Just because you’re shouting doesn’t mean you’re right | the rise and fall of AEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is your best bet at getting your website + content found online by other humans searching for your product or service. Search engines like Google decide which sites + pages to show searchers based on what they think will best answer their query. By optimizing your website, you’re telling Google (and other search engines) to trust you + that your content has value so they’ll show it to users.
With the rise (invasion) of AI, search engines are starting to integrate AI into their models, leading to AI overviews + other features. Since so many people are now incorporating AI use into their daily lives + relying on it for answers, marketers have had to adjust their strategies to keep up.
Answer engine optimization (AEO) was born from this need. AEO encapsulates the steps marketers are now taking to make sure that brands, products, and services are being represented accurately in AI-generated responses. Basically, you’re making sure your content can be read and understood by Claude + the like so it can display your information to users who ask it relevant questions.
not a leg to stand on
With the rise of AEO, lots of people were proclaiming SEO dead at the scene. Not so fast though. SEO is certainly not dead. In fact, it remains one of the most effective ways to drive organic traffic, generate leads, and increase visibility online.
Plus, without SEO, AEO wouldn’t be able to function. While it may seem like AI sometimes pulls answers out of thin air, in theory, it does get the information from somewhere (even if it’s often incorrect). When you ask ChatGPT or Gemini a complex question, it crawls the internet looking for relevant information + the gives you a summarized answer. Similarly to a traditional search engine, if an AI engine lands on your site + finds a plethora of broken links, an unreadable sitemap, or confusing navigation, it won’t stick around, taking the time to decipher the information. It’ll skedaddle + look for a better source.
Instead of thinking of AEO as *the new* SEO, think of it more like another layer of SEO. If you only optimize for AI, leaving traditional SEO practices in the dust, your content won’t be seen by the masses. SEO is the leg that allows AEO to stand; the foundation that the house gets built on.
back to basics
Moral of the story? Don’t get so caught up in the newness of a feature or practice that you neglect the tried and true basics. Just because someone is screaming at the top of their lungs doesn’t mean that what they’re saying is correct. That’s not to say that AEO is irrelevant and should be ignored – it’s definitely something to keep an eye on as these AI models continue to grow + change (whether we like it or not). It’s just not the new *thing* that some people were convinced it was.
AI models are looking at the same internet, the same information, as search engines. If you continue optimizing to search engines, your content will also benefit from those efforts on AI platforms.
