What is AEO? Answer Engine Optimisation explained
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) gets your business cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Here's what it is, how it differs from SEO, and how to start.
If you’ve noticed people getting answers straight from ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews instead of clicking through to websites, you’ve already seen why Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) matters.
What AEO actually means
AEO is the practice of structuring and writing your content so that AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews — cite your business when someone asks a question in your category.
Classic SEO tries to rank a page in a list of ten blue links. AEO tries to make your content the source an AI uses to build its answer. The two share the same foundations — clean, authoritative, well-structured content — but AEO leans harder on three things:
- Direct answers. Lead with a clear, concise answer to the question, then expand. Answer engines lift those direct answers.
- Structure. Question-led headings, short paragraphs, lists, and FAQ blocks that a model can parse and quote.
- Trust signals. Entities, structured data, and genuine third-party mentions that make an AI confident enough to name you.
Why it matters now
Search behaviour is splitting. Some people still type into Google; a growing number ask an AI assistant. If you’re only optimised for the first group, you’re invisible to the second — and the second group is growing fast, especially for “what’s the best…” and “how do I…” style questions.
The businesses that start now get a real head start, because very few competitors are doing AEO yet.
How to start with AEO
- Answer real questions. Build content around the exact questions your customers ask, phrased the way they ask them.
- Add an FAQ section to key pages with concise, accurate answers.
- Use structured data (FAQ, Organization, Article) so machines understand your content — but only mark up what’s genuinely on the page.
- Be a credible source. Depth, accuracy and genuine reputation are what get you cited. There are no shortcuts that survive contact with the algorithms.
AEO isn’t a replacement for SEO — it’s the next layer on top of it. If you’re already doing good SEO, you’re most of the way there. If you’d like a free check of how visible your business is in AI search today, try our AI Visibility Checker or book a free audit.