If you’ve ever had the pleasure (or displeasure if you’re a developer) of speaking to an SEO manager, you may have heard the acronym ‘AEO’ over the last couple of years. There’s been a clear split in the world of SEO, with some SEO managers getting ready to retrain in PPC, while others have embraced the growing impact of AEO and instead chosen to re-strategise and develop their usual SEO strategy.
At Blaze Media, we’re in the latter group. With the ongoing growth of AI, we aren’t willing to lie down, admit defeat, and cancel our Semrush subscription; instead, we’re ready to take the challenge head-on and adapt our strategies to ensure that, no matter how Google chooses to crawl our content, we’re ready.
And you should be too.
In this blog, we will outline exactly what AEO is, compare SEO and AEO, and share industry insights on how you should approach your content going forward.
What is AEO?
By now, it probably feels like you’ve completed the best part of ‘Bingo Was His Name-O’ just reading the introduction of this guide, so we should probably explain what AEO actually is.
AEO, or Answer Engine Optimisation, is the practice of structuring content to provide direct, concise answers to searches.
To break the 4th wall for a moment, the sentence above this one is the perfect example of great AEO, giving a direct and concise answer to a commonly asked query, improving the likelihood of this blog being pulled through onto platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and even Google’s AI Overview if we’re lucky, which has superseded the long-revered featured snippet.
AEO shifts from traditional keyword ranking to become the main source of information for AI assistants, and AI powered search tools. We all know that the use of AI for digital marketing and the continued reliance on AEO signal a major shift in the industry.
In a world where people aren’t really bothering to click beyond the AI Overview, getting your content pulled through is more important than ever for rankability, which is why AEO is the main topic of discussion between most SEO managers right now.
AEO vs Traditional SEO: Key Differences
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the differences between AEO and SEO, it is much easier to understand when you break it down into the following categories.
Goal
While both aim to make your content the top source of information on search engines, the goals of traditional SEO and AEO are different.
If you’re a client of Blaze, you would have heard the words: visibility, rankability and traffic a thousand times. That is because the goal of SEO is to help your business achieve top positions on Google for relevant keywords and drive organic traffic to your site.
AEO, however, emphasises gaining citations and establishing itself as an authoritative source for AI-generated answers. This goal has become central to the expansion of ChatGPT and AI Overview, as users are less inclined to visit websites and more likely to rely on the information provided by AI. AEO’s mission is to ensure that this AI-supplied information originates from us.
While SEO brings users to you, AEO brings the answer to the user.
Content Style
Content style is also something that should be considered when deciding whether to focus on SEO or AEO.
SEO content tends to be more in-depth, offering plenty of detail and targeting keywords closely related to a business. SEO content is often the best way to showcase your business’s tone and should reflect the branding you have developed, focusing on keyword-rich, long-form content to drive traffic to your site.
AEO is a whole different ball game, and any writer who has been in marketing for a long time will agree that the AEO content style feels like it goes against everything that we have been taught to do.
Don’t get us wrong, our copywriter is quite fond of the conversational style that serves AEO so well, but it doesn’t feel like it fits every brand. Hey, if it works, it works.
AEO is very all-thriller, no-filler, prioritising concise, direct, and well-structured answers that search engines know people will be searching for. While with SEO, you might be tempted to dive into the nitty-gritty details of a topic, AEO performs better with simple, non-complicated content.
User Intent
One of the most defining differences between SEO and AEO is user intent. The best way to describe it is that SEO considers the broader journey of discovery, whereas AEO targets those with an immediate need for a direct answer.
Those who read SEO content take the time to read through the content, learn more about a subject and then they’re even sometimes persuaded to engage with a business’s services based on the expertise demonstrated in the content, which is what all of us SEO experts really aim for.
As you know, SEO is all about driving clicks and encouraging further engagement.
AEO, on the other hand, focuses on zero-click results.
AEO content is made with the understanding that, realistically, those who want quick answers to a query probably don’t want to search through paragraphs of text, so AEO content is designed to be simple, direct and with a focus on providing immediate results.
AEO also takes into consideration how people will be searching and what kind of questions they’ll be asking, and with the rise of voice searches, AEO aims to hit the key words that often pop up with voice searches- who, what, where, when, why and how?
Perhaps the primary school story writing tips had credit after all.
It can be difficult to adjust your content to fit AEO, especially when you’re used to writing with a particular style, which is why we will always recommend working with a content writer who can quickly adapt to what search engines are looking for.
How SEO Experts Are Adapting
Though we like to think our expert opinion carries a lot of weight, we know that marketers worldwide are trying new techniques to adapt to the growing impact of AEO.
We’ve put our journalistic hat on and asked various SEO experts how they’re adapting to the growing significance of AEO.
Andrew Witts – Director at Studio 36 Digital
In 2026, adapting SEO for answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity means focusing less on traditional keyword rankings and more on how information is interpreted and cited by AI systems. I’m prioritising clear, structured content that directly answers user queries while maintaining strong signals of expertise and credibility.
Brand mentions have become particularly valuable, as large language models recognise them as indicators of authority across the web. Building a consistent presence through expert contributions, reputable citations, and easily digestible on-page formatting helps ensure that a brand’s information is both discoverable and trusted. This shift is refining SEO into a more holistic discipline centred on authority, clarity, and usefulness.
Dan Williams – Head of SEO at Converted
We’ve seen a clear shift towards users relying on AI to handle the early stages of the buying research process. By the time they reach a brand, a customer’s priorities are more defined, and AI has often already narrowed their options to a shortlist. This has led to high conversion rates from AI traffic on our clients’ websites, making visibility across these platforms increasingly important.
As a result, we’ve evolved our content strategy to better appear on platforms like ChatGPT. Large language models tend to favour detailed, well-structured content that clearly answers natural language questions, so we’re creating more focused pieces that reflect how people actually search and think.
At the same time, AI features such as Google’s AI Overview are reducing click-through rates. With fewer clicks available, conversion rate matters more than ever. We focus not only on attracting the right users through AI, but also on ensuring landing pages are clear, persuasive, and built to convert
David Shrier – Co-founder at Riff Analytics
We are shifting from keyword optimisation to entity and context optimisation. Instead of chasing rankings, our goal is to train answer engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity to recognise our brand as a credible source. That means structuring content around clear questions, authoritative answers, and transparent data. Adding concise summaries, citations, and schema markup helps AI systems extract information more reliably.
What works is publishing expert-led insights supported by original data and consistent author identity across platforms. What no longer works is thin content focused only on search intent because it vanishes in AI summaries. The new SEO is about being referenced and trusted, not just indexed.
Jhonty Barreto – Founder at Seoengico
Our SEO approach in 2025 is centred around structuring information for machines, not just readers. We’ve made schema markup a core part of every content rollout, using detailed FAQ, How-To, and entity schema to help answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity understand context and relationships between topics.
We’ve also started breaking long-form content into modular, self-contained sections, aligning with Google’s BlockRank model so each block can serve as a standalone, retrievable answer. Combined with internal link mapping and better use of structured data, we’re seeing stronger placement in AI snapshots and summaries.
The biggest shift has been moving from keyword-first optimisation to context-first optimisation, ensuring our content is both machine-readable and user-trustworthy.
Muhammad Talha – Freelance Digital Marketer at Ask Talha
I’ve been shifting my SEO focus toward building strong citations and doing more PR submissions. What I’ve noticed is that answer engines like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity tend to pull data from trusted sources and listings rather than just ranked web pages. So even if your site isn’t on page one of Google, you can still show up in AI answers if your brand is mentioned consistently across credible sites.
The key seems to be having no confusion around your entity, with the same information and story everywhere. I’m also putting more effort into structured data and digital PR to reinforce that credibility. It’s definitely a learning curve, but it’s exciting to see results coming from beyond traditional search rankings.
Ethan Hunt – SEO Manager at Blaze Media
With traffic and organic results being increasingly diluted due to ‘Zero-Traffic’ searches, figuring out how to measure success for clients is crucial. Instead of fighting with the informational summaries and AI overviews for traffic, at Blaze, our SEO team leverages them to gain increased visibility for clients, while focusing on the more focused intent terms on-site to increase engagement and conversion rates for the users that do click through. It’s AEO for discovery, and SEO for conversion.
Putting together a checklist showing how ‘digestible’ your content is to AI will also help massively with getting fast results in AI overviews for many sites. This includes things like FAQs, schema markup, having an LLMs.txt file implemented, proper heading hierarchies and more. We encounter a lot of client sites with valuable content on their site, but if it’s not structured and signposted in the right way, AI will have trouble crawling it and, in turn, trouble displaying it in the way it deserves.
Unsure if your businesses website and content is optimised properly for AI? Get in touch with our team for a full, free audit on AI crawlability, with recommendations on what to do next in order to make the most of this new evolving format in search.
Actionable AEO Strategies – How to Structure a Page for AEO
Want to make sure your content shows up in search results? There are strategies that you can put into action right now to ensure that you are using AEO to its fullest potential.
Write for Conversation First
Writers reading this might already be breaking into a sweat, since conversation-first writing was something we were recommended to avoid throughout our training. Worry not, AEO doesn’t mean completely abandoning the tone and brand of the business you are writing for; it’s just about thinking about how people will be searching.
Imagine the scenario: You’re busy, you’re arguing with a friend about some random topic, and you refuse to let it go. You pick up your phone to do a voice search to prove that you’re right, you aren’t thinking about the grammar, or the expletives you’ve just taught AI Overview, you’re thinking about answers.
AEO is about making sure your answers are structured to match what people search for when they want quick results, which can take some time to master. Though your content should be concise, that also doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be without substance.
A clever writer knows how to balance SEO and AEO, ensuring all of your content gets seen by as many people as possible.
Structure with Clear Hierarchies
Content structure is crucial for achieving a good level of visibility in AI driven search. A hierarchical structure is beneficial for AI bots because it organises content in a logical and systematic way. This organisation allows bots to easily navigate and understand the relationships between different pieces of content.
When information is categorised and structured hierarchically, it becomes easier for bots to identify and prioritise key topics, thereby simplifying the effective indexing of pages. This enhances a website’s overall visibility in search results, as it can lead to greater relevance and easier access to information for users.
When it comes to hitting AEO, it’s all about making sure that you’re ensuring that your H2s cover the questions people might be asking, and underneath these H2s you’re offering immediate answers, as this will help get your content up there in the search results.
Test Your Content With AI
Not sure how you can shape your content to ensure that it’s being pulled through by AI? It’s time to do some field research, and by that, we mean it’s time to test out your search on different AI platforms.
Search for the topic that you would like to explore in your content and get a feel for the results that pop up. Obviously, anything that you write is going to be better than AI-generated content, but checking out these platforms will allow you to get an idea of how you should structure your content, the tone you should take, and what typically performs well and is pulled through by AI.
Building E-E-A-T Signals
With all these acronyms, it feels like we are training you all up to be Blaze cheerleaders, but E-E-A-T is one that you need to get to know. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
When pulling answers from across the web for their searches, engines want to ensure that the content they push comes from a credible source.
To effectively hit E-E-A-T signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness), it’s important to focus on several key aspects that align with the changing needs of search engines and user expectations. Strategies include:
Experience
Share personal experiences and insights related to the topic. This could be in the form of case studies, examples, or anecdotes that demonstrate direct engagement with the subject matter. You should also consider collaborating with industry experts to co-create content. Featuring actual experiences from qualified individuals can reinforce the authenticity of your answers.
Just as we’ve done in this blog.
Expertise
Ensure that your content is factually correct and provides high-value information that answers user queries. Use credible data and cite authoritative sources where appropriate. We’re going to say this once and only once: don’t just depend on AI for your data. AI makes mistakes, and you won’t get pulled through into searches if you are spreading misinformation.
Also, it’s not a good look for your brand, so it’s well worth taking the time to find credible sources for all of your information.
Authoritativeness
Build relationships with reputable websites and earn backlinks from authoritative sources. This can enhance your credibility and increase the likelihood that your answers will be featured in AI-generated responses.
Though you want to keep things concise, you still want to maintain a strong and consistent brand presence across platforms. This helps establish your brand as a go-to source on specific topics, thereby increasing your authority.
Yes, that does mean that you should be posting on LinkedIn, no matter how painful you might find it.
Trustworthiness
We like to believe that search engines giving trustworthiness the VIP treatment is a good thing, encouraging brands to be upfront about their secret motives and shadowy sponsorships. Be honest, disclose any biases, and don’t forget to keep it real when creating content. After all, honesty is the best policy.
Another great way to build trust in your content is to encourage and respond to user feedback, comments, and questions. Building a community fosters trust and shows that you value user input.
Your website plays a big role in how trustworthy your content appears. If you have a poorly laid-out website that looks like something out of a scammer’s design folder, it will only affect how successful your AEO strategy is and how your website is viewed.
Working with a developer to ensure that your website has a great design and functionality can make a world of difference to how it performs.
Make Sure Your SEO Strategy Performs With Blaze Media
We can’t spill all of our content secrets, but hopefully, this guide has given you the information you need to go forth and conquer the world of AEO.
With AI becoming a bigger part of our lives every day, you need to be able to adjust your content to ensure that it is getting the attention it needs and deserves. As the experts we contacted emphasised, now’s the time to adjust your strategy if you want your content to be successful.
At Blaze, we have the resources and know-how to ensure your content is being pulled through by AI, and the tools required to track AI results in order to measure success for your business. Get in touch with us to find out how we can help you today.
