Answer Engine Optimisation or AEO is very similar to Search Engine Optimisation or SEO. The difference is that you are optimising your website for questions rather than keywords. The aim of this is to get chatbots such as Chatgpt, Gemini and Deepseek to reference your website in their results.
So you shouldn’t think of AEO as a replacement to SEO. You should be optimising your website for both.
Optimising for AEO involves creating content on your website for specific answers to questions that people are typing into chatbots, search engine and voice search engines. Hopefully by doing this you are giving the person searching exactly what they are looking for.
Is AEO Different to SEO?
Although AEO and SEO are very similar in that they both use content to get the end result AEO specifically focuses on giving answers to questions rather than targeting keywords. So for example SEO might target “accountant in Leeds” where AEO would focus more on “why do I need an accountant for my business”.
Both can be used together on the same website to attract more potential customers.
How do you Optimise your Website for AEO?
As with SEO the first step is always research. With SEO you would start with keyword research and with AEO it is the same process but you are looking for questions rather than keywords.
The next step is to create high quality content. This needs to be well written, structured and obviously answer the questions that you found in the research.
Structured data is also important for AEO. This gives search engines and chatbots additional information about the content and therefore increases the chances of them using your article on their results.
Additionally you should focus your content on natural conversational language. Use questions naturally in your content include things such as near me and any other bits of information that might help the person searching find exactly what they are looking for. Chatbots in particular want to give answers so that users get exactly what they are looking for quickly rather than having to scroll through multiple search results to find what they want.
You can use a blog or an FAQ section to build a list of relevant questions for your industry or services.
How to track the performance of AEO
As with SEO tracking how well your AEO campaign is going is essential. You can use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track which questions and which chatbots are driving the most organic traffic.
AEO can improve user engagement
Answering peoples questions quickly will enhance the user experience on your website. Not only that it will also build up trust between you and your customers.
Conclusion
AEO isn’t just a fad, it is here to stay. But also SEO isn’t dead. Optimise your website for both to get the most out of your digital marketing efforts.