Our AEO agency gets your brand cited in AI-generated answers

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is the discipline of structuring, marking up, and promoting web content so that AI-powered answer engines — including Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT Browse, Perplexity, Bing Copilot, and Gemini — extract and cite your brand as an authoritative source in their generated responses. Unlike traditional SEO, which targets ranked position in a list of links, AEO targets the answer itself. When a user asks an AI assistant a question, AEO determines whether your brand is named, quoted, or linked in the response — or whether a competitor is cited instead. Core AEO techniques include direct-answer content formatting, FAQPage and Speakable schema markup, E-E-A-T signal development, entity recognition, and AI crawler accessibility auditing.

Traditional SEO optimises for ranked positions in the ten blue links on a SERP — visibility dependent on a click. AEO optimises for the zero-click answer space: AI Overviews, featured snippets, voice results, and conversational AI responses. The two disciplines share a technical foundation (crawlability, site speed, authority signals) but diverge in content strategy. SEO rewards comprehensive topic coverage and keyword density; AEO rewards direct, quotable answers structured so AI systems can extract them verbatim. A page can rank #1 in organic search and never appear in a single AI-generated answer — and vice versa. Best-in-class strategy pursues both simultaneously.

Effective AEO targets every major AI answer surface: Google AI Overviews (shown on 30%+ of all Google searches), Google Featured Snippets (the primary extraction source for AI Overview summaries), ChatGPT with Browse enabled, Perplexity AI (which cites sources directly and drives measurable referral traffic), Microsoft Bing Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude, and voice assistants including Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Each platform has slightly different content preferences and crawl behaviour — a comprehensive AEO programme is calibrated for all of them, not just Google.

AI citation eligibility depends on five interconnected factors. First, direct-answer content: pages must clearly answer specific questions in the first 40–60 words, using plain language AI systems can extract without rephrasing. Second, structured data: FAQPage, HowTo, Speakable, Article, and Organisation schema explicitly signal to AI crawlers which content answers which queries. Third, E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust signals — including author credentials, third-party citations, and editorial standards — determine whether AI models treat your content as trustworthy. Fourth, entity recognition: your brand must be a verified entity in Google's Knowledge Graph, with consistent structured information across the web. Fifth, technical accessibility: AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, Googlebot) must be permitted and able to crawl and index your content without obstruction.

AEO timelines vary by tactic. Featured snippet wins for queries where you already have strong content and domain authority can appear within 4–8 weeks of restructuring and schema implementation. Google AI Overview inclusions typically follow 6–10 weeks after featured snippet gains, since AI Overviews draw heavily from existing snippet winners. Perplexity and ChatGPT citation appearances depend on each platform's re-crawl frequency — typically 8–16 weeks for initial appearances and 3–6 months for consistent citation. E-E-A-T and entity authority building is a 6–12 month programme that creates the durable, compounding visibility that competitors cannot easily replicate by copying your tactics.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness — Google's quality framework for evaluating content credibility, now adopted implicitly by most AI models as a proxy for citation worthiness. Experience means demonstrated first-hand knowledge of the topic (original research, case studies, real client results). Expertise means verified credentials and subject-matter depth. Authoritativeness means your brand is recognised as a leading voice in your field by other authoritative sources. Trustworthiness means factual accuracy, editorial transparency, and a secure, well-maintained site. AI models are specifically trained to cite high-E-E-A-T sources. Building genuine E-E-A-T signals — not superficial ones — is the single most durable AEO investment a brand can make.

An AEO audit is a structured assessment of your current AI search visibility and the technical, content, and authority gaps preventing your brand from being cited in AI-generated answers. A comprehensive AEO audit covers: (1) AI visibility benchmarking — running representative queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, and Bing Copilot to map where your brand currently appears; (2) content gap analysis — identifying high-value question queries your content does not answer; (3) schema audit — reviewing existing structured data for completeness, accuracy, and schema type coverage; (4) AI crawler accessibility — checking robots.txt, crawl logs, and page speed for AI bot obstructions; (5) E-E-A-T signal assessment — evaluating author profiles, citation profile, and entity recognition; and (6) competitor citation benchmarking — identifying which competitors are being cited in your place and why.

Yes — AEO and SEO are complementary, not competing. Strong organic rankings increase the probability of AI citation, since AI models draw heavily from high-authority, high-ranking pages. The technical foundations are shared: fast load speeds, clean site architecture, mobile-first design, and HTTPS are critical for both. Where AEO adds to SEO is in content structure (direct-answer formatting, Q&A blocks), schema depth (Speakable, FAQPage, HowTo), and entity authority signals. Most Get Found clients see measurable improvements in both traditional organic rankings and AI answer appearances from the same programme — the work compounds across both channels.