More of your customers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI answers instead of scrolling through links. Those answers name a few businesses and sources. Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of becoming one of them.
How AI answers pick sources
Most AI answer tools search the web, read the pages that look most useful for the question, and summarize them, often with citations. They favor pages that answer the question directly, information that's consistent across many sites, and sources other sites already trust. The details differ by tool and change often, but those three signals keep showing up.
What actually helps
- Answer real questions on your own pages. One clear question per section, answered in the first two sentences, with specifics: prices or ranges, timelines, service areas.
- Keep your business details identical everywhere. Name, address, phone, hours and services should match across your site, Google Business Profile and directories.
- Fill out your Google Business Profile completely and keep it active with photos, posts and answered questions.
- Earn reviews that mention specifics. "Fixed our AC the same day in Irvine" tells an AI more than "Great service."
- Add structured data. Schema markup for your business, services and FAQs helps machines read your pages.
- Get mentioned on sites people trust: local news, industry associations, partner pages.
What doesn't help
Keyword stuffing, dozens of thin near-identical pages, and AI-written filler. Answer tools are built to skip all three.
How to check where you stand
- Write down ten questions your customers ask before they buy.
- Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and note who gets named and which pages get cited.
- Repeat monthly. When competitors show up and you don't, look at what their cited page does that yours doesn't.
AEO builds on good SEO rather than replacing it. The businesses that show up in AI answers are usually the ones with clear, specific, consistent information everywhere.