What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of improving how a brand appears in AI-generated responses from systems like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Instead of focusing only on webpage rankings, AEO aims to help a company become part of the answers and recommendations users receive.

How is AEO different from traditional SEO?

Traditional SEO focuses on earning clicks from search engine results pages. AEO focuses on influencing which brands and products are mentioned or recommended directly inside AI-generated answers. The goal shifts from traffic acquisition to inclusion at the decision layer.

Why is my brand not appearing in AI answers?

AI systems prioritize sources that are clear, authoritative, and easy to interpret. Brands often miss inclusion because their content lacks structured data, consistent entity signals, trusted third-party references, or clear answers to common buyer questions.

How do AI systems choose which brands to recommend?

Answer engines evaluate a combination of factors such as relevance to the question, strength of authority signals, corroboration across multiple sources, structured information, and overall clarity. Brands that are frequently referenced and easy to verify are more likely to be selected.

Can AEO increase sales for e-commerce brands?

Yes. When a product is recommended directly in an AI response, it appears at the moment a buyer is making a decision. This can influence consideration, preference, and purchase behavior, even if the user never visits a traditional search results page.

What factors influence inclusion in ChatGPT or Google AI results?

Common influences include high-quality content, consistent brand mentions across reputable sites, structured schema markup, clear product and category definitions, and alignment with real user questions and intent.

How long does it take to improve AI visibility?

Timelines vary depending on competition and current authority. Some improvements can be observed in weeks, while broader recognition often requires sustained work across content, technical structure, and third-party validation.

Do I need new content to rank in AI answers?

Not always. Many brands can improve inclusion by restructuring existing content, clarifying entities, strengthening signals across external sources, and better aligning pages to the questions buyers ask.

How do you measure performance in answer engines?

Performance is measured by tracking whether a brand appears for important questions, how often it is cited, the context of those mentions, and how visibility changes over time relative to competitors.

What does an AEO agency actually do?

An AEO agency analyzes how AI systems interpret a brand, identifies gaps preventing inclusion, and implements content, technical, and authority improvements to increase the likelihood of being recommended in answers.

The Complete AI Visibility (AEO) Checklist for Brand Websites

Key takeaways

Answer engines rely on clarity, consistency, and machine-readable structure.
Your product, price, availability, shipping, and returns must match across UI, schema, and feeds.
Weak entity signals or conflicting data reduce the chance of being cited.
Crawlability and canonical control are prerequisites for visibility.
The best-performing pages answer real buying and comparison questions directly.
AEO success is measured by inclusion rate, not just rankings.
Most gains usually come from fixing a small number of high-impact templates.

What is AEO: Selection, measurement, and how It Differs from SEO?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of making a website’s information clear, structured, and trustworthy so AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, etc. can confidently select it when generating answers.

Instead of competing only for blue-link rankings, AEO focuses on how machines interpret entities like products, policies, and brand facts, how they compare those signals across sources, and whether your data is consistent enough to be cited. Success is therefore measured by inclusion rate and share of voice across prompts, not just traffic, and teams typically rely on a mix of question research, visibility monitoring, and structured-data validation tools to find gaps and fix them.

Traditional SEO still supports discovery, but AEO determines whether your content is actually used inside the response a customer sees. For a step-by-step breakdown, frameworks, and implementation guidance, see the full guide on our blog.

The Complete AEO Checklist for Brand Websites

This checklist is for e-commerce operators, marketers, and developers responsible for the pages where buying decisions actually happen. Clear structure, consistent data, and explicit decision-support information make it easier for AI answer engines to retrieve and use your content. Without that foundation, even strong brands risk being invisible at the moment customers ask what to buy.

Head section

This includes the meta tags, titles, descriptions, structured data (JSON-LD), and technical head hygiene of your website

Page title (<title>)
- Ideal: Unique, specific, includes primary entity + primary offering + qualifier (brand at end).
- Tips: Front-load what the page is (“Women’s Trail Running Shoes – Brand”). Keep consistent with on-page H1.
- Notes: Avoid keyword stuffing; ensure every core page has a distinct title.
Meta description (<meta name="description">)
- Ideal: 1–2 sentences describing offering, differentiation, and trust proof; matches page intent.
- Tips: Include concrete details (materials, shipping, warranty, ratings). Use a clear “why you” sentence.
- Notes: While not a direct ranking factor everywhere, it improves snippet quality and relevance.
Canonical URL (<link rel="canonical">)
- Ideal: Points to the preferred URL (no tracking params, consistent trailing slash policy).
- Tips: Canonicalize variant URLs (collections with filters, UTM params).
- Notes: Reduces entity fragmentation for models and indexers.
Robots meta (<meta name="robots">)
- Ideal: index,follow for indexable pages; correct noindex only where intended.
- Tips: Audit templates to ensure category/PDP pages are not accidentally noindex.
- Notes: Misconfigured robots is a common visibility killer.
Viewport (<meta name="viewport">)
- Ideal: Responsive configuration.
- Tips: Ensure mobile layout is readable and content parity exists.
- Notes: Mobile experience affects crawl and downstream usage.
Language/locale (<html lang="…">, optional hreflang)
- Ideal: Correct lang; hreflang for true multi-region/multi-language sites.
- Tips: Make country/language variants explicit; avoid mixing locales on one URL.
- Notes: Prevents ambiguous entity and product targeting.
Open Graph / social cards (og:title, og:description, og:image, twitter:card)
- Ideal: Mirrors page identity, uses a representative image, correct URL.
- Tips: Use consistent branding + product imagery; ensure absolute URLs.
- Notes: Helps models and scrapers that use social metadata.
Favicons/app icons
- Ideal: Present and consistent across sizes.
- Tips: Include icon, apple-touch-icon, manifest if relevant.
- Notes: Minor, but contributes to brand coherence.
Web app manifest (manifest.json)
- Ideal: Present if PWA/app-like; includes name, icons, colors.
- Tips: Keep brand name consistent with Organization schema.
- Notes: Optional but can reduce ambiguity.
Structured data: Organization
- Ideal: JSON-LD Organization (or Brand), with name, url, logo, sameAs.
- Tips: Add verified social profiles and marketplaces in sameAs.
- Notes: Anchor your brand entity for AI systems.
Structured data: Website + SearchAction
- Ideal: WebSite with potentialAction SearchAction (site search URL template).
- Tips: Only include if you actually have site search.
- Notes: Helps engines understand site-level navigation intent.
Structured data: WebPage
- Ideal: WebPage (or ItemPage / CollectionPage) with name, description, primaryImageOfPage.
- Tips: Use correct subtype per page type (home, collection, PDP, about, contact).
- Notes: Improves page classification.
Structured data: BreadcrumbList
- Ideal: BreadcrumbList on all non-home pages; matches visible breadcrumbs.
- Tips: Keep it stable and hierarchical.
- Notes: Helps product/category context.
Structured data: Product (on PDPs)
- Ideal: Product with name, image, description, sku, brand, gtin (when available), offers.
- Tips: Include variant handling (size/color) cleanly; ensure price/currency/availability are accurate.
- Notes: This is one of the highest-leverage items for e-commerce AI visibility.
Structured data: Offer / AggregateOffer
- Ideal: Offer (or AggregateOffer if price ranges) with price, priceCurrency, availability, url, itemCondition.
- Tips: Keep in sync with page UI and feeds; update fast on changes.
- Notes: Mismatches can reduce trust.
Structured data: ShippingDetails + ReturnPolicy
- Ideal: OfferShippingDetails + MerchantReturnPolicy (where supported), reflecting real policy.
- Tips: Make policies explicit and consistent sitewide.
- Notes: Helps AI answer “shipping/returns” questions confidently.
Structured data: Reviews / AggregateRating
- Ideal: AggregateRating and Review markup only when reviews are displayed and policy-compliant.
- Tips: Use first-party displayed reviews; include rating values, count, authors when available.
- Notes: Avoid marking up reviews you don’t show.
Structured data: FAQPage (only where FAQs are visible)
- Ideal: FAQPage with questions/answers matching the on-page FAQ section.
- Tips: Keep answers short, factual, and non-promotional.
- Notes: Don’t use FAQ schema for hidden content.
Structured data: VideoObject (if product videos exist)
- Ideal: VideoObject with name, description, thumbnailUrl, uploadDate, contentUrl/embedUrl.
- Tips: Provide transcripts/captions.
- Notes: Useful for multimodal answer engines.
Structured data: ImageObject (optional but helpful)
- Ideal: Key images described with caption and URLs.
- Tips: Use consistent naming for primary product imagery.
- Notes: Helps disambiguation.
Structured data: About/mentions (entity linking)
- Ideal: Where appropriate, about references to category entities.
- Tips: Use consistent taxonomy language across pages.
- Notes: Helps models map you into the right conceptual space.
No conflicting structured data
- Ideal: One coherent graph; no duplicate contradictory entities.
- Tips: Generate schema from a single source of truth; validate on templates.
- Notes: Conflicts reduce trust.
JSON-LD placement and integrity
- Ideal: JSON-LD in head or body, valid JSON, stable IDs.
- Tips: Use @id for Organization and reuse it across pages.
- Notes: Stability helps entity consolidation.
Metadata consistency checks
- Ideal: Title/description/H1/Product.name/Offer.url all align.
- Tips: Template-driven coherence.
- Notes: Misalignment is a common cause of “AI misreads.”
Performance-critical head hygiene
- Ideal: Avoid blocking scripts; preconnect critical domains.
- Tips: Keep head lean; defer non-essential scripts.
- Notes: Faster rendering increases crawl reliability.
Content parity on SSR
- Ideal: Core content is server-rendered or reliably rendered for bots.
- Tips: Avoid “empty shell” pages that hydrate late.
- Notes: Many AI crawlers do not execute heavy JS well.
No cloaking / consistent rendering
- Ideal: Same content for users and bots.
- Tips: Don’t special-case user agents.
- Notes: Trust and index integrity.
Security headers (indirect trust)
- Ideal: HTTPS everywhere; HSTS; no mixed content.
- Tips: Fix insecure asset loads.
- Notes: Prevents content stripping by crawlers.
Structured data validation
- Ideal: No errors; warnings understood.
- Tips: Validate templates + sampled pages after deploy.
- Notes: Treat as a release gate.
Knowledge panel readiness signals
- Ideal: Consistent logo, name, sameAs, about/contact pages.
- Tips: Use one brand spelling everywhere.
- Notes: Reduces entity ambiguity.

Site-level files and endpoints

This section includes file and endpoint setup for AI crawler access, discovery, and AI-readable site controls.

robots.txt
- Ideal: Allows crawl for key user agents; references sitemap(s).
- Tips: Don’t block CSS/JS needed for rendering; explicitly allow important directories.
- Notes: A single bad disallow can tank discovery.
Sitemap index (sitemap.xml)
- Ideal: Uses a sitemap index if large; includes canonical URLs only.
- Tips: Separate sitemaps for products, collections, pages; keep under size limits.
- Notes: Keep lastmod accurate.
Product sitemap quality
- Ideal: Only active, canonical, indexable PDPs.
- Tips: Exclude discontinued/out-of-stock if you noindex them; otherwise keep consistent.
- Notes: Consistency matters more than “include everything.”
Collection/category sitemap
- Ideal: Canonical collections that are meant to rank.
- Tips: Avoid indexing infinite filter combinations.
- Notes: Prevent crawl bloat.
llms.txt
- Ideal: A concise, curated “how to use this site” for LLMs: key URLs, brand facts, product catalog entry points, policies.
- Tips: Include: brand name, what you sell, top categories, support/returns/shipping links, contact, canonical domain rules.
- Notes: Keep it factual, stable, and updated; link to structured pages.
ai.txt (if used)
- Ideal: Clear usage policy for AI systems (if the brand wants one).
- Tips: Keep aligned with legal terms.
- Notes: Optional; don’t contradict robots.
/.well-known/ endpoints
- Ideal: Only where relevant (security, app association, payments).
- Tips: Ensure no accidental exposure of internal data.
- Notes: Not required for AEO, but keep clean.
humans.txt
- Ideal: Optional; can include company attribution.
- Tips: Keep minimal.
- Notes: Low leverage.
ads.txt / app-ads.txt
- Ideal: Only if running ads ecosystem where required.
- Tips: Ensure accuracy if present.
- Notes: Not AEO-critical.
security.txt
- Ideal: Security contact; disclosure policy.
- Tips: Include a monitored email.
- Notes: Trust signal.
Site search endpoint
- Ideal: Accessible, index-safe (avoid indexing internal search result pages unless intentional).
- Tips: Ensure search results aren’t crawl traps.
- Notes: Helps with WebSite SearchAction.
Faceted navigation controls
- Ideal: Parameter handling via canonical tags; optionally robots rules or parameter policies.
- Tips: Block or canonicalize filter permutations; keep one indexable “best” version.
- Notes: Prevents diluted AI understanding of “the category page.”
Pagination handling
- Ideal: Clean paginated URLs; canonical typically to self (not always page 1).
- Tips: Ensure products are discoverable without infinite scroll barriers.
- Notes: Infinite scroll needs crawlable page URLs.
HTTP status hygiene
- Ideal: 200 for live pages, 301 for permanent moves, 404/410 for removed.
- Tips: Avoid soft-404s.
- Notes: Clean edges help crawlers build reliable maps.
Redirect map consistency
- Ideal: No chains; no loops.
- Tips: One hop wherever possible.
- Notes: Chains reduce crawl efficiency.
Content encoding / compression
- Ideal: Gzip/Brotli enabled.
- Tips: Ensure text is not blocked or transformed incorrectly.
- Notes: Speed and reliability.
Structured feeds (optional but powerful)
- Ideal: Merchant Center / product feed endpoints where applicable.
- Tips: Keep feed consistent with schema and on-page data.
- Notes: Not “blog”; still site-level commerce visibility.
Clean URL structure
- Ideal: Stable, readable, category/product slugs, no random IDs exposed to users.
- Tips: Keep slugs consistent if renamed; 301 old to new.
- Notes: Stability helps AI memory.
International targeting files
- Ideal: Correct hreflang + sitemap hreflang if used.
- Tips: Don’t mix currencies/regions on one URL.
- Notes: Prevents confusion in answers.
Monitoring and change detection
- Ideal: Automated checks for robots/sitemap/schema regressions.
- Tips: Treat as CI checks on deploy.
- Notes: Prevents accidental deindexing.

On-page website content

This section includes optimizations for headings, body structure, CTAs, media, FAQs, footer trust, and commerce clarity on your website

Single, unambiguous H1
- Ideal: States the page’s primary purpose (Home: value proposition; PDP: product name; Collection: category).
- Tips: Match H1 to title and schema name.
- Notes: Avoid multiple H1s from component reuse.
Clear H2/H3 hierarchy
- Ideal: H2s represent major sections; H3s represent subsections.
- Tips: Use consistent templates: “Features”, “Materials”, “Sizing”, “Shipping”, “Returns”, “FAQs”.
- Notes: Helps extraction into answers.
Direct, factual “What it is” block near top
- Ideal: 2–4 sentences defining product/category and who it’s for.
- Tips: Use measurable attributes (dimensions, materials, compatibility).
- Notes: High leverage for AI summaries.
Primary CTA clarity
- Ideal: CTA label matches action (“Add to cart”, “Choose size”, “Subscribe & save”).
- Tips: Keep one primary CTA; reduce competing CTAs above the fold.
- Notes: Improves intent interpretation.
Variant selection UX (size/color/etc.)
- Ideal: Crawl-visible variant labels; default selection handling is clear.
- Tips: Ensure unavailable variants are labeled; show what changes (price, images, SKU).
- Notes: Helps models answer “does it come in X?”
Price visibility and format
- Ideal: Clearly displayed price, currency; show sale price and original when applicable.
- Tips: Keep consistent with Offer schema and any feeds.
- Notes: Avoid ambiguous ranges without explanation.
Availability / stock messaging
- Ideal: Clear in-stock/backorder/preorder states.
- Tips: Use consistent terms; provide expected ship dates if backordered.
- Notes: Frequently asked by answer engines.
Shipping promise block
- Ideal: Shipping cost, thresholds, carriers, estimated delivery windows.
- Tips: Provide region-specific detail if needed.
- Notes: Also align with ShippingDetails markup.
Returns/warranty block
- Ideal: Return window, condition, process; warranty length and coverage.
- Tips: Link to full policy; summarize on PDP.
- Notes: High trust and conversion.
Trust proofs near decision points
- Ideal: Ratings summary, review count, guarantees, secure checkout badges (not spammy).
- Tips: Use real, verifiable proofs.
- Notes: Avoid deceptive badges.
Testimonials and reviews structure
- Ideal: Review text, star rating, date, reviewer name (where permitted), and product association.
- Tips: Add “most helpful” sorting carefully; keep review content indexable if intended.
- Notes: Must match any Review schema.
FAQ section (on PDP and key pages)
- Ideal: 6–12 FAQs that answer common objections and compatibility questions.
- Tips: Use short answers (1–3 sentences) + link to details.
- Notes: Keep FAQs non-duplicative across many pages where possible.
Specifications table
- Ideal: Scannable specs (dimensions, weight, materials, care, included items).
- Tips: Use consistent units; avoid “see image” for specs.
- Notes: Extremely useful for AI extraction.
Care instructions / usage guidance
- Ideal: Simple steps; warnings where relevant.
- Tips: Use bullet lists.
- Notes: Reduces returns and helps “how do I use/clean” queries.
Comparison block (if multiple products)
- Ideal: A compare table among variants or related SKUs.
- Tips: Keep factual; include differentiators and use cases.
- Notes: Helps “which should I buy” prompts.
Internal linking between core pages
- Ideal: PDP links to category, related products, key policies; category links to subcategories.
- Tips: Use descriptive anchor text.
- Notes: Helps crawling and semantic clustering.
Image alt text
- Ideal: Descriptive of what’s shown + product name/variant where relevant.
- Tips: Don’t keyword stuff; reflect variant attributes (“Black leather crossbody bag, front view”).
- Notes: Aids multimodal systems and accessibility.
Image filenames and captions
- Ideal: Clean, descriptive filenames; captions for key explanatory images.
- Tips: Standardize variant naming.
- Notes: Helps disambiguation.
Video content with transcript/captions
- Ideal: Captions present; optionally a transcript section.
- Tips: Provide a short summary of what the video demonstrates.
- Notes: Improves retrieval and summarization.
Above-the-fold entity clarity (homepage)
- Ideal: Brand name + category + value prop in plain language.
- Tips: Include “We sell X for Y” rather than only slogans.
- Notes: Slogans alone are low-signal for AI.
About / brand story page quality
- Ideal: Clear founding story, what you make, where, why, materials, mission.
- Tips: Include real-world details (location, years in business).
- Notes: Strengthens brand entity.
Contact page completeness
- Ideal: Email, phone, address (if applicable), support hours, response time.
- Tips: Use consistent formatting; link to help center.
- Notes: Trust and “is this legitimate” signals.
Footer consistency
- Ideal: Repeat key trust links: shipping, returns, warranty, contact, privacy, terms.
- Tips: Add social links that match sameAs.
- Notes: Helps crawlers find policies.
NAP consistency (if there is a physical presence)
- Ideal: Name, address, phone number identical across site.
- Tips: Match Google Business Profile if relevant.
- Notes: Entity consolidation.
Customer support content
- Ideal: Help topics that answer “where is my order”, “returns”, “sizing”.
- Tips: Keep as part of the website (not blog).
- Notes: High visibility in AI answers.
Policy pages: privacy, terms, accessibility
- Ideal: Present, linked in footer; accessibility statement if applicable.
- Tips: Ensure these pages are indexable unless legal requires otherwise.
- Notes: Trust.
Merchant legitimacy signals
- Ideal: Clear business identifiers where applicable (company name, support channels, location).
- Tips: Avoid “mystery brand” presentation.
- Notes: AI systems are conservative about recommending questionable merchants.
Structured, crawlable navigation
- Ideal: HTML links present; avoid nav that requires JS to reveal all links.
- Tips: Ensure category tree is crawlable.
- Notes: Better discovery of PDPs and collections.
Avoid thin/duplicate category pages
- Ideal: Category pages have intro copy, buying guidance, featured filters, and FAQs.
- Tips: Add a short “how to choose” section.
- Notes: Helps “best X for Y” queries even without a blog.
Pagination / infinite scroll content access
- Ideal: Products accessible via paginated URLs.
- Tips: Provide “Load more” with crawlable next pages.
- Notes: Prevents partial indexing.
On-page consistency with structured data
- Ideal: Product name, price, availability, ratings match schema exactly.
- Tips: Derive both UI and schema from the same data source.
- Notes: Consistency drives trust.
Avoid misleading claims
- Ideal: Claims are substantiated (certifications, “#1”, “clinically proven”).
- Tips: Link to evidence/certifications where possible.
- Notes: Unsupported claims reduce recommendation likelihood.
UGC and Q&A (if present)
- Ideal: Moderated, relevant; questions answered succinctly.
- Tips: Summarize recurring answers in official FAQ/specs.
- Notes: Great for AI extraction if clean.
Accessibility and semantic HTML
- Ideal: Proper heading order, labels, ARIA only when needed.
- Tips: Buttons are buttons, links are links.
- Notes: Semantic correctness improves machine readability.
No intrusive interstitials
- Ideal: Popups do not block content for crawlers/users.
- Tips: Delay prompts; ensure dismissible; avoid full-screen blockers on first load.
- Notes: Can break rendering and extraction.
Cookie banners and consent tooling
- Ideal: Does not hide core content behind overlays.
- Tips: Keep banners lightweight and accessible.
- Notes: Prevents “empty page” crawls.
404/out-of-stock UX and SEO behavior
- Ideal: Out-of-stock PDP stays live with alternatives; discontinued uses 410 or redirect to closest match.
- Tips: Provide “similar products” links.
- Notes: Preserves earned visibility.
Store locator (if applicable)
- Ideal: Individual location pages with hours, address, phone, map, services.
- Tips: Use LocalBusiness schema on location pages.
- Notes: Website-level, not blog.
Brand + category glossary (if needed)
- Ideal: Short definitions for niche materials/terms (e.g., “Veg-tan leather”).
- Tips: Keep factual; cross-link from PDP specs.
- Notes: Helps answer engines explain products.
Evidence of freshness
- Ideal: “Last updated” on policy pages; accurate stock/pricing updates.
- Tips: Don’t fake timestamps; ensure they’re real.
- Notes: Freshness is a trust cue.

Top 30 AEO-friendly formatting rules for website content

Use short paragraphs (1 to 3 sentences)
Lead with the answer, then add detail
Prefer declarative statements over narrative
Use simple sentence construction
One idea per paragraph
Use descriptive section headers
Maintain a strict H2 → H3 hierarchy
Use bullet or numbered lists whenever possible
Keep terminology consistent across pages
Use the same product and brand names everywhere
Avoid synonyms for critical entities
Avoid metaphors, analogies, or humor
Avoid marketing superlatives without evidence
Replace vague language with measurable facts
Put definitions in dedicated blocks
Repeat important nouns rather than pronouns
Make relationships explicit (product → feature → benefit)
Use tables for specs and comparisons
Keep formatting predictable across templates
Answer common follow-up questions near the primary answer
Ensure visible content matches structured data
Prefer text over meaning embedded only in images.
Write dates, currencies, and units in standard formats
Avoid unnecessary filler or storytelling before facts
Break complex topics into labeled subsections
Use internal links with descriptive anchor text
Highlight constraints and exceptions clearly
Provide complete policy summaries, not hints
Keep navigation labels literal
Update outdated statements promptly