How to build an AEO strategy
Published July 11, 2025
The jury’s still out on what we’re calling it, but it’s a clear verdict that AI search visibility is a must. Whether you own a small business or you’re building a team, an AEO strategy (I’m calling it answer engine optimization for now) can help you stand apart in your industry. From what I’ve seen, it can actually help even the playing field more than SEO, too.
But that doesn’t mean it’s replacing SEO. And in fact, a lot of the same principles still apply in today’s search world. But more than ever before, it’s important for businesses and teams to adapt the way they’re thinking about SEO. This isn’t just a new algorithm, it’s a new way of searching, period.
If you haven’t started adapting yet, here’s your sign. And here’s what you need to know.
Jump to:
What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?
Answer Engine Optimization is the strategy to show up in AI-powered search results, whether that means answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity or Google’s native AI overviews.
The AI buzz has been growing stronger and stronger every year as new products and software get better and better. As a result, one in ten U.S. users now use generative AI as their first search tool, and usage is expected to grow from 13 million users in 2023 to 90 million by 2027.
How LLMs generate their answers
To create the best AEO strategy, it’s important to know how this technology works. The good news is that a lot of answer engines still pull from top search results on the web, meaning that healthy SEO is still important.
However, LLMs (large language models) can crawl the web in real time and almost instantaneously analyze the latest information available about any topic, while also leveraging training data. That means they have the power to create an answer based on a broad range of sources, like books, documentation, and open datasets, along with the information available in search results.
What this means for businesses
Instantaneous answers from AI mean that impressions are going up for a lot of businesses’ website pages, but clicks are going down. Thanks to Google’s rich snippets, zero-click searches aren’t anything new (the phenomenon where people search, but never click on the actual results). But currently, over 58% of Google searches end in zero-click results, and that stat is likely to go up.
A lot of companies that formerly relied on organic search are seeing traffic drop by 20-70% (yes, even Hubspot!!)
But all of these changes shouldn’t scare you. Instead, it’s a call to evolve how you think about organic search, like yesterday. Just like any other change, there are both pros and cons. Here are my key takeaways:
Traditional SEO will become more about measuring brand awareness than traffic as AI results lead to even more zero-click searches.
More than ever, content marketing strategies need to focus on brand and thought leadership for businesses to show up in searches for services, products, and information.
Even resource-strapped, smaller businesses have the opportunity to show up first in AI search results now, unlike old-school SEO, which favored older domains and high-volume backlinks.
Businesses need to focus on their full marketing funnel and what that looks like in a modern digital world.
More and more thought leaders are talking about how the big shift is in “optimizing for visibility” instead of traffic when it comes to AEO and SEO. That’s a bit of a bummer, since it means your traffic will need to come from other channels like social media. If you’ve been relying on organic traffic from SEO and haven’t already noticed changes, get ready.
On the positive side, it seems that there’s a greater opportunity for everyone when it comes to AEO. In fact, one recent study found that over 70% of cited content in AI search results came from pages outside the top 10 rankings on Google.
Best practices for an AEO strategy
Now to get into the weeds, here are some things to keep in mind as you build your business’s AEO strategy.
Continue putting EEAT first
Sorry to throw another acronym in the mix, but the first thing to keep in mind is that EEAT is still crucial. This means you need to focus on content that shows Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness.
Google itself says that focusing on unique, valuable content for people is important to show up in AI search results.
The key here is writing for people. Even with traditional SEO strategies, that’s something businesses tend to forget. It’s not about incorporating the most keywords in your post; it’s about sharing reputable information or first-hand experience, showcasing your credibility, and citing your sources as you go.
My top three tips for establishing EEAT are:
Using a natural variety of keywords and semantically related topics, not just keyword stuffing
Focusing on topical authority by covering your niche fully and answering questions your audience has within your content
Always putting your customer and your audience first as you develop content ideas
Create more branded content
A recent study from ahrefs found that there’s a direct correlation between businesses showing up in AI overviews and greater brand visibility online. In other words, the brands that showed up in AI search results also had more branded content and brand mentions throughout the web, not just on their own websites.
My takeaway here is that link building is evolving even more into the digital PR world (and thank god for that). Mass link building isn’t necessarily going to give you a leg up anymore, especially when those mentions don’t provide any context or information about you.
Instead, PR, thought leadership, and strategic partnerships are the way to go. This is so crucial because purely informational content probably won’t lead to as much traffic as it used to, but building your brand recognition is a clear way to still show up in search.
Focus on content structure and format
Content structure and format have already mattered for a while, thanks to Google’s rich snippets (people always ask, videos, overview cards, and more). But with AI, it’s even more important.
AI crawl agents are specifically looking for clear headings, lists, and concise answers to pull into their results. And, they’re also using schema markup to identify things like FAQs, reviews, authorship, and more.
I thought this was a great explanation of what this looks like from Chad Wyatt, a Marketing Manager at Korn Ferry:
“We should be focusing even more on clarity and intent. (Using subheadings that match user intent, embedding clear definitions, and including question-answer formats that map to AI queries). Every piece of content should include a summary, lists or tables where appropriate, and structured data markup.”
Google backs this up as well by recommending a great page experience and multimedia content in order to show up in AI overviews.
I’ll be the first to say that this is something that’s always slipped through the cracks for me. Once I’ve written something, I just want to get it up. But taking the time to build in Q&As, tables, and more can be key to showing up. I think we can all agree, it also makes content much more readable.
“Pro tip: To figure out how to format your content, think about what makes it easier to read. But also look at what answer engines are sourcing for different results, and what those citations look like. ”
Don’t ignore your technical SEO
Love it or hate it, technical SEO is just as important as ever. In fact, I truly believe this is what matters the most in today’s SEO world. Content SEO still has its role, of course, but based on everything else I’ve covered in this post, it’s clear that more holistic content marketing is where businesses should be focused.
Healthy technical SEO will ensure that AI agents can crawl, index, and understand your site in order to cite your pages in results. That means you need to stay on top of your:
Crawlability and indexing
Accessibility
Schema markup
Staying on top of the AI pulse
My last tip is a reminder to stay on top of what’s happening in the AI world. I know, for a lot of us, that’s kind of hard. I personally didn’t dig in until just this year, even when I’ve been in the SEO field for years! But it’s never too late to catch up.
Especially if you’re focused on founding or growing your business, search is just one tiny piece of the puzzle. But this landscape only continues to change, and we’re starting to see even more studies, insights, and tools come out of the woodwork.
Understanding the evolving field now can help you better adapt as things continue to change, and it can be what gives you a leg up against your competition.
I’ll be continuing to monitor changes and writing about them here on my blog, so subscribe to my newsletter to stay up to date!
