Does G2 or Capterra matter for AI visibility?

They matter because they are comparative and structured, which is what a model needs for a ranked question. Whether a specific model weights a specific site is not published by anyone, so treat presence there as covering a likely source rather than as a guaranteed lever.

Should we build an alternatives page for every competitor?

Build them for the competitors buyers actually confuse you with, and write each one to be useful when you lose. A page that names the buyer your rival serves better is the one that gets quoted, because it reads like an assessment rather than a pitch.

How long before this shows up in pipeline?

Page-level changes can appear in answers within days of a recrawl. Attribution is the harder half: most assistants send no referrer that identifies the answer, so expect to see it first in self-reported sources on demo forms.

For B2B SaaS

AEO for B2B SaaS

Software buyers ask an assistant for a shortlist before they ask a vendor for a demo. What decides whether you are on it is mostly not your website.

The short answer

For B2B SaaS, answer engine optimisation is mostly about being described accurately in the places models already trust: review sites, comparison posts, community threads and your own alternatives pages. The model assembles a shortlist from consensus across sources. A product page claiming to be the leading platform contributes almost nothing to that.

What ranked on 23 September 2026: Searching for an AEO agency for SaaS returns review-site listicles and agency service pages. What it does not return is any vendor's own product page, which is the clearest evidence available about which pages get used when a model answers a category question.

What is different about software buying

The category has a dense layer of third-party structure that most industries lack, and models lean on it heavily because it is comparative, recent and plentiful.

Review platforms publish structured comparisons at a scale no vendor site matches, so they are the default source for any ranked question
Buyers ask about integrations and limits, not features. An assistant answering whether you sync with a particular tool is reading your docs, not your marketing
Your pricing page is a fact the model will repeat. If it says contact us, you are absent from every price-shaped question in the category
Communities carry the objections. A thread about why someone churned is retrievable years later and will surface against your name
Competitor alternatives pages already describe you, usually unkindly, and usually without correction

Things that sound right and are not

ClaimWe rank well, so we will be cited.
Ranking makes retrieval more likely, not certain. Models quote the passage that answers the question, and a feature grid rarely answers a buyer question in prose.
ClaimWe will write our own comparison pages and win.
Worth doing, and they will be read with suspicion. A vendor page saying it beats everyone is weak evidence; the same claim on a neutral site is strong. Write yours to be accurate rather than flattering, including who should pick the other tool.
ClaimOur category is too new for this.
A new category is the easiest one to define. The first clear definition, published where models retrieve, tends to become the definition they repeat.

Where to start

01Ask five assistants the ten questions a buyer would ask in your category, and record the shortlist, not just whether you appear. The competitor set they name is your real one.
02Fix your own alternatives and integrations pages so each one answers in its first paragraph, with the honest case for the other product included.
03Put a real price on the pricing page, even a range, even a starting figure. It is the single most common unanswered question in software.
04Correct your description on the review sites and directories where the models are clearly reading. Accuracy is the deliverable, not star rating.
05Watch the objection threads in your category and answer them where they are, not on your blog.

Questions

Does G2 or Capterra matter for AI visibility?: They matter because they are comparative and structured, which is what a model needs for a ranked question. Whether a specific model weights a specific site is not published by anyone, so treat presence there as covering a likely source rather than as a guaranteed lever.
Should we build an alternatives page for every competitor?: Build them for the competitors buyers actually confuse you with, and write each one to be useful when you lose. A page that names the buyer your rival serves better is the one that gets quoted, because it reads like an assessment rather than a pitch.
How long before this shows up in pipeline?: Page-level changes can appear in answers within days of a recrawl. Attribution is the harder half: most assistants send no referrer that identifies the answer, so expect to see it first in self-reported sources on demo forms.

Doing this yourself and want a second opinion on what the assistants say about you? Tell me what you are seeing, or read the AEO Playbook for the whole framework.