What does AEO mean in marketing?
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. It means writing and structuring web pages so that AI answer tools, such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity, can understand a page, pull a short accurate answer from it and show your business as the source. The goal is to be the answer, not just a blue link.
Classic search gives people ten links and lets them choose. Answer engines read several pages, write a summary, and link a handful of sources. If your page is not one of those sources, you are invisible for that question, even if you rank on page one.
In practice AEO looks like plain writing: a direct answer near the top, questions as headings, facts with sources, and nothing hidden behind tabs or images. None of it is magic. Most of it is simply good writing for busy readers.
How is AEO different from SEO and GEO?
SEO is about ranking pages in search results. AEO is about having a clear, quotable answer that AI tools can lift. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is the academic term for improving how often and how prominently generative AI engines cite you. In practice the three overlap heavily and share the same foundations.
Think of SEO as getting into the library, and AEO and GEO as getting quoted once you are there. If Google cannot crawl and index a page, no AI feature built on Google Search will use it. So SEO comes first.
The term GEO comes from a 2023 research paper of that name. AEO is the more common industry phrase. You do not need separate agencies or budgets for each one.
Source: Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024
How do AI answer engines choose which websites to cite?
Google says pages must be indexed and eligible to show a snippet in Search to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, with no extra technical requirements. ChatGPT search relies on OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot crawler. If a bot is blocked in robots.txt, or a page is not indexed, it is far less likely to be cited.
Google's Search Central guidance is blunt: there are no additional requirements and no special optimisations needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. You do not need new AI text files or special schema. Structured data should match the visible text on the page.
OpenAI runs separate bots. OAI-SearchBot surfaces sites in ChatGPT search, and OpenAI says sites that opt out of it will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers. GPTBot collects content that may be used to train models, and blocking it does not stop you appearing in search. Many site owners block GPTBot by accident when they meant to block training only, or block everything by mistake.
Beyond access, the AI picks sources that answer the question clearly. Vague, salesy pages are rarely quoted.
Source: Google Search Central, AI features and your website; OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers
What actually improves your chances of being cited by AI?
In the GEO study by Aggarwal and colleagues, adding quotations, adding statistics and citing sources were the strongest methods, improving visibility by roughly 30-40% on one measure. Keyword stuffing did worse than doing nothing. Lower-ranked sites gained the most, which is good news for smaller Australian businesses.
The researchers tested a set of content changes on a benchmark of search queries. Cite Sources lifted visibility by 115.1% for websites ranked fifth in the results, while the top-ranked site in that test lost 30.3%. Keyword stuffing scored 17.8 against an unoptimised baseline of 19.5.
The paper also found results vary by topic, so test on your own pages rather than copying a formula. Treat it as evidence for clear, factual, well-sourced writing, which is what readers want anyway.
Source: Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024 (arXiv 2311.09735)
What are the practical steps to do AEO on your website?
Start by checking that Google can index your key pages and that robots.txt allows Googlebot and OAI-SearchBot. Then put a 40-60 word answer at the top of each important page, use real customer questions as headings, add numbers with named sources, and keep important content as plain text.
A simple order of work: fix crawling and indexing first, then rewrite your money pages (services, pricing, locations) so each opens with a direct answer. Add an FAQ section built from questions customers actually ask your staff or type into Search Console.
Keep facts consistent everywhere. Your business name, address, phone, prices and service areas should match on your site, Google Business Profile and directories. AI tools are cautious about sources that contradict themselves.
What is not worth it: buying 'AI SEO' plugins that promise to get you into ChatGPT, creating llms.txt files because someone said you must, or publishing hundreds of thin AI-written pages.
Source: Google Search Central, AI features and your website; OpenAI, Overview of OpenAI crawlers
How do you measure AEO results?
Google counts AI Overview and AI Mode traffic inside the Search Console Performance report, under the Web search type, so watch clicks and impressions for question-style queries. For ChatGPT and Perplexity, check referral traffic in your analytics and regularly ask the tools your customers' questions to see who gets cited.
There is no single AEO score. Use a mix: Search Console impressions for long, question-style searches; referral visits from chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai in Google Analytics; and a monthly manual check of 10 to 20 key questions in each tool, noting whether your site is cited.
Be patient. Google notes that recrawling can take anywhere from several days to several months, so changes will not show overnight.
Source: Google Search Central, AI features and your website
Do you need AEO services, and what do they cost?
Most small businesses do not need a separate AEO service. They need sound SEO that writes pages in an answer-first way. MarketingOnWeb bundles SEO, GEO and AEO into one flat $990 a month plus GST, month to month with no lock-in. Nobody can honestly guarantee you will be named by ChatGPT.
If you have a capable writer and a clean website, you can do much of this yourself using the steps above. Pay for help when you lack the time, when your site has technical problems, or when competitors are already being cited for your key questions.
Be wary of anyone selling AEO as a brand-new discipline with its own big retainer. Google itself says no special optimisation is required. The value is in doing the basics thoroughly and consistently.
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