What Is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)? How to Get Your Business Recommended by AI
Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the practice of making a business and its content easy for AI assistants and AI search features, such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, to find, understand, trust and cite in their answers. It builds on SEO and adds three things: clear answer-first content, structured data, and consistent, well-sourced information about the business across the web. It's also called generative engine optimisation (GEO).
Why AEO matters now
More buyers are asking AI assistants questions they used to type into Google, such as "Which agency in Lagos can automate our invoicing?" or "How much should a website cost?" Instead of ten blue links, they get one synthesised answer that names a few businesses and cites a few sources.
If your business isn't one of them, you're invisible in that conversation, however good your website looks.
AEO vs SEO
| SEO | AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank pages in search results | Be mentioned or cited inside AI-generated answers |
| Unit of success | A click | A mention, a citation, or a recommendation |
| What matters most | Relevance, links, technical health | Clarity, structured facts, consistency across sources, third-party corroboration |
| Content style | Comprehensive pages | Direct answers, lists and tables that are easy to quote |
| Where signals come from | Mostly your site and links to it | Your site plus directories, reviews, press, forums and profiles |
They share the same foundation. A site that's fast, crawlable and genuinely helpful does well in both.
How AI engines decide what to say
- Retrieval. Many AI assistants search the web (often via Google or Bing indexes, or their own crawlers) and read the top sources.
- Synthesis. They combine those sources into an answer, preferring content that's clear, specific and corroborated.
- Entity understanding. They try to work out what your business is from its website, structured data and third-party sources. Inconsistent facts make them less confident.
So AEO means being retrievable, quotable and consistent.
The 10-step AEO plan
On your website
- Let AI crawlers in. Check that
robots.txtdoesn't block OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended. - Answer first. Open every key page with a 40–60 word direct answer to its main question.
- Write questions as headings. Use the phrases buyers actually ask.
- Use tables and lists for comparisons, prices and processes. AI systems extract them cleanly.
- Add structured data. Organization, Service, FAQPage, Article and Person schema, with
sameAslinks to your profiles. - Publish prices and specifics. Concrete facts get quoted; vague claims don't.
- Add
llms.txt, a plain-language summary of your business for AI agents.
Across the web
- Make your facts identical everywhere. Name, description, location, founding year and services, on your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, Clutch, Crunchbase and directories.
- Earn third-party mentions. Reviews on Clutch and Google, industry directories, press articles, podcasts, and helpful answers on forums. AI engines trust what others say about you.
- Publish original data. Surveys and research get cited by journalists and AI alike.
How to measure AEO
- List 10–20 questions your buyers ask.
- Each month, ask them in ChatGPT (with search on), Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude.
- Record whether your business is mentioned or cited, and which sources the engine used.
- Track your share over time, and close the gaps by improving the sources the engines rely on.
Common AEO mistakes
- Blocking AI crawlers by accident in
robots.txtor a firewall - Different facts on different pages and profiles
- Marketing language with no concrete answers
- Content hidden behind JavaScript animations or images
- Ignoring Bing, which feeds several AI assistants
Frequently asked questions
Is AEO replacing SEO?
No. AEO depends on SEO foundations, and traditional search still drives most website traffic. The best strategies do both, because the same clear, well-structured, trustworthy content serves both.
How long does AEO take to work?
Technical fixes and schema can be picked up within weeks. Building enough third-party mentions and reviews for AI engines to recommend a business confidently usually takes three to six months.
Can you pay to be recommended by ChatGPT?
Not in organic answers. Visibility in AI answers comes from being findable, clear and well-corroborated across trustworthy sources.
What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
They're largely the same idea. AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO (generative engine optimisation) both describe optimising for AI-generated answers. GEO is more often used for generative AI assistants specifically.
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