What is AEO (answer engine optimization)? A plain guide for local businesses

Why it matters for a local business

Ask ChatGPT for a dentist or an immigration lawyer and the answer names a handful of businesses, not ten blue links. On a results page, the sixth result still gets clicks. In an AI answer, a business that is not named is not seen.

Google began rolling out AI Overviews to everyone in the US in May 2024 (Google), so many of your customers already see AI answers before any website.

AEO vs. SEO

SEO aims for a high position in a list of results. AEO aims to be one of the few names in an answer, and to have your own site cited as a source. They share a base: crawlable pages, clear text, structured data. AEO adds answering real questions directly, keeping facts consistent everywhere AI reads about you, and measuring the answers, not just rankings.

What helps

• Let AI search crawlers in. Check robots.txt and any firewall or security plugin.
• Put your main content in the HTML, not only behind JavaScript.
• Answer the questions customers ask, on the page, in plain sentences.
• Add structured data (schema.org) that matches what the page says.
• Keep your name, address, phone and hours the same on your site and your Google Business Profile.
• Back claims with sources and numbers. A peer-reviewed study found up to 40% higher visibility in generative answers after adding sources, statistics and quotations (Aggarwal et al., KDD 2024).

Why one screenshot proves nothing

AI answers change from run to run. SparkToro found that AI tools gave the same list of recommendations in under 1% of repeated runs (SparkToro). Useful measurement asks a fixed set of questions many times and reports a rate with a margin of error, not a single result.

What to do first

Run the 11 checks in the AI-readiness checklist, fix what fails on your homepage, and then measure how often AI answers name you for the questions your customers ask.

AEO Pro does this for you: Get a free AI check to see your score and which businesses AI names instead of you.

Questions

What does AEO stand for?

Answer engine optimization: making a business easy for AI assistants to find, read and name in their answers.

Is AEO the same as GEO?

In practice, yes. GEO (generative engine optimization) is another name for optimizing for AI-generated answers.

Does AEO replace SEO?

No. AEO builds on the same base, crawlable and clear pages, and adds answering questions directly and measuring AI answers.

Can anyone guarantee that ChatGPT will recommend my business?

No. Nobody controls what AI engines answer. What you can do is make your site readable, keep your facts consistent and measure the answers over time.