Services / AEO
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Get your brand cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, and measure whether it is working.
Search now has two layers
The results page still matters. But a growing share of questions get answered directly by AI assistants that summarize a few sources and skip the list of links. If your content is not structured for that layer, a chunk of your audience never sees you, even when you rank.
I have worked on AEO since before most agencies had a name for it, and I write about it regularly. I led AEO and technical SEO for enterprise health systems at Merge, where the bar for trust is higher than almost anywhere else, and I now lead AEO for nonprofit and social-impact clients at Whole Whale.
What an AEO program covers
Visibility baseline. We pick the questions your buyers or patients actually ask and check which brands each AI assistant cites today.
Content structure. Pages get rebuilt around direct, self-contained answers, question-based headings and the 40-word paragraph rule so AI systems can extract them cleanly.
Entities and schema. Consistent organization, person, service and medical schema, plus the off-site signals that tell AI systems who you are.
Technical access. AI crawler rules, server-rendered content, llms.txt and page speed, the technical foundation every GEO strategy needs.
Reporting. Citation share across assistants, tracked monthly next to your SEO numbers.
Healthcare AEO
Health content gets extra scrutiny from both Google and AI systems. My healthcare work focuses on clinician authorship, source citation, provider and condition schema, and content that answers patient questions without overstepping. See why healthcare content needs different AEO tactics.
Want the full framework first? Read the AEO Playbook.
Related work
- Whole WhalePlugins, browser extensions, Claude skills, chat functions and reporting automations that package an agency's SEO and AEO processes into one-click workflows.
- Merge (enterprise healthcare clients)Conversational AI that helps patients find services and care information, built alongside AEO and technical SEO programs for enterprise health systems.
- Citrus Spine ClinicA new Florida spine clinic site grew from 2.7K to 39.4K quarterly search clicks and outranked Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins for spine terms.
Questions
What is answer engine optimization?
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews can find it, understand it and cite it in their answers. It builds on SEO but focuses on clear self-contained answers, entity signals, structured data and source credibility rather than rankings alone.
What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
The terms overlap. AEO usually means getting specific content pulled into AI answers for specific questions. GEO, generative engine optimization, is broader and longer term: making your brand a recognized, trusted entity that AI systems mention by name. A good program does both.
How do you measure AEO results?
I track a fixed set of priority questions across the major AI assistants and record whether your brand is cited, mentioned or absent, alongside Search Console data, AI referral traffic in analytics and branded search trends. Reporting shows movement against that baseline rather than vanity metrics.
Does AEO replace SEO?
No. AI systems still rely heavily on content that ranks and is crawlable, so technical SEO and strong content remain the foundation. AEO changes how that content is structured and how success is measured.
Further reading
Need help with AEO?
Email brubeckunhammer@gmail.com or use the project form. Tell me where things stand and what a good result looks like.