ANSWER ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Win citations, not only clicks
AEO is how you make content the source assistants and answer surfaces actually quote — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. TrustSEO scores those signals on every audit, alongside classic SEO checks.
What AEO means in practice
Search engines still matter — but users increasingly get a single synthesized answer. AEO is the discipline of making your pages easy to quote, verify, and trust in those contexts. It overlaps with GEO (generative engine optimization): both focus on visibility in AI-mediated results.
Structured answers
FAQPage, Article, and Person schema so engines can extract facts, authors, and Q&As cleanly.
Question-shaped content
Headings and copy that match how people ask in chat and voice — not only keyword strings.
Evidence & authority
Stats, citations, and E-E-A-T cues that research ties to citation rates in AI-style results.
Crawl & discovery
robots.txt for AI crawlers, llms.txt, HTTPS, and clear contact/about signals.
Classic SEO vs. AEO
| Classic SEO focus | AEO focus |
|---|---|
| Rank for a keyword list | Be the source an answer engine quotes |
| Optimize for ten blue links | Optimize for one definitive snippet or card |
| Title + meta first | Structure + trust + extractability first |
See how your site scores
The audit lists passes, warnings, and concrete fixes for every AEO signal — AI crawler access, llms.txt, schema coverage, question-shaped structure and trust pages. Then the tracker shows whether the engines actually name you when buyers ask.
Become trusted by answer engines
Run a free scan — see your AI-readiness score and the exact signals to fix, in seconds, no card.
Run the free AEO audit →