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AEO / GEO Optimization

How to write so AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini) cite your page — not just Google.
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AEO / GEO Optimization

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) are distinct from SEO. AI engines extract answers, not links — so structure for extraction.

Core principle

Write the page so that a model summarizing it can lift a clean, factual, citation-worthy answer in 1–3 sentences without hallucinating.

Page-level rules

  1. Lead with the answer. First 50 words of the page must contain the direct answer to the page's H1 question. No throat-clearing intro.
  2. Use a TL;DR / summary box at the top. 3–5 bullets, ≤ 25 words each.
  3. Question-shaped H2s. AI engines weight headers heavily. "What is X?", "How does X work?", "When should you use X?" — match how users actually ask.
  4. Direct, declarative sentences. Subject + verb + object. Models prefer confident extractive sentences over hedged prose.
  5. Cite primary sources inline. Studies, docs, dates. Hyperlinked. AI engines rank pages with verifiable citations higher.
  6. Stable canonical URLs. Don't move pages — AI training data freezes.

Structured data

  • FAQPage schema for FAQ blocks (still works for AEO, not just classic SEO).
  • HowTo for step-by-step content.
  • Article with author + datePublished + dateModified (recency matters).
  • Product for product pages.
  • Organization site-wide.

Test with Google Rich Results Test before publish.

Sentence-level patterns AI engines extract well

  • Definitions: X is Y that does Z. (short, declarative, isolatable)
  • Comparisons: X differs from Y in three ways: A, B, and C.
  • Lists with named items: The five steps are: 1. ..., 2. ..., 3. ....
  • Statistics with sources: According to {source} (2026), X is Y.
  • Tables: AI engines parse tables better than prose. Use them for any multi-attribute comparison.

What kills AEO ranking

  • Burying the answer behind 3 paragraphs of "Have you ever wondered..."
  • Cute / clever H2s instead of question-shaped ones.
  • Image-only data (charts with no text equivalent).
  • Hedged, indirect prose ("X may sometimes potentially...").
  • Pages that only paraphrase competitor content with no original take.
  • No author / no date / no citations — looks like content-farm spam.

Track AEO performance

  • Set up Profound, Otterly, or similar AI-search tracking — your domain's mention rate inside ChatGPT / Perplexity / Gemini answers is the metric, not just SERP rank.
  • Test prompt-by-prompt: ask the engine the question your page answers. Are you cited? Is the answer accurate? Iterate on the page until you are.
  • Build out FAQ pages targeting exact long-tail buyer queries — these are AEO-rankable when blog posts aren't.

Cross-link to GEO

  • AI engines weight "co-mentions" — pages on other sites that reference both your brand and the topic. Earn 5–10 third-party mentions per priority page (guest posts, Reddit comments by employees, podcast transcripts, doc references).
  • Wikipedia / Wikidata entries for your company materially improve grounding.
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