AEO
Answer Engine Optimization
In one sentenceMaking your content the answer AI tools give. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI who the best expert is, you want to be named.
What it means
People increasingly ask AI instead of scrolling search results. Answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews, voice assistants) give one direct answer, often naming a few people, companies or sources.
AEO is the practice of making it easy for those engines to find you, understand you, trust you and quote you. It overlaps with SEO, but the goal is being cited in the answer, not ranking tenth on a page of links.
You will also hear GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and "LLM SEO". They mean nearly the same thing.
How to use it
- Answer real questions clearly. Write content that directly answers what your buyers ask, with the answer in the first sentence or two.
- Be consistent everywhere. Your name, title, company and what you do should match on LinkedIn, your website, directories and podcast bios. AI connects the dots across sources.
- Get mentioned by others: podcasts, guest articles, reviews, lists, LinkedIn posts that tag you. Third-party mentions build trust with answer engines.
- Use clear structure: headings phrased as questions, short paragraphs, FAQs, Schema Markup on your website.
- Post consistently on LinkedIn. Public LinkedIn content is one of the sources AI tools draw on for professional expertise.
- Test it: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini "Who are the top [your niche] experts in [city]?" and see who shows up.
Prompt to try
Who are the leading experts or companies for [your service] for [your audience]? List them and explain why each is recommended, with sources.
Fill in the [brackets], then paste it into evyAI, ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini.
In evyAI
evyAI's knowledge base publishes an llms.txt file so AI tools can read and cite it accurately. Posting consistently on LinkedIn with evyAI builds the public footprint answer engines learn from.
Related terms
GEO SEO AI Overviews Zero-Click Search llms.txt Schema Markup Entity