Answer Engine Optimization: How to Get Cited by AI Assistants

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring your website content so AI assistants — like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews — can cite it as a source. As more people get information from AI chat interfaces, appearing in AI responses is becoming as important as ranking on the traditional search results page.

What Makes AI Assistants Choose a Source?

AI language models are trained to prefer content that is clearly structured, factually accurate, and answers questions directly. They favour authoritative sources, well-organised pages with clear headings, and content that directly addresses specific questions without burying the answer in preamble.

Practical AEO Techniques

Use FAQ sections with direct question-and-answer pairs. Structure your page with H2 and H3 headings that match real questions your customers ask. Include a concise summary paragraph near the top of the page. Use schema markup to label the type of content on your page — FAQ schema and HowTo schema are particularly effective.

AEO vs SEO

AEO and SEO are complementary, not competing. The same practices that make content clear and helpful for search engines also make it more citable by AI. The key difference is intent: SEO focuses on ranking for keywords, while AEO focuses on being cited as the definitive answer to a question. Both deserve a place in your content strategy.