Everyone has something to say about how AI (artificial intelligence) is going to impact the marketing industry. For some, it’s doomsday, and others are over-eager to change every step of their process and strategy to accommodate the new technology. The same has been done in the past with the rise in popularity of advancements like Alexa and Siri – onslaughts of content around how you can change your whole strategy to optimize for this “new” search method. This new strategy is known as AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization.
AEO is the practice of optimizing content to answer user questions rather than a general query. While this saw a rise in popularity from voice assistants like Alexa, it is becoming more relevant with the rise of platforms like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and other AI-powered tools. Many marketers, rightfully so, see the importance of optimizing for these changes. However, we’d argue it doesn’t need to be its own strategy.
In a previous blog we discussed how AI is seeking out answers and information for users based on their queries. Sound familiar? Both AEO and AI-driven search are important to consider when creating digital content for your brand. However, what makes these different from general SEO (search engine optimization)?
There is no difference! It may shake up how you prioritize some elements of your strategy, but anything you do for AEO or AI-Driven Search should already be implemented as part of your overall SEO strategy. But what are the elements most important to AEO?
In the age of users going to search engines or their AI assistants of choice to ask questions, it’s your job as a marketer or content creator to figure out what people are asking. From there, how can we best answer those questions? This is often understood in most SEO driven content strategies. Research is done, popular questions are answered in blogs or make videos, and this content is launched! This can be great, but oftentimes the ball is dropped before this strategy goes from a seven to a ten.
The most prominent issue we see when attempting to optimize content for AEO, or more commonly SEO, is the inconsistency between the heavily thought out content creation and the technical execution. To best optimize your content, it’s important to marry the creative strategy with the technical.
Utilizing tools like Google Trends or SEMRush, you can find popular questions your target audience is likely to search. This information can help provide topics and staples of fantastic content! Create “how to” blog content, or pose a question you answer in the blog. Create a video series explaining common questions or concerns in your industry. Host Q&As and utilize the content to make even more! There are countless types of content your team can generate that focuses on answering relevant questions for your potential clients or customers.
But how do you make sure it performs well with ask engines and AI? That is where the structure of your content matters. Particularly when it comes to blog content, it’s important to follow some best practices.
The last step in creating optimized content can be the scary part – the backend. With the help of your developers or your website tools you have to be sure to incorporate elements of technical SEO. This includes things like your meta data, header tags, and appropriate schema markup. Schema is a type of structured data utilized on websites to explain to search engines what content is on a given page. This is often used to differentiate articles from product pages; however, it is also essential for content like an FAQ.
To show up in the “people also ask” section of the search results page, Google will utilize the schema markup on your site to showcase the answers to specific questions. This is a great opportunity to showcase your expertise and show up higher in search results.
Interested in learning more about how to create and optimize content for your brand? Contact an expert on our team today!
Jade is a digital deep diver on our marketing & strategy team. She loves investigating possible issues and brainstorming solutions. When she isn't deep in spreadsheets, she's drinking far too much caffeine or having off-screen dance parties to her favorite Tik Toks.