What is answer engine optimisation?
AEO is the practice of getting your business named inside the answer an AI assistant gives, rather than ranked in a list of links below it.
Why it is different from SEO
Search engine optimisation competes for a position on a results page. The user still chooses which link to click, and you can measure the click. Answer engine optimisation competes to be one of two or three names inside a sentence. There is no results page, often no click, and nothing in your analytics to tell you it happened.
The inputs overlap — clear content, credible third-party citations, consistent business details — but what gets rewarded differs. Assistants favour sources that state facts plainly and are corroborated elsewhere. A page engineered for keyword density can rank on Google and still never be quoted.
What actually influences whether you are named
- Third-party corroboration. Being described consistently across directories, trade bodies, local press and review sites matters more than anything on your own site.
- Plain, extractable statements. "We fit sash windows across Nottinghamshire" beats "Your trusted partner for bespoke fenestration solutions."
- Structured data. LocalBusiness schema with an accurate name, address, phone, service area and opening hours.
- Crawler access. If your host or a bot-blocking plugin blocks the AI crawlers, you cannot be cited at all.
- Comparison and buying-guide content. Assistants lean heavily on "how to choose a…" pages when answering discovery questions.
An honest note on measurement
Nobody can show you a transcript of what an assistant told your customer. Those conversations are private, personalised, and influenced by the user's own history. What can be measured is the model's behaviour on a consistent set of questions, asked repeatedly through the provider APIs. That is a directional index: genuinely useful for spotting whether you are absent, whether you are improving, and who is being named instead — but not a transcript. Treat any tool claiming otherwise with suspicion.
Where to start
- Establish a baseline — find out whether you are named at all today.
- Fix the fundamentals: accurate listings, LocalBusiness schema, crawler access.
- Publish the buying-guide and comparison pages your customers actually ask for.
- Re-measure on a schedule. One-off checks tell you almost nothing, because the answers vary run to run — the trend is the signal.