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AEO Explained: Answer Engine Optimisation for Business Websites

Nick Hugh8 min read
AEOAnswer Engine OptimisationAISEOContent Strategy

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the practice of structuring website content so AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) can extract, attribute, and cite your business accurately. Unlike traditional SEO which targets search rankings, AEO targets being the source that AI cites when answering questions about your industry.

Traditional SEO gets you ranked. AEO gets you cited. In 2026, the distinction matters because an increasing share of search queries are answered by AI models that synthesise information from multiple sources. Your goal is to be one of those sources — and to be cited accurately.

The foundation of AEO is structured content. AI models extract answers most reliably from content with clear question-answer patterns. Every service page should have a Quick Answer block (40–60 words answering 'What is this?'), FAQ blocks (H3 questions with 40–60 word answers), and structured data (JSON-LD schema) that explicitly labels what your content is about.

Beyond structure, AEO requires authority signals. AI models weight sources by perceived authority: author credentials, citations to authoritative sources, freshness dates, and consistency across the web. A page with a named author, their credentials, 5 cited sources, and a 'Last Updated' date will be cited more often than anonymous content.

Technical requirements: serve content as HTML (not JavaScript-rendered), include llms.txt (a machine-readable summary of your site for AI crawlers), implement comprehensive schema markup, and ensure your robots.txt allows AI bot access. These technical signals determine whether AI models can even find your content.

The entities you want to own: identify the 5–10 questions that your ideal customers ask AI assistants. These are your target entities. Create dedicated, comprehensive content for each. Include original data, specific examples, and structured answers that an AI model can extract verbatim.

Measurement: track AI citations using tools like Perplexity analytics, Google Search Console (AI Overview impressions), and manual testing (ask ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity about your services and see if you're cited). Set a baseline now and track monthly improvements.

Frequently Asked Questions

No. AEO complements SEO. Traditional search still drives the majority of web traffic. But AI-mediated queries are growing fast, especially for research and evaluation queries in B2B. The overlap is significant: well-structured, authoritative content performs well for both SEO and AEO.

llms.txt is a file placed at your website's root (like robots.txt) that provides a structured, human-readable summary of your site for AI models. It lists your key pages, services, and how to interact with your business. It's the AI equivalent of a sitemap — a discovery mechanism for AI crawlers.

AI models update their knowledge at different rates. Changes to Google AI Overviews can appear within weeks. ChatGPT and Claude update less frequently (monthly to quarterly for web-sourced data). Expect 2–3 months for meaningful changes in AI citation frequency.

Sources

  1. Search Engine Land: Answer Engine Optimization(accessed 2026-01-12)

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