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SEO 10 min·6/28/2026

AEO Explained: How to Optimize for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI

Answer Engine Optimization is the new SEO. Learn how to structure content so AI assistants cite your brand.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), also called Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), is the practice of structuring web content so large language models — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google's AI Overviews and Bing Copilot — cite your site as a source. Traditional SEO gets you into the ten blue links. AEO gets you into the answer itself.

Why AEO matters in 2026. More than 30% of search sessions now end with an AI-generated answer, no click required. If your brand isn't cited inside those answers, you lose the sale even when you rank #1 organically.

1. Publish an /llms.txt file. This is a plain-text markdown file at the root of your site (like robots.txt) that tells AI crawlers what your site is about and which pages to prioritize. JEYOS ships one at /llms.txt.

2. Write in question-and-answer format. LLMs pattern-match on 'What is X?', 'How do I Y?', 'Best way to Z'. Use those exact phrasings as H2 headings, then answer in a single, self-contained paragraph directly underneath. The paragraph must make sense with no prior context — that's the chunk the LLM will lift.

3. Add structured data. Article, FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Organization and BreadcrumbList JSON-LD schemas give AI crawlers unambiguous machine-readable facts. JEYOS uses Article schema on every blog post and FAQPage schema on our FAQ.

4. Use semantic HTML. One H1 per page. Logical H2/H3 hierarchy. Real

    ,
      , ,
      elements — not divs with class names. LLMs weigh semantic structure heavily when deciding which passage to cite.

      5. Include facts, numbers, and dates. 'Instagram Reels retention above 65% typically 3x reach' is quotable. 'Reels perform well' is not. Concrete, verifiable claims get cited; fluff gets skipped.

      6. Build entity authority. LLMs learn who you are from Wikipedia, Wikidata, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and consistent mentions across the open web. A branded knowledge graph makes you a trusted source model-wide.

      7. Keep pages fast and crawlable. GPTBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended must be able to fetch your HTML. Don't block them in robots.txt unless you want to be invisible to AI.

      AEO isn't replacing SEO — it's stacking on top of it. Sites that already have clean semantic HTML, structured data and question-based content are getting cited by ChatGPT today with almost no additional work.

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