SEO and AI (AEO): Are You Ready for the 'Answer Machines' of the Future?

SEO and AI are causing a lot of excitement among content marketers. Over the past few years, AI has already had a tremendous impact on digital marketing. Its influence on SEO should not be underestimated. The developments in this technology sector are likely to continue accelerating. As a copywriter and entrepreneur at CopyRobin, I see how AI shapes the future of SEO. We are transitioning from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO). In this article, I will discuss strategies you can use to remain successful.

The Evolution of Search Engines

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, we have seen a rapid integration of AI in search engines. Microsoft’s Bing was the first to use GPT technology. Google followed with Bard (now known as Gemini) and AI Overviews. AI Overviews is a search chatbot that streamlines and personalizes the search experience. These changes are turning search engines into ‘answer machines’.

The Impact of AI on SEO

AI is changing the way search engines work and how we need to optimize content. Let’s look at some key aspects:

Changing Search Experience

Traditional search engines present a list of links in response to search queries. AI and generative models are transforming these into answer machines. Users receive direct answers without having to click through to a website, which requires revising our content strategy.

Users receive direct answers without having to click through to a website, which requires revising our content strategy.

Google AI Overviews

Google AI Overviews, or Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), uses generative AI to provide comprehensive answers. Multiple sources support the answers. This system helps users find answers faster and allows for more complex queries without various searches.

Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is an AI-driven search engine that provides direct and accurate answers to questions. It powers large language models like GPT -4, Claude 3, and Mistral Large. Perplexity offers an interactive interface. Users can ask questions and receive structured answers with source references.

Bing Copilot

Bing Copilot, or Microsoft Copilot, uses AI technologies such as ChatGPT-4, Prometheus, and DALL-E 3. It generates both text and visual content. It offers comprehensive answers and interactive chat capabilities to help users get more out of their searches.

Comparison Table:

Five Strategies for Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)

Uros Pajcin described five strategies to prepare for AEO:

1. Know Your Audience: AI search engines better understand the context and persona of users. Focus your content on the specific needs and intents of your audience.
2. Create Personal, Valuable Content: Generative AI can reuse existing information. However, lacking personal perspectives and experiences makes creating content based on your expertise crucial.
3. Proof of Human Authors: To differentiate yourself from AI-generated content, you must show that real people are behind your content. Author profiles and bios can do this.
4. Invest in Structured Data: Structured data helps search engines better understand and display the content of your website.
5. Focus on Visual and Voice Search: Optimize your voice and visual search content. Use natural language, long-tail keywords, and metadata.

Order SEO Texts with AI?

Diving Deeper into AI and SEO (AEO)

AI in search engines offers benefits that go beyond simply answering queries. AI tools like Bing Chat, ChatGPT, and Google’s Bard assist in advanced keyword research, content planning, and editing. Let’s delve deeper into these aspects:

Keyword Research

AI tools can recognize complex patterns in search behaviour. They enable the identification of targeted and specific keywords. These tools can analyze search volume, competition, and search intent to help you choose the most valuable keywords.

Content Planning

AI can help develop content strategies tailored to your audience’s needs and preferences. AI tools can analyze historical data and user behaviour to predict the most successful topics and content forms.

Content Editing

Using AI for content editing speeds up the process and improves accuracy. AI-based tools can check grammar, enhance readability, and ensure a consistent tone of voice.

The E.E.A.T. Principle

An essential aspect of SEO in the AI era is the EEAT principle: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. This principle helps search engines determine which content is trustworthy and valuable.

1. Experience: Content must be written by someone with experience in the subject matter. This can be demonstrated through author pages with detailed bios and media mentions.
2. Expertise: Reliable sources and accurate, in-depth information contribute to the expertise of your content.
3. Authoritativeness: Authoritative content comes from sources recognized as leaders in their field, often supported by high-quality backlinks.
4. Trustworthiness: Trust is built through transparency, such as citing sources and providing extensive contact information.

Advanced AEO Strategies for AI Search Engines

To stay ahead of the competition, focus on contextual relevance, intent-based personalization, and optimization for voice and visual searches. Below, we discuss some concrete applications.

Contextual Relevance

Provide content that closely matches your audience’s search intent. Address specific questions and problems with long-tail keywords, persona-based content, local SEO, detailed guides, and FAQs.

Concrete Examples

1. Long-tail Keywords: Instead of focusing on generic keywords like ‘marketing’, create content that addresses specific questions such as ‘How to develop an effective marketing strategy for small businesses?’. This helps you cater to detailed searches and provides valuable, targeted information.
2. Persona-based Content: Suppose your audience consists of beginning entrepreneurs. Create content that addresses their specific challenges and questions, such as ‘Step-by-step guide to setting up an online store’. This ensures your content is relevant to their particular situations and needs.
3. Local SEO: If you have a local business, ensure your content explicitly targets the local market. For example, a dental practice can create blog posts about ‘the best dentist in Amsterdam’ or ‘tips for dental care in Utrecht’. This helps target local search intent and attract potential customers from the area.
4. Detailed Guides and How-to’s: Create in-depth guides that solve specific problems or answer questions step-by-step. An IT company, for example, could create a comprehensive guide on ‘How to secure your business network against cyber-attacks?’. This provides valuable information and positions you as an authority in your field.
5. Use of FAQs: Identify frequently asked questions within your niche and answer them in your content. For example, if you’re a financial advisor, you could have a section on your website that addresses questions like ‘What are the tax benefits of owning a home?’. This ensures your content is directly relevant to your audience’s questions.

By implementing these strategies, you ensure your content closely matches your audience’s search intent, leading to better search results and higher audience engagement.

SEO professionals must understand how to employ personalization to optimize their websites for searches.

Intent-based Personalization

Personalization is a crucial aspect of generative search queries. SEO professionals must understand how to use personalization to optimize their websites for searches. Using large amounts of data, AI search engines can deliver personalized search results that match the user’s needs.

Concrete Examples

1. Use of User Data: Analytics tools are used to analyze visitor behaviour and preferences. Do you notice, for example, that a user often reads articles on a specific topic? Then, you can recommend more content on that topic.
2. Dynamic Content: Create dynamic content that changes based on the user. If users, for example, previously searched for ‘holidays in Spain’, you can show them travel offers to Spain on their next visit.
3. Personalization in Email Marketing: Segment your email subscribers based on their interests and behaviour. Send personalized newsletters reflecting their previous interactions with your website or purchases.
4. Recommendation Systems: Use AI-driven recommendation systems like those from Amazon or Netflix. If users previously viewed a particular product or service, offer them similar products or services they might also be interested in.
5. Local Personalization: If your company has multiple locations, personalize content based on the user’s location. For a restaurant chain, this could mean showing menus and promotions specific to the branch near the user.
6. Behavior-driven Pop-ups and Notifications: Use pop-ups or notifications tailored to your website’s user behaviour. For example, if a user adds a product to their cart but leaves the site without purchasing, you can show a pop-up with a special offer to complete the purchase.

Applying these personalization strategies can enhance the user experience and provide more relevant and engaging content, ultimately leading to higher conversions and customer satisfaction.

Optimization for Voice Search

With voice search becoming increasingly popular, it’s important to optimize content for voice-activated queries. This involves using natural language and focusing on long-tail, conversational keywords. Adding more Q&As to your content can help AI tools more easily match your content with the right queries.

Concrete Examples

1. Use of Natural Language: Write your content as people speak. For instance, instead of ‘best restaurants Amsterdam’, use ‘What are the best restaurants in Amsterdam?’ This reflects how people ask questions in voice search.
2. Focus on Long-Tail Keywords: Target longer, more detailed search phrases. For example, instead of ‘Spain holiday’, ‘What are the best places to have a family holiday in Spain?’
3. Add FAQ Sections: Add an FAQ section to your website where you answer frequently asked questions. For example, if you’re a real estate agent, you could add questions like ‘How can I sell my house quickly?’ or ‘What are the steps to buying a house?’
4. Use of Structured Data: Mark up your content with schema.org to help search engines better understand it and display it in voice-activated search results. This can help your content appear in featured snippets often used for voice searches.
5. Conversational Content: Create content that is direct and conversational. For instance, a blog post about gardening could start with ‘How do you plant a rosebush?’ and then provide step-by-step answers.
6. Optimize for Local Searches: Make sure your business location and contact information are up-to-date on Google My Business. Voice searches are often locally focused, such as ‘Where is the nearest pharmacy?’

By implementing these optimization strategies, you can ensure your content performs better in voice-activated searches and matches how people ask questions through voice assistants.

Optimization for Visual Searches

AI technologies like Google Lens and Pinterest Lens make it possible to search for products and information using images instead of text. Ensure your images are optimized with relevant metadata, and make sure your website contains visually rich content. Use not only AI-generated but also original photos to stand out.

Concrete Examples

1. Add Relevant Metadata: Optimize your images with descriptive alt texts, titles, and descriptions. For example, instead of “IMG1234.jpg,” use “modern-white-couch-living-room.jpg.” This helps search engines better understand and index the image’s content.
2. High Quality and Original Images: Use high-quality original images instead of stock photos. For instance, an e-commerce website can display original product photos from various angles and with details. This increases the chances of your images being recognized and used in visual search results.
3. Use of Schema Markup for Images: Add schema markup to your images to give search engines more context. For example, if you have a picture of a product, use Product schema markup to add detailed information such as price, availability, and reviews.
4. Create Visually Attractive Content: Ensure your website contains visually rich content like infographics, diagrams, and original photos. For instance, if you have a blog post about gardening, add detailed pictures of different plants and steps of the gardening process.
5. Optimize Images for Speed: Ensure your images are optimized for fast loading times without losing quality. This can be done using modern image formats like WebP and techniques like lazy loading.
6. Use Descriptive Filenames: Name your image files descriptively. Instead of ‘photo1.jpg’, use ‘blue-suede-shoes.jpg’. This helps search engines and users better understand what is depicted in the image.

Implementing these optimization strategies can increase the visibility of your images in visual searches and better match the way people search using AI-driven visual search tools.

Structure and Data

Structured data helps AI better understand and index your website’s content. By using schema.org and other structured data models, you can improve the findability and presentation of your content in search engines. This is especially important for displaying featured snippets and rich search results, such as in the new answer machines.

Concrete Examples

1. Use of schema.org: Add schema markup to your pages for better context and indexing. For example, if you have a recipe site, use Recipe schema markup to mark ingredients, cooking time, and calorie values.
2. Local Business Schema: Local businesses should use a Local Business schema. This schema can include information such as business name, address, phone number, and opening hours, which helps them appear in local search results and Google Maps.
3. Product schema: For e-commerce websites, use Product schema markup to mark product information such as price, availability, and customer reviews. This can help your products appear in rich snippets and AI-generated answers, increasing their visibility.
4. FAQ schema: Add FAQ schema to your Frequently Asked Questions sections. This helps your content appear in the FAQ-rich snippets, making it more prominently displayed in search results. For example, if you have a legal services website, you can mark questions like ‘What is the cost of an initial consultation?’ with FAQ schema.
5. Event schema: Websites promoting events should use Event schema to mark details such as date, time, location, and ticket prices. This helps the website appear in rich snippets, Google’s event calendar, and AI answers.
6. Article schema: For blog posts and news articles, use Article schema to mark the title, author, publication date, and images. This increases the chances of your articles appearing in the Top Stories carousel and other prominent search results.

Adding this structured data to your website makes it easier for search engines to understand and present your content in rich search results, ultimately leading to better visibility and more traffic to your website.

The Future of SEO Reporting

With the rise of AI-driven search engines, traditional SEO reporting, like keyword ranking, will change. AI systems provide direct answers and generate real-time content. Therefore, we must focus on holistic, intent-driven metrics and on-page engagement signals. This requires a strategic shift to understanding the context and intent of the user.

In Conclusion: Embrace the Change

The rise of AI does not signify the end of SEO; rather, it marks its evolution into AEO. Focus on unique, valuable content. Use structured data and optimize for visual and voice-activated searches. In this way, you will remain successful in an AI-driven world. It is an exciting time for digital marketers and SEO professionals. I look forward to tackling these new challenges together. Do you have any questions or want to discuss the emergence of AEO? Feel free to contact me!