What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of structuring your web content so that AI-powered answer engines, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google SGE, and Claude, can easily extract, understand, and cite your content in generated responses. Unlike traditional SEO, which targets ranking position in blue-link results, AEO targets being the *source* in an AI-generated answer. The fundamental techniques include: - **Structured data (JSON-LD)**: FAQPage, HowTo, Article, and Person schema help AI parse your content. - **Entity clarity**: Naming specific people, organizations, and places increases how well AI models understand your topic coverage. - **Q&A content structure**: Framing your headings as questions and answering them directly mirrors the format AI models prefer to cite. - **llms.txt**: An emerging standard that gives AI crawlers a machine-readable overview of your site.