Term

AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

In short

Answer Engine Optimization. Structuring content so that it gets quoted by engines that answer a question directly (voice assistants, featured snippets, AI answers).

AEO is a slightly older term than GEO; it comes from the practice of structuring content for Google's featured snippets and voice assistants (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant). The idea is the same: the user asks a question, the system gives a single answer, and you want that answer to be taken from your page.

Relationship to GEO

The two terms overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably. If a distinction is to be made: AEO focuses more on the form of the content (a question as heading, a short answer paragraph, lists, tables); GEO adds entity description and technical access to that (llms.txt, Schema.org, crawler access, consistency). In practice you do both together.

Core principles

Make the page title the question the customer asks.
Make the first paragraph a short, complete answer to the question; details come after.
Mark up the frequently asked questions page with FAQPage schema.
Write step-by-step processes as numbered lists and comparisons as tables.
Focus each page on a single question.