AEO vs SEO: What's the Difference and Which Do You Need?

SEO (search engine optimisation) aims to get your pages ranked and clicked in search results. AEO (answer engine optimisation) aims to get your content chosen as the direct answer, whether in a featured snippet, a voice assistant or an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews. They are not competing strategies: AEO is built on SEO, with extra attention to clear answers, structure and trust.

If an agency is selling you AEO as something completely separate from SEO, ask what they will do differently. The honest answer is usually "the same foundations, written and structured so they can be quoted".

What is SEO?

SEO is the work of making your website easy for search engines to find, understand and trust, so it ranks for the searches your customers make. It covers:

• technical health: indexing, speed, mobile, site structure
• content that matches what people search for
• on-page details: titles, headings, internal links
• authority: reviews, links and mentions from other sites
• local signals for businesses that serve an area

Success is measured in rankings, clicks and, most importantly, enquiries and sales.

What is AEO?

AEO is the practice of shaping your content so that systems which answer questions directly choose it. These "answer engines" include:

• Featured snippets and "People also ask" boxes in Google
• Voice assistants that read out a single answer
• AI search tools such as ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode

You may also see the terms GEO (generative engine optimisation) or LLMO (large language model optimisation). They describe the same idea with a focus on AI tools.

Success in AEO is measured differently: being cited or mentioned in the answer, and whether people who see that answer go on to visit or contact you.

AEO vs SEO: the key differences

The biggest difference is how the result is used. In traditional search, people click through and read your page. In an AI answer, they may read a summary that quotes you and only click when they need more detail or want to act.

Where AEO and SEO are the same

Much of what is sold as AEO is good SEO:

• You need to be indexed. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, with no additional requirements or special optimisations.
• You can't mark up your way in. Google says site owners can't mark a page as a featured snippet; its systems decide automatically.
• Expertise matters to both. Google's guidance on helpful content asks whether content is written or reviewed by someone who demonstrably knows the topic, and whether it offers original information or analysis. Those signals help pages rank and help AI systems choose trustworthy sources.

Where AEO adds something

There are a few things that matter more when the goal is to be quoted.

Answer the question in the first lines

Open each page or section with a direct two-to-three sentence answer, then expand. AI tools and featured snippets lift passages that stand on their own.

Use questions as headings

Headings that match real questions, such as "How long does an EICR take?", make it easy for answer engines to find the right passage. Good SEO does this too, but AEO makes it a habit.

Be specific and consistent

Answer engines prefer concrete facts: prices or price ranges, timescales, locations, steps and requirements. Your business details should match everywhere: website, Google Business Profile and directories. Conflicting information makes an AI less likely to recommend you.

Allow the right crawlers

Some AI tools use their own crawlers. OpenAI, for example, recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt if you want to appear in ChatGPT search results. Check that your robots.txt, firewall or security plugin isn't blocking the AI search crawlers you want to be found by.

Earn mentions elsewhere

AI tools often recommend businesses that other sources talk about: review sites, directories, industry publications, local press and forums. That has always helped SEO, but for AEO it can be the deciding factor.

A worked example

Take an electrician's page about electrical safety certificates for landlords.

Written only for SEO, it might target "EICR landlord" with a long introduction about the company, the history of the regulations and a contact form at the bottom. It can rank, but the answer a landlord wants is buried.

Written with AEO in mind, the same page opens with: "Landlords in England need an EICR at least every five years and must give a copy to tenants. An inspection for a typical two-bedroom flat takes two to four hours." It then has headings for the questions landlords actually ask: how much it costs, how long it takes, what happens if the result is unsatisfactory, and how quickly certificates are sent. Prices or ranges, the areas covered and the company's registration details are stated plainly.

Both versions target the same search. The second is more useful to a reader, more likely to be lifted into a featured snippet or AI answer, and more likely to convert the visitor who clicks. That is why we treat AEO as a way of writing, not a separate product.

Which do you need?

For most small and mid-size businesses, the answer is both, done as one plan:

1. Fix the SEO foundations: indexing, speed, mobile, titles and site structure.
2. Write pages that answer questions directly, with specific facts and clear headings.
3. Build trust: reviews, consistent details, author expertise and mentions on other sites.
4. Check AI tools regularly: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode what your customers would ask, and see whether you appear and what they say.

AEO deserves special attention if:

• your customers ask lots of "how", "what" and "which is best" questions before buying
• you sell expertise, such as professional services, B2B or technical products
• competitors are already being recommended by AI tools for your services

How to measure AEO

AEO is harder to measure than SEO because AI answers don't always send a click. Useful signals:

• Search Console impressions for question-style searches
• referral traffic from AI tools in your analytics
• regular manual checks of what AI assistants say about your business and competitors
• asking new customers where they heard about you, and including "ChatGPT or another AI tool" as an option

Frequently asked questions

If you want to know whether AI tools recommend your business, and what would change that, our AI search visibility service covers both sides, alongside our SEO and social media marketing work.