AEO for B2B and SaaS: get recommended in the buying process

B2B buyers increasingly use ChatGPT or Claude to research alternatives before they ever talk to a salesperson, often with questions like "best CRM for a small real estate agency" or "X versus Y for project management". SaaS companies without clear, comparable content get left out of that research easily, long before the sales process even starts.

The buying process starts before you know it

A typical B2B decision involves several rounds of research over weeks or months. More and more of that research now happens through an AI assistant, often long before anyone fills out a contact form. If you're not mentioned in that early phase, you lose a spot on the shortlist without ever finding out, because there's no click to measure in Google Analytics.

What a B2B buyer actually asks about

• Comparisons: "what's the difference between X and Y", or "which tool is best for a team of ten".
• Specific feature questions: "does this support integration with our accounting system", "does this have SSO".
• Pricing questions: "what does this cost for a mid-sized company", even though the exact price often requires contact.
• Qualifying questions: "which tool is the best fit for a company in our industry and size".

Documentation is your strongest weapon

Most SaaS companies already have much of the answer sitting in product documentation, feature overviews and help pages. The problem is often that this content is written for existing customers who are already logged in, not for a model trying to understand the product from the outside. Write dedicated public pages that explicitly answer the most common buying questions, including honest comparisons with alternative approaches, not just feature lists.

If you have a lot of documentation, an llms.txt file can help models find the right pages faster. Our generator sets up a working file based on your website.

Third-party proof matters more than your own marketing

Customer case studies, independent reviews on software platforms, and coverage in industry publications are signals a model can trust because they don't come from you. Prioritize a few solid, recent customer case studies with concrete numbers over generic success stories without detail.

A checklist for B2B content

1. Write at least one honest, concrete comparison page per major competitor or alternative approach.
2. Make sure feature and pricing information is easily accessible without a login.
3. Collect recent customer case studies with concrete, measurable results.
4. Consider an llms.txt if your documentation is extensive.
5. Keep track of what the models actually recommend in your category regularly, since your competitors are working on this too. ModelSaid alerts you when the answer changes.