How to Build an AEO Strategy from Scratch

Creating an Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) strategy from scratch is a methodical process of audits, planning, content optimization, and authority building. The primary principle is to develop material that directly and concisely responds to specific user requests, making it simple for AI models to extract and cite your data.

Here is a step-by-step guide to building your AEO strategy:

Phase 1: Audit and Research

• Set Clear Goals: Define what AEO success means for your business. Focus on branded queries (e.g., “What is [Your Brand]?”), commercial queries (“Best [product] for…”), or informational queries (“How to do [task]?”).
• Audit Current AI Visibility: Manually test major AI platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and Perplexity with questions related to your business. This reveals where your brand is already cited and who your competitors are in the AI space.
• Identify Target Queries: Conduct keyword research but focus on natural language, long-tail questions users would ask a voice assistant or AI (e.g., “How do I avoid picking errors in my warehouse?” instead of “warehouse management”). Tools like Google Search Console’s Performance report, AnswerThePublic, and AlsoAsked can help.
• Analyze Competitors: Look at the structure, answer length, and sources cited by pages that appear in AI answers for your target queries. Note how they use headings, lists, and citations. 

Phase 2: Content Optimization & Structure

• Adopt an “Answer-First” Structure: Rewrite content to provide direct, concise answers in the first 50-60 words of a section, immediately after a question-based heading. Follow up with detailed explanations and context.
• Use Question-Based Headers: Rephrase your H2 and H3 headings as specific questions (e.g., “How much does website hosting cost?” instead of “Pricing”) to align with user prompts and AI parsing logic.
• Implement Structured Formatting: Use bullet points for non-sequential items, numbered lists for step-by-step instructions, and tables for comparisons. This formatting is highly preferred by AI models for easy extraction.
• Create Comprehensive FAQ Sections: Add a dedicated FAQ section to key pages, addressing common customer questions and marking them up with FAQPage schema markup. This is a goldmine for appearing in “People Also Ask” boxes and AI overviews. 

Phase 3: Technical AEO & Authority Building

• Add Schema Markup: Implement the appropriate Schema.org markup (e.g., Article, HowTo, QAPage, Product) using JSON-LD format. Validate your code with Google’s Rich Results Test tool to ensure it’s eligible for rich results.
• Build Authority (E-E-A-T): AI models favor content from authoritative sources.
  • Demonstrate Expertise: Create detailed author bios with credentials and experience.
  • Earn Citations: Engage in digital PR to get your brand and content mentioned on reputable industry sites. Mentions without hyperlinks still count for AEO.
  • Publish Original Research: Offer unique data or insights that position your brand as the “source of truth” in your niche.
• Ensure Technical Excellence: AEO builds on strong SEO fundamentals. Ensure fast page load speeds, mobile optimization, and a clear, crawlable site architecture. 

Phase 4: Monitoring and Refinement

• Track Performance: Monitor your progress by tracking key metrics using tools like Google Search Console or Ahrefs. Look for increases in featured snippet appearances, organic traffic from question-based queries, and brand mentions in AI outputs.
• Iterate and Update: AEO is an ongoing process. Schedule quarterly content reviews to update statistics, add fresh insights, and refine your answers to match evolving user behavior and AI algorithms. 

By integrating these steps, you can build a robust AEO strategy that ensures your content is the preferred choice for both humans and AI answer engines.

Why AEO Matters

The emergence of AI-generated answers (and the decline of traditional blue links) has upended the SEO sector. Organic traffic appears to have dropped for many sites once AIO began taking up precious SERP real estate and addressing people’s questions without hitting a link.

However, being in Google’s AIO or being mentioned by a voice assistant provides a significant chance for visibility and brand authority. For better or worse, these AI-powered platforms are regarded as credible and authoritative. Users are more likely to trust you if your content appears first in search results.

“Currently, the importance of AEO, in my opinion, is its relationship with brand awareness and reputation,” according to Mountz.

“Clients with extensive top-of-funnel material, such as SaaS (with a lot of how-to or educational content), will lose brand exposure if they don’t click on an AI Overview, for example. However, their lead amount and quality may not be instantly altered.

AEO and funnel stage

Mountz adds that, since bottom-funnel queries elicit a higher CTR, an AIO might not be enough information for them. While these types of sites will lose traffic, that loss of traffic might not immediately hurt their bottom line. AI could, however, impact brand discovery through top-funnel queries.

Additionally, there are theories that brand reputation (through reviews, for example) affects what sites are served in ChatGPT and other LLMs. If this is the case, larger brands that have participated in reputation management or built strong brand followings are predisposed to show up in LLM results.

How to identify AEO keywords for your content strategy

Like SEO, a strong AEO strategy begins with keyword research.

To identify AEO keywords for your content strategy, however, your focus should shift to queries that align with how people ask questions — and the direct way answer engines deliver answers.

AEO-friendly queries include:

• FAQs
• “How to” or “What is” queries
• Comparison and decision-making queries
• Conversational and long-tail keywords

To explore the types of questions your target audience is asking, we recommend using keyword research tools such as:

• Google’s “People Also Ask”
• Google Search Console
• Answerthepublic
• Semrush or Ahrefs

• AlsoAsked
• Featured snippets and related searches for common phrasing and formatting

How to Optimize Content for AEO

Once you identify your target AEO keywords, apply an optimization strategy to your content.

1. Craft direct answers to user queries

Answer engines and voice assistants select high-quality content with concise answers. In order for your content to be chosen, you need to craft direct answers to user queries.

2. Use conversational language to match voice search

People who use voice search speak conversationally, so user questions are phrased a bit differently. To match these queries with your content, leverage more casual language.

3. Improve formatting

“The AEO strategy with the most benefit and easiest lift is probably rearranging existing content to make it more extraction-friendly,” says Mountz.

Read Also: The Evolution from Keywords to Questions: AEO’s Role in Modern

The way you structure content plays a huge role in whether it gets selected by answer engines. Here are some quick tips:

• Use clear headings (H2s and H3s) to mirror common search queries
• Break complex ideas into short paragraphs
• Include numbered or bulleted lists: “I’ve been going back and reviewing web pages that could have a better extractable layout – so bullet points, tables – to help answer engines extract information easily,” Mountz recommends
• Use AEO keywords in headings and a one-paragraph answer under the heading

Well-formatted content is easier for both users and algorithms to scan and understand and lowers bounce rates when users choose to click.

4. Build FAQ pages

FAQs are ideal for AEO because they mirror real, specific questions and let you deliver clean and direct responses.

Add common questions and answers as standalone pages or embed them within blog posts to capture featured snippets and voice search results.

5. Implement structured data

Schema markup helps search engines better understand your content and display it in rich results.

While structured data isn’t required for AEO success, it does enhance how your answers are indexed and displayed. This is especially true for tutorials, products, and FAQs. Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper or Schema.org to add the right markup to your site.

6. Maintain E-E-A-T

Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) are key signals that search engines use to gauge content quality.

“We’ve been adding authoritative content to blogs, like ‘reviewed by Doctor XX’ if it’s a medical blog,” shares Mountz. “If it’s an education blog, we say ‘reviewed by Professor XX’ and then we mark that up with schema. Also, using specific statistics to support authority. A lot of the normal E-E-A-T optimizations still apply.”

How to Monitor Your AEO Efforts

Because answer engines often don’t drive direct clicks the way traditional SEO does, it’s a bit harder to track your AEO performance.

But there are still ways to evaluate the impact of your efforts:

1. Use SEO tools to track featured snippets with SEO tools

Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to monitor whether your pages appear in featured snippets, people also ask boxes, or knowledge panels.

2. Analyze AIO inclusion

Run manual queries and use tools like seoClarity or BrightEdge to track which URLs appear in AI-generated snapshots.

3. Monitor Search Console for CTR drops

If your content appears in an AIO or featured snippet, clicks might drop even if impressions rise. So keep an eye out for a decrease in click-through rate (CTR) with stable or rising impressions and keywords with high rankings but lower traffic.

4. Compare page types and query categories

Break down your content by URL type, track correlation between AIO visibility and session changes. Also, monitor performance by intent type.

5. Set up alerts

Use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to track session declines for high-traffic, answer-focused content and set alerts for significant drops in page engagement or ranking.

Real Example of an AEO Strategy in Action

So, how are SEO experts pivoting with the new wave of answer engines? Here’s how Mountz has been tackling AEO for one of her clients:

1. Tracking the effects of AIOs on various page types

One of Mountz’s clients started ranking heavily for Google’s AIOs in March 2025. Since then, however, they have seen drops in sessions.

“I organized the URLs into categories, since not all of them are ranking in AI Overviews,” she recounts.

“Then I calculated a Correlation Score (CS) to see whether there’s an inverse relationship — in other words, does an increase in AIO appearances correlate with a drop in sessions? I’ve been tracking these metrics in a doc.”

2. Content suggestions with click-through rate (CTR) as the KPI

Mountz observed that the type of page affected whether sessions went up or down — even when the page ranked in AI Overviews.

“For instance, they have a landing page promoting a free laptop for degree-seeking students,” she says. “That page is ranking in AIOs and actually saw an increase in sessions, unlike some of the blog posts, which saw declines.

Some page types showed a moderate Correlation Score, while others were weak. Based on that, she started recommending new content aimed at boosting click-through rates.

Mountz suggested a page or blog about degrees that can be completed in two years. The assumption was that it could rank in AIOs but still entice users to click through to learn more or sign up.

3. Optimizing a page for AIOs

The client has been receptive to experimenting with strategies. So, Mountz took the blog that drives the most traffic, pulled the AIO results it was not ranking for, and then optimized the page toward those for AIO queries.

How is AEO Different From SEO?

AEO optimizes content to be the top answer displayed by an answer engine or voice assistant, whereas SEO (search engine optimization) optimizes material to rank higher on traditional search engines, resulting in more clicks.

AEO tactics intersect with standard SEO strategies; after all, information referenced by a voice assistant or highlighted in Google’s AI Overview (AIO) must still rank high in search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO and AEO websites must have authoritative backlinks and provide a positive user experience.

The main distinction is that AEO alters your strategic attitude from generating clicks to being quoted as the greatest possible answer.

AEO, like traditional SEO, uses keywords to make material visible for relevant search queries. However, AEO keywords are more conversational and question-based search queries designed to work with voice assistants and AI tool snippets or summaries.

Alternatively, SEO keywords are more transactional or navigational in order to rank on search engine results pages. However, some long-tail SEO keywords may overlap with AEO keywords.

Here’s an example:

• SEO keywords: “Answer engine optimization”
• AEO keywords: “What is answer engine optimization?”

The core content for each of these queries would probably be the same, right? The difference is how the answers are delivered. An effective strategy uses both SEO and AEO to maximize visibility and traffic.

Bottomline

AEO does not replace SEO; rather, it is an extension of the digital marketing strategy. As voice and AI search gain popularity, providing relevant content that satisfies user intent remains the top concern.