So you’ve made it this far, and now you’re wondering: where do I actually begin?
Good news – you don’t need to do everything at once. In fact, most AEO success stories start small, stay focused, and build momentum over time. The following 30–60–90 day framework is designed to help you do exactly that – even if you’re a team of one.
Let’s take it one phase at a time.
Days 1–30: Get Oriented and Make Your First Moves
Your goal in the first month isn’t to dominate AEO – it’s to understand your landscape, create your first great asset, and get your name into the ecosystem.
Start by picking 2–3 question topics where your product or service truly solves a problem. Look at Reddit threads, ChatGPT queries, or Perplexity answers in your space. You’ll start to spot patterns. These are the topics where you have something useful to contribute.
Next, build one solid piece of content. A comparison, a “best tools for X” roundup, or even a detailed FAQ. Make it highly structured, clean, and genuinely helpful. If it makes sense, put “2025” in the title and slug. Add a table. Include some variant questions. Think of it like creating a page that a robot would love to quote.
While that’s shipping, go earn a few early mentions. Post a comment in a relevant Reddit thread. Reach out to a friend with a blog. Add value to a LinkedIn conversation. These citations are your early AEO fuel. One mention in the right place can do more than a month of traditional SEO.
Finally, set up a simple way to track what’s working. Even a Google Sheet is fine. Create columns for topic, question, channel (ChatGPT, Perplexity), and whether your content shows up. Keep it scrappy.
Days 31–60: Expand, Reuse, and Start Testing
Now that you’ve got your feet wet, it’s time to go deeper – not wider.
Pick one of the topics that showed promise and start building it into a cluster. Add a few spin-off articles, supporting FAQs, or targeted walkthroughs. Think: more coverage of the same intent.
Take the best paragraph from your existing content and echo it in other places. That could mean posting it as a Reddit comment, turning it into a short LinkedIn post, or using it in the description of a YouTube demo. Why? Because when multiple surfaces say the same thing, LLMs treat it as consensus. That makes your message more likely to appear in answers.
Now’s also a great time to try a video. It doesn’t need to be fancy. A Loom screen recording with your voice explaining something genuinely useful is enough. Upload it to YouTube with a strong title, clear timestamps, and a full transcript in the description.
And finally, if you’re feeling confident – run a small experiment. Pick two similar topics. Optimize one using everything you’ve learned (semantic chunking, author schema, structured lists, etc). Leave the other untouched. Check which one gets picked up by Perplexity or ChatGPT after 2–4 weeks. Learn by watching the results.
Days 61–90: Turn It Into a System
At this point, you’ve built a few assets, earned some citations, and started to understand how LLMs treat your content. Now it’s time to turn your workflow into a repeatable playbook.
Start by defining a content template that works. Maybe it includes a headline with the year, a comparison table, 10 FAQs, internal links, and author schema. Whatever’s worked best so far – turn that into a default structure.
Build a process around content creation and reuse. Who’s writing it? Who’s repurposing it across channels? Who’s checking if it gets cited? Even if the answer to all three is “you,” having a checklist keeps things moving.
Also take time to understand your citation competitors. For each core AEO topic, ask: who is getting quoted instead of us? What are they doing better or differently? Use this not as a discouragement – but as inspiration for how to step up your visibility.
Finally, build your own rhythm. Maybe every Friday, you test 10 questions in Perplexity. Maybe once a month, you audit your top 5 pages for clarity, structure, and freshness. Don’t chase perfection – chase repeatability.
By Day 90, You Should Have:
- At least one AEO topic cluster that’s showing up in LLM answers
- A few reliable citations from other platforms
- A small but growing understanding of what works in your niche
- A content workflow you can keep improving
You don’t need to “win” AEO in 90 days. You just need to build the engine – and keep turning the flywheel.
Next up, we’ll look at the tools and resources that can help you stay on track without adding chaos. Please proceed and read Tools, Links & Learning Resources.
AEO & GEO Handbook 2026 by People, business, and AI systems clarity coach Mike Moisio