Jacob Reed. Sarasota, Florida. Solo operator.
Areto is not an agency. It is a solo practice. When you hire Areto, you work directly with me. I do the audits. I write the schema. I build the pages. There is no handoff, no account manager, no layers between you and the person doing the work.
The name comes from the Greek word arete, meaning excellence. The letters A, E, and O are embedded in it: Answer Engine Optimization. Pronounced uh-REH-toe.
I believe in truth, clarity, excellent work, and fair pricing. That is not a tagline. It is a biblical worldview applied to business. No fake social proof. No manufactured urgency. Just the work, done well, for a price you knew before we ever spoke.
What makes this different
We do the work, not watch it
Most AEO companies sell monitoring. Dashboards. Reports that tell you what is broken. Areto does the actual fixing. Schema markup, content structure, metadata, llms.txt. Hands on the code, not eyes on a chart.
Solo operator. No layers.
You work with the person who does the work. No sales team. No project manager relaying messages. When you email Areto, Jacob reads it. When your schema gets written, Jacob writes it. That is the entire org chart.
Built for local businesses
Every funded AEO player targets enterprise. Fortune 500 contracts. SaaS companies. Nobody serves the local plumber, the piano teacher, the family law firm. That is the gap Areto exists to fill.
The site is the proof
This website is not a brochure. It is a working demonstration of the methodology Areto sells. The schema, the structure, the llms.txt, the content architecture. Everything you would get as a client is already running here. Ask ChatGPT about us.
You see the price before the pitch
Hidden pricing exists so you are already invested in a conversation before you learn the number. Every Areto service has its price on the website. No "schedule a call to learn more." No bait-and-switch.
Grounded in something real
Areto operates from a biblical worldview. That means honesty even when it costs a sale, fair pricing even when the market would bear more, and work done with excellence because that is what the standard demands. Not performative. Just the foundation.
Why I built this
I started Areto because the next wave of how customers find local businesses is already here, and most business owners have no idea it's happening. When someone asks ChatGPT for the best dentist in Sarasota, an answer comes back. Three businesses get named. The rest are invisible. And the ones that are invisible usually don't know it yet.
That's the problem I'm solving. Not someday. Right now. Every week I wait to build this, more local businesses get quietly sorted into the pile AI doesn't recommend. And that sorting is fixable — the work is real, measurable, and within reach for a neighborhood business with a modest budget.
The name is Greek. ἄρετή — arete — excellence. The A, E, and O are the initials of Answer Engine Optimization. Pronounced uh-REH-toe.
Areto is a Christian-owned business. I believe excellent work and honest dealing aren't at odds with profit — they're the foundation of it. No fake social proof. No manufactured urgency. No contracts that punish you for leaving. Just the work, done well, for a price you knew before we ever spoke.
If any of that resonates, I'd love to help you get found. — Jacob
What Jacob brings to the table
Lifelong tinkerer. Builds it himself.
12+ years in the design space. A lifelong love of tech and design that turned into building production applications across React, Next.js, Expo, Supabase, and static HTML/CSS/JS. Not a strategist who hands off the work. Jacob architects the systems, directs the builds, and uses AI tooling to ship at a pace that used to require a team.
Using ChatGPT since day 52
Started using ChatGPT on January 21, 2023 — just 52 days after it launched as the first AI chatbot. That head start matters. While most agencies are still figuring out what AI search means, Jacob has been building with these tools for over 3 years. Areto's methodology comes from thousands of hours of direct experience with how AI platforms actually work.
Proprietary audit framework
Developed Areto's audit and optimization methodology by studying how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini select sources to cite. The framework is not borrowed from an SEO playbook. It was built from the ground up for how AI actually works.
JSON-LD structured data
Implements JSON-LD structured data using the @graph entity model with stable @id references. FAQPage, Service, Person, LocalBusiness — connected schemas that tell AI engines exactly what your business is, who runs it, and what you do. Not boilerplate. Hand-written for each client.
From invisible to cited in 2 days
Documented a local business going from zero AI citations to being cited on two platforms in 2 days. Not a hypothetical. A real client, real results, published publicly at areto.agency/blog/invisible-to-cited-in-two-days.
Solo practice, Sarasota FL
Areto was founded in 2026 in Sarasota, Florida as a solo practice focused exclusively on AI citation for local businesses. No pivot from SEO. No rebrand of an existing agency. Built from scratch to solve one problem: getting local service businesses cited by AI.
We guarantee the work. Not the machine.
AI platforms make their own decisions. Nobody controls that — and anyone who claims otherwise is lying to you. What we guarantee is every deliverable we touch: schema markup, FAQ architecture, AI crawler configuration, metadata, and content implementation.
If anything we built is incomplete or incorrect, we fix it at no charge. We also monitor your citations for 30 days post-implementation and flag any adjustments needed at no extra cost.
You will never hear Areto promise something it cannot deliver. That is the baseline.
See where you stand with AI
The audit takes 3-5 business days. Your $97 audit cost credits toward any service. No sales call. No pressure. Just data.