Answer engine optimisation (AEO)
Be the answer on Google and in AI assistants
When someone asks a question about what you do, Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and voice assistants often answer it themselves. We make sure the answer comes from you.
What is answer engine optimisation (AEO)?
Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of shaping your web pages so that search engines and AI assistants, such as Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT and Siri, can lift a short, accurate answer from them and show it to the person asking, with a credit back to you.
Sound familiar?
Do any of these ring a bell?
Same questions, every day?
If you answer the same questions on the phone all week, your website should be answering them first.
Competitors in the AI box?
Search your main service on Google. If an AI Overview appears and quotes someone else, that’s an answer we can win back.
Lots of visits, few calls?
People may be reading your pages without finding the answer they came for. Clear answers turn readers into enquiries.
What you get
Everything that makes your pages easy to quote
Question research
We gather the questions your customers really ask, from calls, emails, reviews and Google’s own suggestions.
Answer-first rewrites
Each key page leads with a short, clear answer under a question heading, then explains in more detail.
Schema markup
Behind-the-scenes code that tells Google and AI assistants who you are, what you offer and what each page answers.
Featured snippets
Lists, tables and definitions laid out so Google can show them at the top of the results.
Voice and local answers
Short answers for spoken and “near me” questions, tied to your Google Business Profile.
Monthly answer tracking
A simple report on which questions you’re the answer for, and which a competitor has.
Why it matters now
The answer now comes before the links
- 1bn+
people a month use Google’s AI Mode.
Source: Alphabet, Q2 2026
- 60%
of Google searches starting “who”, “what”, “when” or “why” showed an AI summary.
Source: Pew Research Center, 2025
- 1%
of visits included a click on a link inside the AI summary.
Source: Pew Research Center, 2025
- 58%
fewer clicks for the top result when an AI Overview appears.
Source: Ahrefs, Feb 2026
How it works
From questions to quotable answers
Question audit
We collect and rank the questions that lead to enquiries.
Gap check
We see which answers you already own, which a competitor owns, and which nobody owns yet.
Rewrite and mark up
Answer-first copy, clear headings, tables and schema on your key pages.
Technical checks
Speed, indexing and crawler access, so every answer can actually be found.
Track and refine
A monthly report, then the next set of questions.
Want to know more?
Our plain-English guide to AEO
How answer engines pick an answer, a 10-step checklist you can start on today, and the mistakes we see most often.
Questions
Your questions, answered
Is AEO different from SEO?
AEO builds on SEO. SEO helps your pages rank; AEO shapes what’s on those pages so it can be quoted as a direct answer. You need both.
Does AEO work for local businesses?
Yes, really well. Local questions about prices, opening times and “who does this near me” are often answered directly, and a clear answer backed by an accurate Google Business Profile does nicely.
Will AEO mean fewer people visit my website?
Some simple questions will be answered without a click whatever anyone does. AEO makes sure the answer names you, which leads to more people searching for you by name and more visitors who are ready to act.
How do you measure it?
We track a fixed set of questions each month, along with Search Console impressions, visits from AI assistants, searches for your name, and the enquiries those pages bring in.
Your next step
starts here
Every hour you put into marketing should pay you back. Give us a call, drop us a message or WhatsApp us, and we’ll help you work out what to do next. No hard sell, promise.
We’re based in Brighton and work with businesses across Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey, London and the rest of the UK. Areas we cover