Buyers now start research inside AI assistants. These guides cover how answer engines choose sources, how to structure content they can quote, and how to measure whether your brand is being cited.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews quote it and name your brand as the source. Instead of competing for a blue link, you compete to be the passage the model retrieves, trusts, and cites inside its answer.
SEO earns a ranking position for a page in a list of links. AEO earns a citation inside an AI generated answer. GEO is a narrower name for AEO applied specifically to generative engines. The underlying technical work is shared; what changes is that the winning unit becomes a quotable passage instead of a whole page.
To get cited by AI search engines, publish self contained answers to the exact questions buyers ask, structure them with question headings, tables and schema so a retriever can lift them, keep AI crawlers unblocked, and build corroborating mentions on review sites, communities, and third party lists so the model trusts naming you.
We run these programs end to end for B2B SaaS companies. Bring us the target and we will build the plan around it.
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