Embedded Files
It wasn’t that long ago that search engine optimization (SEO) was the newest way to attract organic traffic to your website. Now, we have a new term to learn and reckon with to stay relevant with customers and leads online: AEO or answer engine optimization. Let’s take a look at what AEO is, how SEO vs AEO differ, how they build upon each other, and how you can best use AEO as part of your company’s strategic communications plan.
What is AEO?
What is AEO?
Answer Engine Optimization is the latest digital marketing strategy companies need to be aware of in order to grow their businesses and reach online audiences. In essence, AEO practices optimize your content so it appears on responses from AI chatboats and other AI text generators.
What’s the Difference between AEO vs SEO?
What’s the Difference between AEO vs SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) encompasses the practices your company uses to rank well and become a trusted source on search engines, like Bing and Google Search. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) describes the actions you take so AI text generators and chatbots, like ChatGPT, use the information from your website to answer user questions. Ideally, they’ll also refer to your website for more information and link to your webpage as a source.
How Do I Optimize My Website Content for AEO?
How Do I Optimize My Website Content for AEO?
Many of the same principles you use for search engine optimization are the same for answer engine optimization. This is great news because it likely means you won’t have to tweak your SEO content much to make your content AEO friendly. For example, you still want to focus on website content that is original, authoritative, and high-quality. Keywords (especially long-tail keywords), adding links, and keeping content fresh are all elements that are as important for AEO as SEO. That being said, there are a few other key elements of AEO that should hold extra weight in comparison to how much they matter for SEO rankings:
Boosting AEO with Natural Speech
Boosting AEO with Natural Speech
While writing with a natural cadence is an important SEO principle, writing content the same way people speak is even more vital when it comes to AEO. Many consumers are using their voice to get answers from AI chatbots. As you might expect, how people speak directly into their phone can be quite different from what they’ll type into an internet search bar. That means putting an emphasis on answering questions through your website content in a way that is conversational and casual.
AEO: A Focus on FAQs
AEO: A Focus on FAQs
AEO crawlers love FAQs. FAQs make it easy for crawlers to locate information and directly answer questions users ask chatbots. Write your FAQs so they are simple, easily digestible, and straight to the point. Avoid jargon or extra information. Your website’s FAQs should also be highly relevant and this requires really knowing your audience. They are frequently asked questions and not “rarely asked questions” for a reason.
How Can My Company Incorporate AEO into our Current Content Marketing Strategy?
How Can My Company Incorporate AEO into our Current Content Marketing Strategy?
If your company is ranking well on search engines, keep doing what you are doing and consider an added emphasis on FAQs and natural speech as part of your content marketing strategy. If you think your company’s SEO practices could be better or you struggle with coming up with a plan to add more FAQs to your current content, reach out to 406 Strategic Communications. In a free 30 minute consultation we can discuss how to boost your current content marketing strategy to be both search engine and answer engine optimized.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse