A ton of my clients have started the same conversation with me over the past few months. They’re using AI for personal things, and at some point the lightbulb went off: hey… if I’m doing this, my customers probably are too.
So they ask whether I know a guy who can help with the AI side of things.
Uh, yeah. I do. It’s me. I’m the guy.
Here’s the short version of AEO vs SEO. AEO, which stands for answer engine optimization, is an extension of SEO, not a replacement for it. The two overlap a lot. What separates the businesses that show up in AI answers from the ones that don’t is intention, and the rest of this post covers what that looks like.
But isn’t AEO a whole new thing?
No. AEO is a layer on top of (good) SEO, not a separate discipline. If you’ve had solid SEO work done, you’ve already got a leg up on your AEO.
Here’s why it feels new. For years, people defaulted to Google for everything. Nowadays, many questions start in an AI tool like ChatGPT, or get answered by Google’s AI Overviews before anyone clicks a link or goes to an actual website. Business owners notice that shift fast, because they’re doing it themselves.
Then the “hacks” show up. Fellow business owners swap secret codes and tricks that supposedly get you into AI answers. Some of those tips are just good SEO with a new label. Others are AI services that charge you to handle it for you, and don’t worry, I’ll get to why those don’t work in a minute.
What do AEO and SEO already have in common?
A lot more than most people selling AEO would like you to know. The foundation is the same.
The basics that make a site good for traditional search engines also make it easier for AI to understand and trust:
- Schema markup, which is code that tells search engines and AI what a page is about in a format they read easily
- Clear heading structure, so each page reads like an outline
- Optimized metadata, meaning the titles and descriptions behind every page
- Alt text that actually describes your images
- Content that covers a topic thoroughly instead of chasing one keyword at a time
I’ve built all of this into client sites for years because it’s just good SEO. When AI search took off, the clients who had that work in place already had decent visibility. It wasn’t dumb luck. It was just a solid foundation.
If your SEO foundation is solid, you’re not starting AEO from zero.
So what’s actually different?
SEO is mostly about your website. AEO is also about you.
Traditional SEO leans on the technical side: how fast your site loads, whether it works on a phone, whether the code is clean. All of that still matters a great deal. AEO adds a different set of questions. What are you saying, who are you, and what are your qualifications?
Why does putting a real name on your content matter?
I recently put together an AEO brief for a doctor’s office. Their pages on conditions and treatments had solid information, but almost none of it was attributed to the doctor. Her name and credentials lived on one bio page and nowhere else.
That’s a big opportunity. Adding her name and her stamp of approval to those informational pages immediately raises their authority in the eyes of an AI scouring the site for trusted content to share with searchers.
This isn’t only a medical thing. If your site gives advice, someone notably qualified should be visibly standing behind it. Whether you’re a chiropractor, an electrician, or an accountant, the question is the same: who is actually saying this, and why should anyone believe them?
Where does the intentionality come in?
In your content strategy. Intentional AEO means building content to answer the questions your customers actually ask, several of them, clearly and thoroughly, until you’ve covered the full breadth of your industry.
(My bad if “content strategy” just made your eyes glaze over. Stick with me.)
This is a real shift in how a business uses its website. For a long time, the blog was a promotion tool and the site was an online brochure spotlighting your own business.
A brochure tells people what you sell.
An expert resource shows them you know your field better than anyone else in your area, and that you’re the best person to hire for it.
That’s the positioning AI tools are looking for when they decide who to recommend.
Does this only apply to my website?
No, and this is the part that either scares or excites people. AEO looks at your entire digital footprint, not just your site:
- Your Google Business Profile
- Listing sites in your industry
- Social media
- YouTube
- Mentions of your business around the web
All of it should tell the same story: who you are, what you know, and why you’re the right choice.
But can’t I pay someone, or some tool, to do it for me?
Negative. You can’t automate SEO, AEO, or any of it, and the services that promise to are mostly selling you a feeling and some false hope.
Here’s the problem. An AI optimizing content for AI doesn’t know your website, your business goals, or your customers. It has none of the context that makes content worth recommending. So it produces something generic, and generic is the opposite of what gets you picked as the expert.
You end up paying every month for output that could have been written about any business in any town. That’s real money and real months you don’t get back.
If someone offers you a secret code or a plugin that makes you “AI visible” overnight, ask what it actually does. Most of the time it’s schema, metadata, alt text, or heading structure with a fancy name on it. That stuff matters. It’s just not actually a secret.
How do I know if any of this is working?
Honestly, and this is where I’ll be your tell-it-like-it-is marketing guy, it’s murky. AEO is still so new that there’s not really a gold standard for tracking it yet.
Here’s what I do right now. I check Semrush for AI Overviews, then look in Google Search Console and Google Analytics for traffic that came from AI sources. I use Semrush for client work, and its AI tracking will likely become the standard as it develops. For now it’s limited, and it’s an upcharge per domain. That’s different from their SEO tools, where one plan covers a bucket of domains you can swap in and out whenever you want.
The lack of dependable measurement is worth knowing about, but it’s not a reason to wait.
What should I do this month?
Three things. None of them need a new tool or a bigger budget.
1. Ask the AI about your own business
Open Google and whichever AI apps you use, and ask for recommendations in your niche. If you’re a chiropractor, ask who the best chiropractor in your city is. Then try your county and your state. Ask the questions a customer would, like “where do I go if I have back pain in [your location]?”
See whether you’re listed and where you land. Then repeat it with other relevant questions.
If you serve a national audience, go broader: “who is the best [your type of service]?“
2. Write a post answering the question customers ask you most
If they’re asking you, they’re probably asking AI too. Answer it clearly and completely on your own site.
3. Build a master FAQ document
Make it extensive. Write down every question you get, and give each one the simplest, most complete answer you can. This is your raw material for pages, posts, and profiles later.
Then ignore the tools and tracking for now. They’re rabbit holes. If you get bogged down in how you’ll measure it, you’ll lose interest before you’ve started. A solid kickoff to AEO is common sense and the expertise you’ve built running your business.
If you want to see the SEO foundation behind all of this, here’s how I actually run SEO for small businesses.
You know your business better than any AI does. Start there.