The SEO industry has been going through monumental shifts since the release of ChatGPT late November of 2022. Digital marketers are looking for new ways to optimize their content to accommodate the changes to how people search for information on the web. This is where answer engine optimization (AEO) comes in.

What is AEO?

AEO, or answer engine optimization, is all about increasing your brand and website’s visibility in AI-powered answer engines. Examples of AI-powered answer engines include ChatGPT, Google Gemini & AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Claude.

How to Optimize Your Website for AI

AEO is still an emerging practice and there’s not an established set of best practices for optimizing your website for AI like there is for SEO. However, implementing AEO generally involves several key strategies:

• Structured Content: Organizing information using clear headings, lists, and paragraphs to assist with comprehension
• Schema Markup: Utilizing structured data markup to help AI platforms understand the context and relevance of your content
• FAQs: Addressing common user queries in a question-and-answer format to increase the likelihood of being featured in AI-generated answers
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) Alignment: Crafting content that mirrors natural conversational language, making it more relatable and easily processed by AI
• Semantic Search Optimization: Focusing on the intent behind user queries rather than exact keyword matches, ensuring content relevance in AI interpretations
• Content Freshness: Regularly updating content to maintain accuracy and relevance

By integrating these strategies, businesses can improve their chances of appearing in AI responses. Mentions and citations in AI platforms are critical to your business’ success in the AI-first digital world.

Future-proof your SEO strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) has always been the foundation of digital marketing by attracting the majority of website traffic and conversions. But that’s quickly changing. AI-platforms are becoming more wildly used and relied upon for information. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is designed for how people discover content in an AI-first world. Instead of targeting search result rankings alone, AEO prepares your content to be directly sourced and presented by AI tools like ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews, and more. It’s less about climbing the ranks and more about becoming the answer.

While SEO gets your site in front of users searching with intent, AEO ensures your brand is present when users skip the scroll and go straight to tools like ChatGPT. The smartest digital strategies today aren’t choosing one platform or channel over the other, they’re integrating both to meet users wherever they are.

Ready to make your content AI-ready?

At Nuaveu, we build SEO & AEO strategies that will do more than just perform today – they’ll future proof your digital marketing. Let’s position your business to lead in both search and AI-driven discovery.