Guide to Answer Engine Optimization
Seven chapters on getting your brand mentioned and cited in AI answers—built on our own data from millions of prompts and responses.
Seven chapters researched, written, and reviewed by working SEOs. Everything you need to become the answer, wherever people are asking.
Start here. What AEO is, how it differs from SEO, and the seven steps to getting started.
What is answer engine optimization?
AEO vs SEO
Why is AEO important?
How to get started with AEO
How long does AEO take?
Future trends in AEO
Start here. What AEO is, how it differs from SEO, and the seven steps to getting started.
What is answer engine optimization?
AEO vs SEO
Why is AEO important?
How to get started with AEO
How long does AEO take?
Future trends in AEO
What actually happens between a prompt and an answer — and where your brand can enter the process.
What are answer engines?
How training works
How grounding and RAG work
How query fan-out works
How retrieval, chunking, and answer synthesis work
How citations are chosen
How personalization works
What actually happens between a prompt and an answer — and where your brand can enter the process.
What are answer engines?
How training works
How grounding and RAG work
How query fan-out works
How retrieval, chunking, and answer synthesis work
How citations are chosen
How personalization works
You can’t optimize what you can’t see. Seven ways to measure where your brand shows up in AI answers.
Benchmark your ChatGPT visibility against the competition
Know what percentage of conversations you show up in
Find your top topics, mentions, and pages
Find where your competitors get mentioned (but you don’t)
Track how web and UGC mentions impact ChatGPT visibility
Track your most important custom prompts in ChatGPT
Track ChatGPT fan-out queries
You can’t optimize what you can’t see. Seven ways to measure where your brand shows up in AI answers.
Benchmark your ChatGPT visibility against the competition
Know what percentage of conversations you show up in
Find your top topics, mentions, and pages
Find where your competitors get mentioned (but you don’t)
Track how web and UGC mentions impact ChatGPT visibility
Track your most important custom prompts in ChatGPT
Track ChatGPT fan-out queries
Track clusters of prompts, not one-off responses. Eleven places to find the queries worth monitoring.
The framework: track groups of prompts, not individual responses
Questions you already rank for in Google Search Console
Common questions from ‘Discussions and forums’
Conversational queries around your top-performing pages
Perplexity’s related questions
‘People Also Ask’ results
Topics you already show up for in AI search
Pages already getting traffic from AI search
Queries your competitors show up for
The ‘Questions’ tab in Keywords Explorer
Whether AI answers about your business match reality
Personas built from internal data
Track clusters of prompts, not one-off responses. Eleven places to find the queries worth monitoring.
The framework: track groups of prompts, not individual responses
Questions you already rank for in Google Search Console
Common questions from ‘Discussions and forums’
Conversational queries around your top-performing pages
Perplexity’s related questions
‘People Also Ask’ results
Topics you already show up for in AI search
Pages already getting traffic from AI search
Queries your competitors show up for
The ‘Questions’ tab in Keywords Explorer
Whether AI answers about your business match reality
Personas built from internal data
Ranking gets you considered. This is how you get cited — the topics, formats, and on-page changes that work.
Create content clusters for topics you care about
Write the formats AI actually cites
Find the topics your competitors own
Refresh your content
Adapt your on-page SEO for AI
Ranking gets you considered. This is how you get cited — the topics, formats, and on-page changes that work.
Create content clusters for topics you care about
Write the formats AI actually cites
Find the topics your competitors own
Refresh your content
Adapt your on-page SEO for AI
AI recommends the brands it has seen discussed elsewhere. Here’s how to monitor those mentions and earn more of them.
Why it matters when AI mentions your brand
Monitoring brand mentions in AI is different
How to monitor and understand AI brand mentions
Four strategies to increase AI brand mentions
Traditional brand mention tracking is still important
AI recommends the brands it has seen discussed elsewhere. Here’s how to monitor those mentions and earn more of them.
Why it matters when AI mentions your brand
Monitoring brand mentions in AI is different
How to monitor and understand AI brand mentions
Four strategies to increase AI brand mentions
Traditional brand mention tracking is still important
The technical fixes that decide whether AI can reach your pages, read them, and work out who you are.
Don’t block AI crawlers in robots.txt
Don’t hide content behind heavy JavaScript
Improve your page speed
Don’t bother with llms.txt
Fix the URLs AI hallucinates about your site
Become a recognized entity
Prepare for agent-to-agent marketing
The technical fixes that decide whether AI can reach your pages, read them, and work out who you are.
Don’t block AI crawlers in robots.txt
Don’t hide content behind heavy JavaScript
Improve your page speed
Don’t bother with llms.txt
Fix the URLs AI hallucinates about your site
Become a recognized entity
Prepare for agent-to-agent marketing
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