Answer engine optimisation.
Answer engine optimisation is the work that makes your page the answer. When someone asks Google, ChatGPT or a voice assistant a question your organisation can answer, AEO decides whether the reply quotes you, a competitor or nobody. We find the questions, rewrite the pages to answer them first, mark them up, and check every month which ones you win.
Ranking is not the same as being the answer.
More searches now end on the results page. An AI Overview, a featured snippet or a voice reply answers the question and the click never happens. If your page ranks fourth but the answer quotes someone else, the buyer meets your competitor first.
The usual approach
Pages written around keywords.
- Problem: Three paragraphs of introduction before the answer arrives.
- Problem: No FAQ, HowTo or Service schema.
- Problem: The same answer scattered across five thin pages.
- Problem: Success measured in rankings nobody clicks.
The Kickass standard
Pages written to be quoted.
- Instead: The answer in the first two sentences, then the evidence.
- Instead: FAQ, HowTo, Service and Organization schema that matches the page.
- Instead: One authoritative page for each cluster of questions.
- Instead: A monthly record of which questions quote you, and where.
How we do AEO.
Question research
We collect the questions your buyers actually ask: People Also Ask boxes, the searches that trigger AI Overviews, your sales calls, your inbox and your site search. Each question is mapped to the one page that should answer it.
Answer-first pages
We rewrite or create those pages so the answer comes first in plain English, followed by the detail, the proof and the next step. Every answer stands on its own, so it still makes sense when an AI lifts it out of the page.
Structure and schema
Headings that mirror the questions, short lists and tables where they help, and FAQ, HowTo, Service and Organization schema that says the same thing as the visible page.
Technical access
We make sure Googlebot and the AI crawlers can reach and render those pages: robots rules, an llms.txt file, fast load times, clean canonical tags and no answers hidden behind scripts.
Measure and expand
Each month we check featured snippets, AI Overview citations and assistant answers for your question set, report what moved, and pick the next cluster to win.
AEO FAQ
What is AEO?
Answer engine optimisation is the practice of structuring content so search engines and AI assistants use it as the direct answer to a question. It covers featured snippets, People Also Ask, Google AI Overviews, voice assistants and chat tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO earns a position in the list of links. AEO earns the answer that sits above the list, or replaces it. They share the same foundations, so AEO without decent SEO rarely works, but AEO adds question research, answer-first writing and schema.
How is AEO different from GEO?
AEO is about one of your pages being quoted as the answer to a specific question. GEO, generative engine optimisation, is about your organisation being named and recommended when an AI writes its own answer from many sources. Most clients need both, and we run them together.
How quickly does AEO work?
Featured snippets and AI Overview citations can change within weeks of a page being rewritten and recrawled. After Ali Legal’s rebuild, visits from Google AI Overviews went from none to around 455 a month in about six months.
Can you guarantee an AI Overview or featured snippet?
No. Google and the AI providers decide what they quote, and anyone who guarantees it is guessing. We commit to the work and show you exactly which questions you win each month.
How much does AEO cost?
AEO runs inside our SEO retainers, which start at £1,000 + VAT a month, or as a fixed-price project for a set of pages. We quote after looking at your site and the questions you want to own.
Related services.
Selected work
Send the brief.
Tell us what you need and we'll reply the same day with a price and a date.
Which questions could you own?
Send us your site and three questions your buyers ask. We will tell you who gets quoted today and what it would take to make it you.