AEO: being the answer the AI gives

What is answer engine optimisation?

AEO is optimising your website to be cited, quoted and recommended by AI answer engines, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and the AI summaries at the top of Google. Classic SEO competes for a spot on a list of ten blue links. AEO competes for something scarcer: the one answer the machine actually gives.

How do answer engines choose their sources?

They favour pages that are easy to trust and easy to quote. In practice that means: a clearly named business that reads the same everywhere on the web; structured data that says in machine language what you say in English; headings shaped like the questions people ask; first sentences that actually answer them; and concrete, citable facts (prices, timeframes, places) rather than adjectives.

AEO vs SEO, what actually changes?

• Keywords become questions: write for “how long does a website take?”, not “web design Melbourne”.
• Backlinks become citations: the win is being quoted, not just ranked.
• Click-through becomes being the answer: some wins never show a click at all.
• The foundations don’t change, clean, fast, crawlable HTML feeds both.

A practical AEO checklist

• FAQ and Organization schema on the pages that matter.
• Question-shaped headings, answered in the first sentence beneath them.
• An llms.txt that tells AI crawlers who you are and what you do.
• One consistent business identity (name, location, services) across every listing.
• Facts worth quoting: real numbers, real places, real outcomes.

Does SEO still matter?

Yes. AEO is built on it, not instead of it. The same clean structure that ranks you also gets you quoted. We build both into every site from day one; the FAQ on our homepage is doing AEO work right now, answering the questions this article just taught you to ask.