For twenty years, being found online meant ranking on a page of blue links. That is changing fast. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google’s AI answers who they should hire, and those tools reply with a short list of names. Answer engine optimization, or AEO, is the work of making sure your name is on that list.
What answer engines look for
AI tools favor sources they can understand and trust. In practice that means:
- Clear facts in plain text. Who you are, what you do, where you work and for whom, stated directly rather than hidden in images or vague slogans.
- Structured data. Schema markup that labels your business, services, pages and articles so machines do not have to guess.
- Real answers to real questions. Pages that answer the questions buyers actually ask, in their words.
- Consistency. The same name, address and services everywhere your business appears online.
- Speed and accessibility. Fast, well structured pages are easier for every kind of crawler to read.
Built in from the start
On a new site we plan for AEO before the first page is designed. Our SEO plugin adds structured data for your organization, website, pages, breadcrumbs and articles automatically, and our page templates keep headings and content in a logical order. We write service pages around the questions your customers ask, not around keywords alone.
Or retrofitted during a rebuild
Most existing sites were built before AI search mattered. When we rebuild or refresh one, we audit what answer engines can currently see, rewrite key pages to state facts clearly, add structured data and remove the clutter that hides your content.
Measure it
You cannot improve what you cannot see. BusinessPulse, a tool we built, asks AI search the questions real buyers ask for your service and area and shows whether your business is cited, and who is cited instead. It is free, and it is a good place to start.
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