What is AEO?
Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring and optimizing content to provide direct answers to user questions, especially for AI-powered tools like chatbots, voice assistants (Siri, Alexa), and AI-generated overviews.
AEO focuses on becoming the definitive answer or being cited within the AI-generated response, thereby increasing brand visibility and authority in a zero-click search environment.
Key Takeaways
|
What can we do to help Answer Engine Optimization?
That’s an excellent question! Here are some of the things I outlined in my presentation.
But before you dive in!
Notice the page structure nesting H tags to show hierarchy — this is very important for crawlers.
H1
This is usually the page title
H2
Content goes here.
H3
Content goes here.
H3
Content goes here.
H3
Content goes here.
H2
Content goes here.
1. Keep our Wiki page up to date.
Trust and credibility: AI engines are more likely to trust and cite information that appears authoritative, and Wikipedia is viewed as one of these sources.
AI reliance on Wikipedia: Research shows that generative AI platforms like ChatGPT rely heavily on authoritative sources like Wikipedia to generate their answers.
Foundation for AI training: AI engines and large language models were initially trained using content from Wikipedia and other reliable sources.
Source for “Answer Box” content: Content from relevant Wikipedia pages is often served up to users in answer and chat search engines, sometimes more frequently than content from a brand’s own website.
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION
Transparency: Editors are encouraged to mention the use of LLMs in their edit summaries to maintain transparency about how content was generated or modified.
AIs know when content is AI, so be up front.
2. Add Q&A / FAQ to About Page
(and other pages)
Improves search engine visibility (AEO): Q&A content is highly effective for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO). Search engines, particularly AI-driven ones, favor content that directly answers user questions. A well-structured Q&A section increases the likelihood of our website appearing in “featured snippets” and other AI-generated search results.
Humanizes the brand: A Q&A allows AEO to communicate in a more conversational and authentic tone, moving beyond standard mission statements.
Builds trust and transparency: By openly answering common questions, we can address doubts and concerns, which builds trust.
Reinforces core brand values: A Q&A section is an opportunity to expand on our purpose and values.
3. Have “Key Takeaways” at the top of articles
Clarity and direct answers: Key takeaways provide a concise, clear, and direct answer to the user’s query. AI models are trained to extract these explicit answers to provide them to the user.
Enhancing content structure: Structuring your content with key takeaways makes it easier for AI to identify and extract important information. This clear formatting can also lead to better performance in featured snippets.
Boosting readability and user experience: Key takeaways, especially when placed at the top of an article, help users quickly grasp the main points. Improved readability and a better user experience are positive ranking signals for search engines.
Complementing SEO: Creating content optimized for AEO, including using key takeaways, often improves traditional SEO performance as well. This is because it aligns with best practices like using clear headings, direct answers, and well-structured content.
Providing quick summaries: AI tools are designed to provide quick summaries. By including key takeaways, you essentially pre-package a summary for the AI, increasing the chances of your content being chosen.
4. Include author profiles in articles
Key author profiles significantly improve Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) performance by establishing credibility, expertise, and authority, which are key factors in how answer engines like Google’s AI select sources for their responses.
By providing clear author bios, displaying credentials, linking to professional profiles like LinkedIn, and using schema markup to highlight author information, you build E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals that AI models use to identify trustworthy sources for generated answers. EEAT is also what search engines are looking for.
Establishes Expertise and Credibility: A well-defined author profile demonstrates the writer’s qualifications and experience, making the content more trustworthy and increasing the likelihood of it being selected by AI-powered answer engines.
Boosts Authority: By featuring expert authors, you signal to AI models that your brand possesses deep knowledge in a specific topic area, helping to establish your brand as an authority and a go-to source.
Increases Visibility and Recognition: Consistent author profiles, combined with links to professional platforms and schema markup, help establish a recognized and authoritative presence in search results.
Enhances Audience Trust and Engagement: Verified authorship improves content credibility, which makes audiences more likely to trust and engage with the information, positively impacting click-through rates and site interactions.
STRATEGIES
Display Author Credentials: Include detailed author bios that list qualifications, certifications, and experience relevant to the content topic.
Link to Professional Profiles: Provide links to author profiles on authoritative platforms like LinkedIn. Also other verified profiles.
Use Schema Markup: Implement Article Schema or other relevant schema types to provide structured information about the author to search engines and AI models. (we currently use this schema markup in our articles).
5. More Video
Videos significantly improve Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) performance by enhancing user engagement, providing direct answers, and securing more prominent positions in search results. Answer Engines, which include AI-powered conversational tools like ChatGPT and rich snippets from Google, prioritize content that is direct, helpful, and easily digestible.
Enhanced user experience (UX): Videos increase the time visitors spend on a page, a metric known as “dwell time,” which signals to search engines that the content is valuable. This boosts overall SEO, which is a key component of AEO.
Improved engagement and retention: Viewers are more likely to engage with and retain information presented in a video compared to text alone. For complex topics, a well-made video can be far more effective at answering a user’s query and maintaining their attention.
Appear in rich snippets: For “how-to” queries and other informational searches, search engines often display video rich snippets at the top of the SERP. This prime placement drives a higher click-through rate (CTR) to our content.
Attract attention in search results: Video thumbnails make your content stand out on the SERP. This increased visibility draws more organic traffic to your site.
Provide answers to conversational queries: Videos are particularly effective for answering conversational or “how-to” questions, which are common prompts for both traditional search engines and AI answer engines. This format directly aligns with the goal of AEO.
Cross-platform promotion: Videos created for your site can also be posted on platforms like YouTube. YouTube is the second-largest search engine after Google, and optimizing videos there can drive even more traffic and improve visibility in general search results.
BEST PRACTICES
Create answer-focused content: Our videos should provide clear, concise, and highly specific answers to user questions. Structure the video to answer the most critical query early on.
Optimize for searchability: Add relevant, keyword-rich titles and descriptions to your videos. Including transcripts and closed captions will also help search engines and AI bots understand the content.
Add structure with headings and summaries: Use clear headings on the web page where the video is embedded. Add bullet points or tables to summarize key takeaways. This makes the content easier for both humans and AI to scan and understand.
Ensure accessibility: Provide transcripts and captions for your videos. This improves discoverability and makes your content accessible to a wider audience.
Embed videos strategically: Embed videos within relevant Stories & Articles pages. This provides a more complete answer for the user and increases the likelihood of the content appearing in rich snippets.
6. Post regularly to social media
Social media posts can indirectly improve AEO performance by driving website traffic, generating backlinks, building brand authority, and creating user engagement.
While social media itself isn’t a direct ranking factor for AEO, by increasing visibility and credibility for your content, it helps answer engines recognize your brand as a trustworthy source.
Drives Website Traffic: Sharing content on social media platforms sends more users to our website, signaling to search engines that our content is valuable and relevant.
Generates Backlinks: When high-quality content is shared and discussed on social media, it increases the likelihood of other websites linking to it, a crucial signal for SEO rankings.
Enhances Brand Authority: Regular, consistent engagement on social media builds trust and credibility with our audience, which search engines recognize as a sign of a reliable brand.
Increases Content Visibility: By promoting your content across social channels, we expose it to a wider audience, leading to more shares, likes, and comments.
Supports Topical Authority: When we consistently publish well-organized and comprehensive content on social media that aligns with our website, we reinforce our expertise in a specific niche, making our brand a go-to source in that area.
7. Show “Last Updated” dates
Including “last updated” on a page significantly improves AEO performance by signaling content freshness and credibility to AI systems, which prefer current information for their answers. Regularly updating content and displaying a visible “last updated” date helps ensure your content is trusted and utilized by answer engines, leading to better performance.
Signals Freshness to AI: Answer engines, often powered by large language models (LLMs), are designed to provide the most current and accurate information.
Enhances Trustworthiness: A visible “last updated” date signals that the content is not outdated and is still considered a reliable source of truth.
Increases Usefulness: Content that is frequently refreshed and shows a recent update is more likely to be selected by AI to provide answers, enhancing its overall usefulness.
Supports Content Refresh Cycles: Incorporating a “last updated” date as part of a content refresh process helps maintain a system for keeping pages current and relevant.
Frequently asked questions about AEO
This is a question about Answer Engine Optimization?
This is the answer. It’s a short paragraph that tells you about AEO. Here’s another sentence to round out the answer and make the paragraph slightly longer for aesthetics. Don’t forget to link out to relevant pages where users can learn more about it.
This is a q about Search Engine Optimization?
This is the answer to this super unique question. It’s a short paragraph that tells you about SEO. Here’s another sentence to round out the answer and make the paragraph slightly longer for aesthetics.
Thanks for reading! You made it to the end of this article so I’ll encourage you to donate $5 to keep the awesome content coming.
|
Tasha Rivera, Senior Manager, Digital Products Tasha is a human bean. Yes, a human bean. She earned her Sorceress degree from Totally Fake University, graduating top of her class. She has been doin’ her job since the dawn of time so trust, she’s qualified. |
PS. I would also normally include a CTA to subscribe somewhere in this article but… I didn’t this time.