What Is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Short answer

Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of making your business easy for AI assistants and answer engines, like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, to understand, trust and cite. It relies on clear question-and-answer content, structured data, consistent business information and pages AI crawlers can access.

How AEO differs from SEO

Traditional SEO aims to rank a page in a list of search results. AEO aims to have your business mentioned or cited inside an AI-generated answer. The two overlap heavily: strong, well-structured pages help both. The difference is mostly in format. AI systems favor content that answers a specific question directly, near the top of the page, in plain language.

What AI assistants look for

AI assistants combine what they learned in training with live web results. They tend to cite sources that are clear, specific, consistent with other sources and easy to parse. Reviews, listings, structured data and well-organized FAQs all make your business easier to understand and recommend.

How to start with AEO

Start with the questions your customers actually ask. Answer each one directly on your site, add FAQ and organization schema, keep your name, address, phone and services consistent everywhere, and make sure AI crawlers aren't blocked in your robots.txt file. Then track how assistants describe your business over time.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Straight answers. Have a question that isn’t here? Ask it on a quick call.

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Is AEO replacing SEO?

No. AEO builds on SEO. Most AI assistants still rely on web content and search indexes, so strong SEO remains the foundation.

How do I know if ChatGPT mentions my business?

Ask AI assistants the questions your customers ask and note whether you appear. Ongoing tracking across assistants and prompts gives a clearer picture over time.

Does schema markup help with AI search?

Structured data helps search engines and AI systems understand your business, services and FAQs more reliably, which supports both SEO and AEO.

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file that summarizes a website for large language models. It's a simple, low-cost addition that can help AI tools find your most important pages.

How can GrowFaster help?

GrowFaster is a human-led, AI-powered marketing department for $1,997/month. We handle paid ads, SEO, Google Business Profile and AI search, and allocate your budget to the channels that maximize your bottom line. Start with a Free Assessment.