Answer engine optimization (AEO): being the answer, not just a link

The difference, plainly

AI search visibility has two halves, and they are not the same job.

AEO is about being the answer. Someone asks a question. An answer engine or a Google AI Overview returns one direct response. AEO is the work that makes your page the passage that response is built from: a clear question, a direct answer, and a machine readable structure around it.

GEO is about being cited. A generative engine writes a longer response from many sources and lists where it drew from. GEO is the work that makes your brand one of those sources, and it lives on its own page: GEO.

Same foundations, two different measurements. Most teams need both. We treat them as one practice, AI search visibility, and run them together.

What we do

• Entity optimization. We define who you are as an entity: the company, the product, the category, the people. Then we make every mention of you on your site say the same thing in the same words, so a model resolves you to one thing rather than three.
• sameAs consolidation. We connect your site to the profiles that describe you elsewhere with `sameAs` links, so the entity graph points back to a single canonical you.
• Structured data. Organization, Service, Article, BreadcrumbList and FAQPage schema, written to match the visible page and validated. FAQPage and Service schema do the heaviest lifting here, because they hand an engine a question and an answer already paired.
• Answer-first content architecture. Every page states the question as a heading and answers it in the first two sentences, before any setup. Passages are self contained, so a model can lift one without losing the meaning.
• Question coverage. We map the questions your buyers actually ask, including the long, spoken-style ones people only type into a chat box, and we build the page set that answers them.
• llms.txt. We write and publish an `llms.txt` file that tells AI crawlers what your site contains and which pages carry the definitive answers.
• Crawler access. We check that AI crawlers are allowed where you want them and blocked where you do not, in robots rules and at the CDN.
• Citation tracking. We run your category questions against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews on a schedule, record what comes back, and log where you appear and where someone else does.

How we run it

We start with a written audit. We ask the engines your buyers' questions, record what each one returns today, and read your site against what we saw. You get a list: which questions you appear in, which you do not, what your content is missing structurally, and what to fix first.

Then we work in a rolling engagement, in this order.

1. Set the entity. One description, one name form, one category, everywhere on the site. Consolidate with `sameAs`.
2. Add the schema. Organization and Service first, then FAQPage and Article as the answer pages ship.
3. Restructure the existing pages. Question headings, answer-first openings, self contained passages, and the internal links between them.
4. Publish `llms.txt` and confirm crawler access.
5. Write the answer set. A rolling plan of pages built around the questions the audit found unanswered.
6. Track and adjust. We re-run the question set each month and change the plan based on what came back.

Each week you get a written update: what we shipped, what the tracking showed, what is next, and anything we need from you.

Deliverables

• Written AI search visibility audit with the current answer set recorded per engine
• Entity definition and the site-wide consistency pass
• `sameAs` consolidation across your profiles
• Structured data implemented and validated, including FAQPage and Service schema
• Answer-first rewrite of the existing pages
• Published `llms.txt` and a crawler access check
• New answer pages, written and published
• Monthly citation tracking report across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews

Who it is for

• B2B SaaS teams whose buyers ask an AI assistant about the category and hear another company's name
• Marketing leaders watching organic clicks fall while the questions stay the same
• Teams with a real body of writing that no engine currently quotes
• Companies with a category to explain, where the definition itself is the thing worth owning

Who it is not for

• Teams wanting a promise that a specific engine will name them. We do the work and we track the result. No engine sells placement, and neither do we.
• Sites with no substantive content. There has to be something worth quoting before we can make it quotable.
• Anyone hoping to skip the classic search foundation. If the crawl is broken, start with SEO.

Related services

• GEO · being cited when generative engines write about your category
• SEO · the classic Google search foundation underneath
• Pipeline + Presence · visibility and outbound run as one engagement