The shift from classic SEO to AEO isn’t just technical – it’s mental.
SEO trained us to think in keywords. AEO requires us to think in questions.
In SEO, you might target a phrase like:
“best credit card for travel rewards”
In AEO, you need to think like this:
“What are the best credit cards for travel rewards in 2025?”
“Which cards have the best lounge access?”
“Are there travel cards with no foreign transaction fees?”
Each of those questions is a potential entry point for an AI model to choose your content as the answer.
Let’s walk through how to approach this shift in a strategic, structured way.
Step 1: Start with AEO Topics (Not Just Keywords)
An AEO topic is a cluster of related questions that can be answered on the same page.
If you sell accounting software, one AEO topic might be:
“Accounting software for freelancers”
Under that, the questions might include:
- What’s the easiest accounting software for freelancers?
- Does X software work with Finnish tax rules?
- Can I track both personal and business expenses?
- Is this legal for side-hustles?
- What’s the best free version?
This cluster of questions can be covered with one well-structured page. That page is now optimized for the entire AEO topic, not a single keyword.
Step 2: Expand With Real-Life Sources
AI answer engines often surface questions that people ask naturally. But there’s no exact “search volume” tool like Google Ads.
Instead, look here:
- Your sales calls: What questions do leads always ask?
- Your customer support inbox: What issues get raised most?
- Reddit & Quora: What exact phrases do people use?
- Google Search Console: Find real long-tail queries that lead to your site
Collect these, clean them up, and group them by topic. You’ll start to see clusters.
You don’t need to answer 1,000 questions. But each page should answer at least 20–50 variants.
Step 3: Choose Questions With Buyer Intent
Not all questions are worth your time.
Some questions lead to trust or traffic. Others just lead to… nothing.
AEO questions that matter often fall into these buckets:
| Type of Question | Example | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Product selection | What’s the best invoicing software for freelancers? | High – likely to drive purchase |
| Feature or comparison | Does [your tool] integrate with Stripe? | Medium – supports buyer decision |
| Usage & how-to | How do I export data from [tool]? | Medium – good for retention |
| Brand trust / social proof | Is [brand] legit? | Medium to high – important for B2B |
| General info (low value) | What is cloud accounting? | Low – unlikely to convert |
You want to build pages around the first 3–4 types.
Pages that only explain general concepts (like a Wikipedia clone) are unlikely to get cited unless you’re a top-tier authority.
Step 4: Structure the Page for Question Coverage
Instead of just writing a long article, try this structure:
- Intro: Define the problem, include a summary answer.
- Table: Compare tools, services, or approaches.
- FAQs section: 8–15 very direct Q&A-style subheaders
- Feature table / list: Easy to skim for LLMs and humans alike
- External references: Link to other credible sources
AEO loves semantic clarity. That means your answers must be easy to pull out and reuse.
Think of your content like a buffet: the AI picks the cleanest, best-labeled dishes.
Key mindset shifts
- Don’t think “keyword stuffing.” Think “question coverage.”
- Don’t ask: “Is this one keyword high volume?”
- Instead ask: “Can we be the best answer for this question cluster?”
- Write answers that sound like they were pulled straight into a presentation, answer box, or summary.
This is the foundation. In the next chapters, we’ll show how to build content that earns trust, gets cited, and appears inside the AI-generated answer.
Continue to Owned vs Earned Content: What You Can Control (and What You Must Influence)
AEO & GEO Handbook 2026 by People, business, and AI systems clarity coach Mike Moisio