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DigitalTiger — digital marketing for local trades in Exeter and Devon

Service

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)

Be the answer AI assistants and search engines give.

Answer Engine Optimisation is the work of making your business the source that answer engines quote. That includes Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini and voice assistants. Where classic SEO competes for a ranked link, AEO competes to be the extracted answer: it depends on clearly stated facts, question-led page structure, machine-readable markup, consistent business data across the web, and evidence that a real, qualified person stands behind the content.

Laptop screen showing an AI assistant answering a search question in a chat interface
Answer engine optimisation for AI-generated search results.

What is answer engine optimisation (aeo)?

Answer Engine Optimisation is the work of making your business the source that answer engines quote. That includes Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini and voice assistants. Where classic SEO competes for a ranked link, AEO competes to be the extracted answer: it depends on clearly stated facts, question-led page structure, machine-readable markup, consistent business data across the web, and evidence that a real, qualified person stands behind the content.

Typical timeline: Structural and schema work lands within the first few weeks; citation change follows re-crawling and typically takes several months. Pricing: Foundation in Local Essentials (£149/month), included in Local Growth (£249/month), advanced in Local Dominator (£399/month).

Problems this solves

  • AI Overviews answer your customers' questions without mentioning you.
  • Traffic is falling even though your rankings have not moved.
  • ChatGPT and Perplexity recommend competitors when asked about your sector or town.
  • Your pages are written as brochures, not as answers to real questions.
  • Your business facts differ across your site, directories and profiles, so no engine trusts any version.

What you get

  • Answer-engine visibility baseline: what AI assistants currently say about you and your competitors
  • Question research: the real questions buyers ask before, during and after choosing
  • Answer-first content rewrites — direct answer in the first 40-60 words, evidence beneath
  • Entity and consistency audit across website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles
  • Structured data implementation: Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, Article, Person, Breadcrumb
  • Author and expertise signals: named authors, credentials, review dates, sources
  • Original data, definitions and comparisons that answer engines prefer to cite
  • Crawlability checks for AI user agents and a deliberate robots.txt policy
  • llms.txt-style summary of what the business does and who it serves, where appropriate
  • Ongoing prompt-set tracking and reporting of citations and mentions

Outcomes we work towards

  • Pages structured so a single passage can be lifted as the answer
  • Citations and mentions in AI answers for questions your buyers actually ask
  • Consistent business facts across your site, Google Business Profile and directories
  • Structured data that describes your organisation, services, people and FAQs
  • Measurement of AI-assistant referrals alongside classic organic traffic

Ideal for

  • Businesses seeing impressions hold up while clicks decline
  • Service firms whose buyers research with AI assistants before enquiring
  • Devon businesses competing for 'best / near me / who should I use' style questions
  • Anyone with strong expertise that is not written down in extractable form

Typical timeline

Structural and schema work lands within the first few weeks; citation change follows re-crawling and typically takes several months.

Pricing

Foundation in Local Essentials (£149/month), included in Local Growth (£249/month), advanced in Local Dominator (£399/month).

See all packages and prices →
Discuss this service

Process

How we deliver answer engine optimisation (aeo)

  1. 01

    Baseline

    We record how answer engines currently describe your business, your sector and your town.

  2. 02

    Question map

    We build the prompt and question set your buyers use, not the keywords you assume.

  3. 03

    Restructure

    Pages are rewritten answer-first so a clean passage can be extracted and attributed.

  4. 04

    Mark up

    Schema, entity consistency and author signals make the facts machine-readable.

  5. 05

    Evidence

    Original data, examples and clearly sourced claims give engines a reason to cite you.

  6. 06

    Track

    We re-run the prompt set on a schedule and report citations, mentions and referral traffic.

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) across Devon

Each town has its own page with local detail — pick the one nearest you.

Searching on a phone? AEO near me

Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) FAQs

What is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)?

AEO is optimising your content and data so answer engines — AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini and voice assistants — use your business as the source of their answer, rather than only listing you as a link.

More detail

In practice it combines answer-first writing, structured data, consistent business facts across the web and demonstrable expertise. Most of it also improves classic search performance, because the same signals help Google understand who you are and what you do.

Is AEO different from SEO?

Yes, but they overlap. SEO competes for a position in a list of links; AEO competes to be the sentence the engine returns. AEO adds question-led structure, entity consistency and citation-worthy evidence on top of solid SEO foundations.

Is AEO the same as GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?

They are used interchangeably in practice. GEO usually refers specifically to generative AI systems, while AEO covers all answer surfaces including featured snippets and voice results. DigitalTiger treats them as one discipline.

Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend my business?

No. Answer engines are non-deterministic and no agency can guarantee a citation. What can be controlled is whether your facts are accurate, extractable, marked up and corroborated elsewhere — which is what makes citation possible.

How is AEO measured?

By running a fixed set of buyer questions across the major assistants on a schedule and recording whether you are mentioned, cited or linked, alongside referral traffic from AI sources in analytics.

Should I block AI crawlers?

If you want to be cited, no. Blocking AI user agents in robots.txt removes you from consideration. The decision should be deliberate and documented rather than inherited from a default template.

Where to go next

Ready to talk about the work?

Tell us what you need and we will come back with a straight answer on whether we can help, what it would involve and what it would cost.

Request a proposalCall 07842 084168