Answer Engine Optimisation, or AEO, is the love child of traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and AI, specifically Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT, Bing Chat, and Google’s Gemini that powers its AI Overviews.
While SEO focuses on increasing the visibility of your website and driving organic traffic, AEO aims explicitly to ensure your business or organisation is featured within queries entered into AI-powered platforms as part of their answers.
The most common platforms people use are ChatGPT, which has been eating away at Google’s dominance in search, and increasingly Google AI Overviews, which Google has begun to embed into its search engine.
What is a Google AI Overview?
A Google AI Overview appears as an answer to, primarily, questions entered into Google Search.
You’ll see this appear close to the top of the search results, often with two key attributes.
The first is a detailed answer to the query a user has searched. Within that answer, you will notice the link icon which indicates the source of the information used by Google’s Gemini for formulate the AI Overview.
The second column can feature snippets from the website(s) the AI Overview suggests as part of the answer.
Why is AEO important?
During the first three months of 2025, the percentage of Google searches that triggered an AI Overview on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP), increased from 6.49% to 13.14%, and that percentage continues to increase.
(Source: https://www.semrush.com/blog/semrush-ai-overviews-study/)
And according to leading SEO solutions provider, Ahrefs, AI overviews reduce clicks by 34.5%
Although Amsive discovered some improvement in click-through rates for branded searches with an 18% improvement. However, currently AI Overviews are only generated for less than 5% of branded searches.
(Branded Searches refer to the terms that relate to a brand or business, for example ‘Forte Marketing.)
(source: https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks/)
And while it is possible to ‘discover’ links within an AI Overview, currently, there is no way to track or distinguish that traffic from other Google Search features.
However, the general consensus is that AI Overviews aim to answer the query so that the user doesn’t need to visit another website. Which in turn, reduces traffic.
How to get your website into ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
Just like SEO, there is no magic formula to guarantee citation within these AI-powered tools. However, there are steps we can take to help increase the visibility and chances of citation.
The basics
Your website first needs to be visible and accessible for crawlers to find and discover your content. Similar to SEO, this means that your site needs to be crawlable and indexed.
Your website’s performance plays a big part in prioritising your content. So, as we do for SEO, we ensure your site is fast and mobile-friendly.
Naturally, the more reputable or trustworthy a source is, the more weight it carries on a topic. All our SEO strategies for content focus on Google’s E-E-A-T principles, and AEO is no different.
Targeting
Currently the nature of ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews are focused on ‘information’ or solving problems. This is important to note when it comes to targeting, as it’s unlikely these will be useful for single keywords. These AI-powered tools are much more likely to be used or visible for long-tail searches.
High intent queries
When it boils down to prioritising the keywords you should focus on, we look at those keywords that show high intent. In the world of AEO these will generally focus on clusters of questions, that a person could use to discover the product, service or specific feature you provide that solves their problem.
Organic search results
Generally speaking, your current search visibility is an indicator of your online reputation and quality of content; therefore, ranking within the top 10 should still be a priority.
Writing style
The key difference in content generation is the writing style. There’s no fluff or filler when it comes to the results generated in Google’s AI Overviews. Therefore our writing style adapts to simplify and humanise the content to ensure clarity and to mirror the writing style used within these tools.
Ask for help
If you’re unsure where to start, we can help you increase your brand’s visibility. Reach out for a free consultation.
