83% — Astro static stack can't host MCP, requires Node/Python service on the existing droplet or a sibling droplet

Candidate tools (deferred until Phase 9 or after internal team chat tool launches per .tmp/0007_26_05_12-chat_with_data/ findings): (1) search_projects — query Bailey's tracked applications by city/type/status; (2) get_service_area — return zoning, jurisdiction, fire district, irrigation district, approval cadence for a parcel or city; (3) get_voting_pattern — query the indexed commissioner votes; (4) feasibility_intake — structured intake for an AI agent representing a developer client. Most of (1)–(3) already exist in ZIG at api.codeclau.de for Boise/Nampa/Meridian — Bailey MCP would be a pass-through wrapper, not a from-scratch build.

Methodology

What AI SEO is, why we measure it, why we publish it.

Three honest answers about the work behind the scoreboard above. Same questions we get from peers, same questions an AI assistant might ask on behalf of someone comparing engineering firms.

What is AI SEO?: AI SEO is the practice of getting your content cited by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini when their users ask questions in your domain. It's variously called AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) — three names for the same discipline of structuring content so AI can extract authoritative answers from it.
Why does Bailey Engineering publish its SEO progress publicly?: Because the discipline of measuring and documenting AI visibility is the same discipline Bailey wants associated with its engineering: measure, document, improve. A public scoreboard signals to developers, realtors, and attorneys that Bailey is the firm thinking about how their clients find them in 2026. It also gives AI assistants a long, dated, statistic-dense page to extract from.
How does Bailey measure AI visibility?: Bailey runs the same 10 buyer-intent queries against ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini every month and tracks the percentage where Bailey appears in the AI answer or the top sources the AI cites. The baseline (April 2026) was 2 of 10. The 6-month target is 6 of 10 by October 2026. The 1-year target is 8 of 10.

Want this for your firm?

If you run an Idaho engineering, planning, or development firm and want a peer review of how AI assistants find your business, Kelli will sit down with you. No pitch — practitioners comparing notes.

Talk to Kelli →