AEO vs SEO: core differences & how to win visibility in both

Search now happens in two places at once: Google's results pages and the AI-generated answers inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's own AI Overviews. And winning only one of them leaves real traffic and brand visibility on the table. Because a page built purely to rank in organic search won’t necessarily get pulled into an AI-generated answer (and vice versa).

In this guide, you'll learn what AEO (answer engine optimization) and SEO (search engine optimization) are, how they differ, where they overlap, and how to succeed with both.

AEO vs SEO: what are the core differences?

At the simplest level, AEO is about being included in AI-generated answers while SEO is about ranking in search engines.

But the two overlap.

Many of the same signals that help you rank in Google also increase your chances of being cited by AI tools.

And AI features, like Google AI Mode, live in both worlds.

Here's how AEO and SEO differ — and the similarities they share:

AEO

SEO

Goal

Get your content cited or mentioned in AI-generated answers (and in voice search) to grow brand awareness and drive traffic to your site.

Rank high in organic search — including search engine results pages (SERPs) and AI-powered features like AI Overviews — to drive traffic to your site.

User behavior

Users ask questions and read or listen to the AI-generated answer. They might also explore the sources used to create the AI response (citations).

Users browse SERPs and decide which link to click. They also explore AI-generated answers to satisfy their search intent and potentially click to learn more.

User intent

Get detailed information directly from the AI search engine.

Navigate to a site for detailed information or get an instant response via a SERP feature.

Discovery surface

AI answers, citations, embedded URLs, brand mentions, and Google's AI features.

Direct links, featured snippets, People Also Ask, local packs, knowledge panels, AI Overviews, and AI Mode.

Success metric

Increase in AI brand mentions, citations, or placements in AI-generated responses.

Higher rankings and visibility across both search results and AI-powered features, leading to more organic traffic.

Let’s go over what AEO and SEO are in greater detail.

What is AEO?

AEO (answer engine optimization) is a digital marketing strategy that helps make your web content easily discoverable by AI search engines like ChatGPT and voice assistants like Alexa.

The goal of an AEO strategy is to have your content appear or be cited when someone asks AI a question related to your business, product, service, or industry. Because with 77% of ChatGPT users in the USA treating it like a search engine, and nearly 60% of consumers using AI tools to shop, AEO can drive discovery, trust, and conversions.

For example, if you sell a project management tool for finance teams, you want your brand to appear when someone asks ChatGPT, "What's the best project management software for finance teams?"

What is SEO?

SEO (search engine optimization) is a digital marketing strategy that helps your website rank higher in search engine results like Google and Bing.

SEO focuses on keywords, backlinks, content depth, and site structure to drive organic traffic and improve your visibility in the SERPs.

At the same time, SEO strategies continually evolve to include SERP features like AI Overviews, carousels, featured snippets, People Also A sk boxes, knowledge panels, and more.

How AEO and SEO work together

AEO and SEO work together by making your content findable, authoritative, and quotable.

SEO builds your domain authority and ensures your content is trustworthy, while AEO ensures that content is easier for AI systems to parse, understand, and cite.

So, does ranking well on Google get you cited by AI? Partly. When we compared AI answers with Google's organic results, our research found:

• AI favors trusted domains: Strong organic rankings and authority make a domain more likely to be cited
• AI doesn't necessarily cite high-ranking pages: AI often pulls deeper subpages, blog posts, or documentation within trusted domains instead of the exact ranking URLs
• Overlap depends on the platform: Google AI Mode's sidebar shows lower overlap with Google's top 10, while its additional links have much higher overlap. Perplexity has the strongest alignment with Google, and ChatGPT the weakest, though it still leans on authoritative domains.
• Authority drives inclusion: AI consistently prioritizes domains with strong backlinks, authority, and visibility — even when it pulls different pages than Google's top results

In short, AEO extends SEO rather than competing with it: the same fundamentals that earn a domain trust in Google's eyes are what make it worth citing in an AI-generated answer.

How to succeed in both AEO and SEO

There are many strategies to help you succeed in both AEO and SEO — from creating original content to building external signals and structuring your content for retrieval.

Let's break those down in detail.

1. Create unique, research-backed content

Creating unique, research-backed content sends positive signals to search engines and AI search platforms, as both reward content grounded in real experience that AI alone can't generate.

So when planning your digital content, make sure you bring something original to the table — like personal experience, fresh data, or expert insights.

For example, we conducted original research on whether backlinks still matter for AI. That post is one of the first results in organic search.

The post also appears in AI Overviews.

And is cited in AI search platforms like ChatGPT.

To create content that boosts both SEO and AEO:

• Write from first-hand experience: Share what you've actually done, tested, or figured out through real work. Even small insights can help your content stand out.
• Use original data: Run surveys, document experiments, or pull insights from your own product. Unique stats and internal findings add credibility and increase the chances of being cited.
• Add author bios: Make it clear who's behind the content and why they're worth listening to. Mention each author's role, area of expertise, or hands-on experience.
• Quote experts: If you don't have direct experience, speak to someone who does. Bring in their insights, ideas, or frameworks. It adds depth and signals trust to both AI and human readers.

2. Build authority through brand mentions and backlinks

Building authority through brand mentions and backlinks matters because search engines and AI search platforms favor sources that other trusted sites reference.

In practice, this translates into attracting:

• Backlinks (links from other relevant websites that point to your content): Backlinks remain one of the core SEO ranking factors, and our research on the impact of backlinks for AI search found that they’re also associated with greater visibility in AI search
• Brand mentions (linked and unlinked mentions to your brand across trusted sites): Brand mentions are especially important for AI search platforms, which often rely on recognizable brands when generating answers

As Alex Birkett noted in our webinar, both signals are critical if you want to succeed in SEO and AEO:

Do backlinks still matter? Yeah, a hundred percent. They’re still an input vector for your website’s authority and page authority, and they’re important in both classic and LLM optimization. But brand mentions also play a big role — even unlinked ones — because with LLMs it’s more text-based: the model looks at the text around the prompt and whether your brand is mentioned there. What matters is being referenced across multiple trusted sources. Alex Birkett, Co-Founder of Omniscient Digital

Do backlinks still matter? Yeah, a hundred percent. They’re still an input vector for your website’s authority and page authority, and they’re important in both classic and LLM optimization. But brand mentions also play a big role — even unlinked ones — because with LLMs it’s more text-based: the model looks at the text around the prompt and whether your brand is mentioned there. What matters is being referenced across multiple trusted sources.

Alex Birkett, Co-Founder of Omniscient Digital

Here are a few tips that can help you earn more mentions and backlinks:

• Create content backed by original research and expert insights that others want to reference and link to
• Contribute expert commentary to blogs or media outlets in your niche
• Pitch guest posts to sites with high authority and strong reputation in your industry
• Work with writers who regularly contribute to credible publications and already have relationships with editors
• Collaborate with trusted brands or creators on co-branded content, original studies, or interviews that naturally lead to mentions and links

For example, HubSpot frequently publishes original, expertise-driven content, like its annual State of Marketing Report, which features original research and essential industry data.

The report's page has generated thousands of backlinks over the years:

It also gets mentioned by various bloggers, outlets, and other relevant industry players:

Creating this kind of content consistently has paid off in both channels: HubSpot has an extremely high AI visibility score, is frequently cited by AI search platforms, and draws millions of organic visits each month.

3. Use entities to strengthen topic relevance

Using entities — clearly named concepts like people, companies, products, or places — strengthens topical relevance by helping search engines and AI match your page to relevant topics and queries.

Google uses these entities as part of its Knowledge Graph — a database of facts about people, companies, products, and places. And AI search platforms like ChatGPT rely on consistent entity signals to make connections between prompts, topics, and brands.

For example, writing about Amazon could mean the company or the rainforest.

Adding terms like "Amazon Prime," "Jeff Bezos," or "ecommerce" makes it clear you're talking about the business.

To effectively use entities in your content:

• Use consistent terminology for tools, frameworks, and products: Say "Google AI Overviews" every time instead of switching to "AIOs" or "Google AIOs"
• Include your brand and product names clearly: Place them near key points of value so search engines and AI systems connect your brand to what you offer
• Add related concepts and subtopics: If you're writing about Tesla, mention "electric vehicles," "Model 3," or "EV charging stations," and cover themes like pricing and safety
• Use examples and analogies that reinforce the topic: Comparing website architecture to a house blueprint works because both determine how easily people can find their way around

For example:

Could be better (inconsistent and generic)

Good (entities, consistency, and clarity)

"Our tool tracks rankings in Google SERPs and AIOs, plus AI mode and chatbots. You can also see which sources mention your site so you know where you're cited."

"Our platform tracks rankings in Google SERPs and Google AI Overviews, plus visibility in Google AI Mode and ChatGPT. You can also see the citation sources used for your pages (e.g., Reddit, YouTube, G2), so you know where you're being referenced."

4. Structure your content for clarity

Structuring your content for clarity helps search engines and AI search platforms understand relationships between concepts and determine what's most important on your page.

In practice, this means leading each section with a concise, standalone answer before adding supporting detail, and organizing the rest of your content in a logical, hierarchical way with clear sections and formatting.

To optimize your content structure for SEO and AEO (and users):

• Use clear hierarchical heading structure (H1, H2, H3) that creates logical topic relationships
• Place key information in strategic locations like the beginnings of paragraphs, sections, and documents
• Use ordered lists for processes/rankings and bulleted lists for related items
• Add structured data markup (schema.org) when possible to explicitly label content types like FAQs, products, or reviews
• Maintain consistent formatting throughout your content to reinforce structure

For example, this Semrush article uses clear H2s and answers each heading's question in the first sentence of the section.

It also breaks related items into bullet points, making the page easier for readers to scan and for bots to parse.

It also uses numbered lists to outline steps and keeps formatting consistent, making complex information easier to follow.

5. Keep your content fresh

Keeping your content fresh requires regular audits, as search engines and AI systems prefer citing up-to-date content.

Fresh content is an important SEO ranking factor and is key to content quality, especially for pages where relevance changes quickly (e.g., news).

Research also shows that AI search platforms have a clear preference for pages that are recent and trustworthy.

That preference makes sense given how AI answers are built. Many of these platforms pull from live retrieval systems, so when two pages cover the same ground, the more recently updated one is more likely to get cited.

Updating the publish date alone doesn't help — the content itself needs genuinely new information, current examples, or corrected details for that recency signal to mean anything.

Here's what you can do to keep your content fresh and relevant:

• Update factual information, statistics, and examples with the most current data
• Refresh screenshots and visuals to reflect current interfaces and designs
• Add new sections covering recent developments in your topic area
• Remove or update references to outdated tools, methods, or practices
• Optimize for emerging keywords and changing search intent (the goal behind a search query)

6. Make your content extractable for AI answers

Making your content extractable for AI answers means structuring each section so AI systems can pull it into an answer on its own, since they use specific passages rather than entire pages.

To make your content easier for AI systems to lift and cite directly:

• Lead with a short, direct answer. Keep the first sentence of any section you want cited under roughly 40 words, and make it a complete, standalone answer — free of pronouns or references that only make sense alongside the rest of the paragraph.
• Use FAQ-style Q&A formatting for predictable follow-up questions. A heading phrased as a question, followed immediately by a direct answer, is easier for an AI system to match to a user's prompt than a heading like "Additional Considerations."
• Keep entity names consistent throughout a section. Switching between "Google AI Overviews," "AIOs," and "Google's AI feature" to describe the same thing makes it harder for AI systems to treat your mentions as references to the same entity.

Semrush's Content Optimizer analyzes content for extractability signals like these and surfaces specific fixes. It works on existing pages too, so you can enter a URL and see what an older article needs.

How to monitor AEO and SEO

To monitor AEO and SEO, track your keyword rankings and AI prompt visibility side by side with tools like Semrush's SEO Toolkit and AI Visibility Toolkit.

Using these tools regularly helps you understand what works (and what doesn't) so you can make strategic improvements.

Key metrics to analyze include:

• Keyword rankings in organic search results
• Visibility in Google's AI features like AI Overviews and AI Mode
• AI Brand Mentions and rankings across AI search platforms
• Citation sources linking to your content
• AI Share of Voice against competitors for your priority topics
• Competitor performance across both channels

For example, you can use our Keyword Magic Tool to find keywords to rank on Google — whether on SERPs or in AI features.

For the AEO side, Prompt Research surfaces the prompts people ask AI platforms about your topic, so you know which questions to target before you write.

You can then track the keywords you found in Position Tracking to monitor your Google rankings.

For AI search, add your priority prompts to Prompt Tracking. It shows whether AI platforms cite, recommend, or ignore your brand for each prompt, so you can watch your AI visibility move the same way you'd watch your keyword rankings.

Finally, use the AI Visibility Toolkit's Narrative Drivers report to see the specific AI prompts where you appear (or don't) versus competitors across AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, and other platforms.

By tracking both SEO and AEO side by side, you'll see where traffic is slipping and where AI is picking it up — so you can double down on the channels that drive results.

Frequently asked questions about AEO vs SEO

Will AEO replace SEO?

AEO will not replace SEO — they will increasingly work together as complementary strategies. While SEO focuses on strategies to drive organic website traffic, AEO optimizes for AI-generated answers that may not always lead to clicks. The relationship is symbiotic — strong SEO fuels AEO success since AI systems favor content from trusted domains with solid organic rankings and authority.

What is the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?

SEO, AEO, and GEO aren't three separate, competing practices. SEO, together with Agentic Search Optimization (ASO), is the umbrella discipline for earning visibility everywhere people search.

And AEO and GEO are two lenses within SEO and ASO. AEO and GEO target different layers of how AI systems find and use your content.

Here's how AEO and GEO differ:

• AEO (answer engine optimization) focuses on the retrieval and citation layer — getting your existing content pulled into direct AI-generated answers and featured snippets in real time, as a user asks a question
• GEO (generative engine optimization) focuses on the model layer — how a brand appears in what an AI model already knows from its training data, independent of any single search or retrieval moment

Both AEO and GEO roll up under SEO and ASO because the underlying inputs — authority, structure, relevance, and technical health — are the same ones that get a page ranked, retrieved, and cited in the first place.

Can you optimize one page for both SEO and AEO?

Yes, you can — and should — optimize one page for both SEO and AEO, by:

• Structuring content logically with proper headings
• Enriching it with original research and expert insights
• Using clear entities for topic relevance
• Keeping information current and comprehensive

What tools can you use for SEO and AEO?

Semrush offers dedicated toolkits for both SEO and AEO:

• The SEO Toolkit helps with keyword research, link building, site audits, and position tracking
• The AI Visibility Toolkit shows where and how your brand and content appear in AI-generated answers compared to your competitors

You can also use Semrush's Content Toolkit to generate new content and optimize your existing drafts to rank in organic and AI search.