AEO, or answer engine optimisation, means making your business easy for AI assistants and search answers to find, understand and quote correctly. It is not a trick. It is accurate facts, published clearly, on a fast website, backed by real reviews and a complete Google Business Profile.
Where do AI answers come from?
Tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features answer a question by pulling from sources they can reach: web pages, business listings, reviews and maps data. They do not publish their selection rules, so nobody can promise you a place in an answer. What you can control is how clear, consistent and current the information about your business is across the places those tools read.
Google is explicit that there is no separate recipe for its AI features: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." A page still has to be indexed and eligible to show a snippet. In other words, AEO is built on the same foundations as good SEO.
What AEO actually covers
- One set of facts. Name, address, phone number, timings and services should match on your website, Google Business Profile and every directory or OTA listing.
- Answers in plain sentences. If customers ask "Is there parking?" or "Do you ship to Dubai?", say so in text on the page, not inside an image or PDF.
- A complete Google Business Profile. It is the main source for maps and local answers. See our Google Business Profile checklist.
- Real reviews, answered. Recent reviews that mention the service and place give both people and machines something concrete to rely on.
- Structured data that matches the page. Useful for accuracy, but not magic. See what schema markup does and does not do.
- A fast, crawlable site. Do not block crawlers in robots.txt, keep important content as text, and link your pages to each other.
The India angle: language
According to the Kantar and IAMAI Internet in India report, about 57% of Indian internet users prefer to access content in regional languages, and rural users (488 million) now outnumber urban users (397 million). If your customers search in Hindi, Tamil, Punjabi or Hinglish, your key facts should exist in the language they use, not only in English. We cover this in local SEO across Indian states.
What AEO cannot do
It cannot guarantee a mention, and nobody can honestly sell you one. Results change as these tools change. Treat AEO as making your business the easiest correct source about itself, and measure by checking real answers regularly. Google says AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic is counted inside the Search Console Performance report under the Web search type, so you can see it without any extra tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is AEO different from SEO?
They overlap heavily. SEO helps you rank in a list of links; AEO aims to have your business named or quoted in a single answer. The foundations are the same: accurate, well-structured, trustworthy information.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
Google says no special files or markup are needed for its AI features, and a 2026 vendor study of 10,000 local businesses found no meaningful link between llms.txt and AI visibility. We publish one because it costs almost nothing, but it is not the reason to expect results.
How long does AEO take?
There is no fixed timeline. Fixing facts and your Business Profile can show up within weeks; reviews and content build over months. Be wary of anyone promising a date.
Sources
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Business Today: Key insights from the Kantar and IAMAI Internet in India report
- Insites: What AI uses to choose local businesses and what it ignores (vendor study, May 2026)
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