Answer Engine Optimization

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): What Agencies Need to Know?

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Are your competitors showing up in AI search results, but your business is not? That’s right, Engine Optimizations are not just evolving, they are shifting. Meaning? Your customers are reaching out to search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo. They’re more interested in what results ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or Perplexity AI have to say. However, does this mean we don’t need to focus on generating and improving our brand’s online visibility on conventional search engines?

The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and with the rise of AI-powered platforms, a new frontier in online visibility has emerged: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). For agencies navigating this dynamic environment, understanding AEO is not just an advantage; it’s a necessity for future-proofing their clients’ online presence.

What is AEO?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the strategic process of enhancing a brand’s visibility within AI-powered answer engines. Platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft Copilot are transforming how AI users find information, and AEO aims to ensure that brands are not just found but specifically cited and mentioned in the AI-generated responses. This involves various optimizations, including crafting compelling content, implementing schema markup, and building a robust backlink profile.

Exploring how AEO is different from SEO

Both AEO and traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) share the fundamental goal of improving online visibility. However, their approaches and focus are different, and this is how:

Platforms

  • The platforms used by AEO include ChatGPT, Perplexity AI, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, etc.
  • SEO uses platforms such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo.

User Targeting

  • AEO responds to conversational questions, like “What are some affordable yet good tour packages to visit Thailand?
  • SEO helps with online visibility and website ranking through the use of keywords, such as “best affordable Thailand tour packages online”.

Metrics

  • AEO performance can be measured by metrics such as mentions, citations, placements, referral traffic, and conversions.
  • SEO performance is measured by the domain authority of the website worked upon, rankings, impressions, traffic, and conversions.

Despite these differences, a crucial synergy exists. Both AEO and SEO share common ground in their ultimate goal of better visibility, employing similar tactics like authentic content creation, attracting reputable backlinks, and targeting specific phrases. Furthermore, the skillsets required, from content creation to audience research and data analytics, overlap considerably, making a combined approach highly effective.

Benefits of AEO

The importance of AEO stems directly from the ongoing transformation of search. Users now have a plethora of options for research, discovery, and purchasing, thanks to the proliferation of AI platforms and assistants. This shift underscores the critical need for “search anywhere optimization,” ensuring content is accessible and relevant across a multitude of platforms.

Recent studies highlight this paradigm shift, reporting that over 400 million people engage with AI products every week. Bing’s mobile app downloads quadrupled after integrating AI.

It is predicted that by 2026, 25% of organic traffic will migrate to AI chatbots and other virtual agents.

This evolution is evident in sites like Stack Overflow, which experienced a notable decline in visits after ChatGPT’s launch. Stack Overflow is an influential question-and-answer website specifically useful to developers and programmers. A fascinating trend has emerged showing that while organic traffic may decrease, revenues are growing. For instance, one company saw 35%+ revenue growth in 2024 despite a 20% decrease in monthly website traffic. This data has a significant point to make that users are not shopping less but differently.

The advantages that digital marketing agencies can get after using AEO:

  1. First-to-market advantage: Early adoption allows agencies to position their clients ahead of the competition.
  2. Expanded brand visibility: AEO helps grow the brand’s presence across diverse online channels, from social media to traditional search and AI as well.
  3. Support for Business Growth: By reaching users through these new avenues, AEO directly contributes to lead generation and revenue growth.

Understanding the way AEO works

At its core, answer engine optimization aligns with how these AI-powered engines function. These models are trained on vast datasets, similar to a search engine’s index. When a user asks a question, the AI predicts the most likely words to form a relevant response. For SEO, this means contributing to the AI model’s dataset, so when a user asks about the “fine dine restaurants in California,” your client’s brand becomes a highly probable mention.

Below are avenues for contributing to an AI model’s dataset:

  • Local listings: Providing comprehensive information like name, address, hours, reviews, and menus.
  • Third-party sites: Ensuring brand presence and positive mentions on review sites, industry listings, and ranking platforms.
  • Your website: Maintaining a highly capable website with detailed information, reviews, and awards.

The goal is to provide rich, easily digestible, and accurate information that AI models can readily access and integrate into their responses, making your client’s brand the authoritative answer.

How to implement AEO strategically for increasing revenue

Implementing AEO involves a strategic, multi-faceted approach. An SEO services company can guide its clients in the following ways:

Step 1: Set goals and KPIs

Begin by defining clear goals and KPIs. Start with modest goals, such as one to two mentions for a related set of questions within a quarterly timeline. Accessible metrics include mentions, citations, and referral traffic.

Step 2: Develop a strategy

  • Audit existing SEO performance and take steps to improve it if you find any loopholes.
  • Research conversation questions to track the specific questions your target audience is asking.
  • Understand platform preferences to determine which platform your target market is accessing to get answers to their conversational questions.
  • Analyze competitor visibility to see where competitors are being cited and mentioned.

Prioritize your efforts based on the data you gather, and set up AEO tracking in analytics platforms. You could start this by creating custom channel groupings for answer engine traffic in Google Analytics 4.

Step 3: Optimize on-site

  • Ensure search and answer engines are crawling and indexing your content. Create XML sitemaps and build strong internal backlinks to ensure this is done.
  • Furthermore, create content for user experience with headings, short paragraphs, listicles, and visuals. You can enhance your content using anecdotes, specific instructions, quotes, and by producing original studies and reports. Implement schema markup, such as FAQ, article, or recipe, and include custom multimedia.

Step 4: Optimize off-site

  • Promote authoritative content through social media, email, and ads. Outreach to publishers for mentions on relevant pages. 
  • Claim and optimize local listings with name, address, phone number, services, and service area.
  • Claim and optimize profiles on relevant social networks, posting regularly where your audience is active.
  • Establish profiles on reputable review sites and encourage client reviews (while adhering to platform guidelines.

Step 5: Evaluate performance

Manually track performance by searching for conversational phrases in answer engines and logging mentions or citations. A tedious process, but one that ensures valuable insights. Analyzing competitor visibility and continuously refining strategies based on what earns citations will help your clients stay ahead.

Challenges faced while leveraging AEO

AEO is proving to be significant each day. That said, digital marketing agencies must be aware of the challenges that may surface during implementation.

  • Tracking performance: SEO can use free and paid tools (Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and SEMrush). However, AEO lacks comprehensive tracking resources, even though some platforms offer AI overview tracking. These platforms combine the tracking results with general search data and may also focus on keywords rather than conversation questions. That is why manual searching and logging of citations will initially be considered as the first approach despite its time-consuming nature.
  • Getting internal support: Implementing AEO demands additional investments and relocation of funds. This is because AEO complements and even enhances SEO rather than replacing it. Therefore, make sure to effectively communicate the reasons behind your agency’s need to use AEO. Use data to tell a compelling story and highlight the potential declines in organic to meet the user’s needs through new AI-powered channels. This can help you build a strong case for clients to invest in your AEO-driven strategy.
  • Optimizing multiple-answer engines: While most SEO campaigns focus on Google, AEO demands optimization across several distinct engines and their models. This includes ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Perplexity AI, and Microsoft Copilot. AI models are more specific, so generic content is less likely to be cited. Digital marketing agencies can guide their clients to produce deeply authoritative and unique, valuable content.

This major and expected shift in user behavior, since the introduction of AI-powered answer engines, presents both challenges as well as tremendous opportunities. By embracing AEO, digital marketing agencies can ensure their clients’ brands remain visible, relevant, and thriving in the evolving digital ecosystem.

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