Thoughts
Just a few months ago, in our previous SEO related blog post, we explored how AI-powered search is reshaping discovery.
At that time, the message was clear: customer journeys are no longer starting and ending with the familiar top 10 Google search results. Although traditional search engines still dominate the majority of results today, the shift in both behaviour and conversion ROI is accelerating faster than most of us realise.
According to Search Engine Land, Google is preparing to make its AI Mode (Google's AI Overviews) the default search experience. In practice, this means the world’s largest search engine will prioritise AI-generated answers over a list of links.
For brands, the shift brings both opportunities and risks. If you’ve relied on page-one rankings to “win” in search historically, the game has evolved - LLM answers reward repeated citations across sources, giving lesser-known competitors new visibility. Conversely, if your brand isn’t cited at all, you risk being overlooked entirely during a rapidly accelerating shift in how people discover products and services online.
The key takeaway: this isn’t speculation - it’s already happening.
Data from Webflow’s LLM search guide shows that 55% of people now use AI search for research, and Platforms like ChatGPT are outpacing traditional social channels in referral traffic, and in some cases delivering higher click-through rates than Google Search - giving marketers completely new levers for AI search marketing.
Industry data backs this up: BrightEdge’s 2025 research found that AI search visits have surged dramatically this year, confirming that customer journeys are already shifting toward AI-powered search and driving new opportunities for AI search optimisation accordingly.
Even platforms themselves are moving faster. At Webflow Conf 2025, the team announced:
“Now, you can use the AI Assistant to help you draft critical SEO copy like alt text, meta data, and even schema markup in your page settings.”
And finally, if you still weren’t convinced, Crunchbase recently reported, leaders from companies like Optimizely are already reshaping their digital marketing strategies around AI agents and automation., another clear sign that AI-powered search, AI chatbots and agents are converging to reshape how customers discover and interact with brands.
Since forever, businesses have competed for visibility in organic search results and the playbook hasn’t changed. But with the rise of AI search, that’s all changing. Instead of fighting for positions, you’re competing to be cited often enough to appear in the best-fit answers. Winning now means your product, service, or brand becomes the answer a customer sees first.
This new discipline also has a name: Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). Where SEO focuses on rankings, AEO is about citations and context, ensuring your brand is present across the sources AI systems trust most - from your own site to YouTube, Reddit and a growing list of authoritative industry publishers.
So in this post, we’ll break down the five practical steps we think every brand should be taking to start showing up in AI-powered answers today.
Step 1: Identify the Questions That Matter
The foundation of AEO is understanding the exact questions your customers (and potential customers) are asking. Unlike traditional SEO, where a single keyword could anchor an entire strategy, AI-driven answers are shaped by conversational search queries and follow-ups.
That means you need to think beyond “best [product/service]” and map the long-tail of real-world questions. For example:
“What’s the best website builder for small businesses?”
“Which payment platforms integrate with X?”
“Does [brand] work with [tool]?”
How? Start by reviewing:
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Current Search Data: Repurpose your highest-performing keywords into natural-language questions.
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Customer Conversations: Mine sales calls, support tickets, and community threads (e.g. Reddit, industry forums) for recurring pain points.
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Competitor signals: Look at what terms competitors are buying in paid search, which often reflect high-intent queries worth reframing into questions.
The goal isn’t to create one perfect answer, but to build a library of the kinds of questions AI engines are likely to field in your category. The more you understand about your customer's initial product or service discovery path, the better positioned you’ll be to make sure your brand shows up in it.
Step 2: Build Content That Answers Completely
Once you know the right questions, the next challenge is ensuring your content can answer them. AI systems reward context and completeness, not half-answers. They also reward citations from trusted sources. Thin or generic AI-generated content is unlikely to be cited.
That means going beyond a single headline claim. If someone asks, “What’s the best project management tool for small teams?” LLM’s (large language models) aren’t just looking for brand mentions, they’re piecing together feature comparisons, use cases, integrations and customer scenarios from across the web.
To position your brand:
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Create in-depth landing pages that answer a cluster of related questions, not just one keyword.
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Address follow-ups proactively - features, integrations, pricing and edge cases often surface in LLM queries.
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Use structured data and clear formatting (FAQs, schema, headings) so answers are easier to parse and cite.
The goal isn’t volume, it’s more so coverage: Make sure the examples and comparisons you use reflect the actual needs of your target audience.
Step 3: Diversify Your Citations
In AEO, visibility depends less on having a single high-ranking page and more on how often your brand is cited across multiple trusted sources. LLMs are trained to pull from a wide pool of content, so if your brand only appears on your own site, you’re limiting your chances of being included in an answer.
To build citation strength:
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User-generated content: Encourage authentic mentions on platforms like Reddit, or other citation sources with strong online communities and industry forums where real conversations happen.
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Video platforms: YouTube explainers, reviews or demos are frequently surfaced in AI-generated answers.
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Industry publishers and affiliates: Being included in reputable listicles ((articles structured as ‘top 10’ or ‘best of’ lists), comparisons and roundups still carries significant weight.
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Niche blogs and communities: Even smaller sites can tip the balance if they’re seen as credible within your category.
Takeaway: citations don’t have to come from everywhere, but they do need to come from a mix of sources your customers already trust. This breadth signals reliability and increases the odds your brand shows up in AI-generated answers.
Step 4: Optimise for Completeness, Not Just Keywords
In SEO, success often meant hitting the right keywords in the right places. Traditional SEO strategies were built around rankings, but in AEO, completeness should become a key aspect of your content strategy, ensuring each page is rich enough to be pulled into AI-generated answers.
That means:
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Covering follow-up questions: If someone asks “What’s the best accounting software for startups?” an LLM may also look for details on integrations, pricing tiers, or industry use cases. If your content covers these, you’re more likely to be cited.
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Using structured formats: FAQ sections, schema markup, and well-organised headings help LLMs parse your content efficiently.
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Adding supporting context: Comparisons, alternatives and pros/cons improves trustworthiness and enhances the overall user experience, making your content more likely to be cited.
Think of it this way: keywords still matter, but they’re not enough on their own. What wins in AEO is showing that your content has the depth and breadth to answer the question fully.
Step 5: Monitor, Test, and Adapt
Unlike traditional SEO, which often plays out over months, AEO is evolving in real time as LLMs change how they generate answers. It’s no longer just for SEO teams - content marketers will also need to track, test and adapt their content in real time. The only way to stay relevant is to treat AEO as an ongoing process, vs a one-off project.
Ways you can stay ahead:
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Track where your brand is cited: Use LLMs like Gemini, ChatGPT and Perplexity to run sample questions and see if and how your brand shows up.
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Test & Learn: experiment with different content types (FAQs, comparisons, video explainers) to see which gain more visibility in AI-driven answers.
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Monitor shifts in traffic: Watch analytics closely to understand whether AI search traffic is growing, and how it converts compared to organic or paid channels.
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Be willing to adapt: LLMs are being updated constantly. Brands that stay flexible will capture early-mover advantages.
The goal isn’t to chase every time there’s an update, but to build an AEO muscle for testing and adapting continuously with these nuances to traditional SEO. Over time, that discipline ensures your brand doesn’t just get found once, but that it stays visible as AI-driven discovery keeps accelerating.
Conclusion
The way people discover products and services online is changing faster than most realise.
Traditional search still matters, but the centre of gravity is moving toward AI-powered answers. Google’s pending shift to AI Mode will only accelerate this trend.
For brands today, the challenge and opportunity is clear: visibility is no longer solely about ranking highest, but now about being cited broadly and consistently across the sources LLMs trust. That means understanding your customer’s discovery path, creating content that answers completely, diversifying your citations and building the discipline of monitoring and adapting as the landscape evolves.
The accelerating shift in discovery isn’t slowing down. Adopting an AI SEO strategy now will give brands a head start, ensuring they’re not just present in AI-generated answers, but also well positioned as the first and most trusted choice when customers ask the questions that matter.
If you’d like help applying the foundations of AEO to your brand, our AEO Readiness offering will uncover the opportunities to make your business visible in this new landscape.
Enquire today, and let us help you get there.
