If you've been reading up on AEO vs SEO, the chances are you're trying to work out whether you need to pay for something new on top of the SEO you already have, and generally speaking my answer is no. I've been an SEO specialist since 2019 and my view on the whole AEO and GEO thing is that it's mostly just good SEO. I'm still optimising your site for what people are searching for and people are just searching in a different way now, whether that's typing a full question into ChatGPT or reading the AI Overview at the top of Google. A lot of good SEO carries over and then there are a few AI-specific bits that don't fall under traditional SEO, such as query fan-out.
What SEO, AEO and GEO Actually Mean
SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work of getting your website ranking in Google and Bing so that people find you and go on to buy, enquire or book.
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) is about getting your content picked as the direct answer to a question. It started with featured snippets and voice search and now covers AI answers too, and I've gone into more detail in my post on answer engine optimisation.
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is about getting your business mentioned and cited in the answers written by AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode. You'll sometimes see it called LLMO or "geo SEO" too, and I cover it properly in my post on generative engine optimisation.
It's easy to see why so many people are asking about this now, as Ofcom's 2026 news consumption research found 21% of UK adults had used an AI app or service to keep up with the news in the past month, with ChatGPT alone on 13%. When you put them side by side, though, there's a lot of overlap.
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank your pages in the search results and win the click | Be the direct answer to a question | Be mentioned or cited in an AI-generated answer |
| Main platforms | Google and Bing search results | Featured snippets, voice assistants and AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Mode |
| Typical tactics | Keyword research, technical health, content and links | Question research, answer-first content and clear headings | The same foundations, plus your reputation on other sites and access for AI crawlers |
| Typical outcome | Organic traffic, leads and sales | Your answer shown on the results page, sometimes with a click | A citation or brand mention, sometimes with a click |
Why Most of This Is Just Good SEO
When I do keyword research for a client I'm looking at what their customers type into Google, and with AI search I'm looking at the questions they ask instead. Those questions tend to be longer and more conversational, so keyword research turns into question research, but it's still research into what your customers want to know and how they ask for it.
Generally speaking, the things that help Google understand a page also help an AI tool pull the right answer out of it, so clear structure and descriptive headings matter as much as ever. The same goes for being consistent about who your business is, what it does and where it's based, and for internal linking, a site crawlers can get into and links from other reputable websites. Google says as much itself, as its page on AI features and your website states there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond the usual search fundamentals.
I'm not the only one who thinks this either, as the general consensus in SEO threads on Reddit is that AEO is mostly SEO under a new name.
The Parts That Are Genuinely Different
Query fan-out is when an AI search tool takes a single question, splits it into several related searches across subtopics, runs them and then pulls the results together into one answer. Google confirms AI Overviews and AI Mode may use it and it's the main thing that traditional keyword-to-ranking SEO doesn't account for.
Traditionally you'd pick a keyword, work on a page and track where it ranks, but with fan-out, a page sitting well outside the top 10 for the question someone typed can still get cited if it's a good answer to one of the sub-questions the AI came up with. A vendor study by Ahrefs covering 863,000 keywords found only 38% of pages cited in AI Overviews also ranked in the top 10 for the same query, down from 76% in its earlier study, and Ahrefs puts part of that down to fan-out. Bear in mind it also says its detection improved between the two studies, so I'd read the drop as a direction of travel.
So I'd answer the related questions your customers have properly, ideally on one strong page or a small group of pages, and avoid spinning up a thin page for every variation, as Google's guide to optimising for its generative AI features warns that creating pages for every query variation falls foul of its scaled content abuse policy. Fan-out in AI Mode can also log impressions in Search Console that never turn into clicks, so a jump in impressions without the clicks to match might not mean what it looks like.
Fan-out is my main example but there are a few other genuinely AI-specific bits. GEO is partly an off-site problem, as a lot of what ChatGPT and other tools say about a business comes from reviews, directories, forums and "best of" roundups on other websites, and OpenAI doesn't document how ChatGPT chooses which sources to cite. When I ran a ChatGPT citation test for a London storage company, they weren't cited on any of the eight location searches they were targeting, while a competitor with around 236 referring domains was. That doesn't prove links are the reason, but it's a good reminder that what other sites say about you can matter as much as your own pages.
ChatGPT's local answers are put together in their own way too. In that same test they came in two parts, a block of business listings that looks a lot like a map pack and then written prose underneath citing other websites, so you need to think about both halves.
Crawler access matters as well. OpenAI's documentation on its crawlers explains that GPTBot collects content for training its models while OAI-SearchBot is the one behind ChatGPT's search answers, and sites that block OAI-SearchBot won't be shown in those answers. That means you can block training and still stay visible in search, or block both by accident with a rule that's too broad.
I've gone into fan-out in a lot more depth in my post on query fan-out.
So Do You Really Need All Three?
Generally speaking, no. For most UK small and medium businesses one solid SEO foundation covers it, without separate vendors or budget lines for AEO and GEO, as long as your content answers questions clearly and you keep an eye on what other websites say about your business.
It's also worth remembering that the numbers change a lot depending on how the question's asked. The Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026 found weekly use of AI chatbots for news in the UK was just 4%, the lowest of any market it surveyed and a long way below the Ofcom figure, with UK trust in AI chatbot answers at 6%, also the lowest.
Measuring any of this is tricky too, as most AI visibility tools report numbers that vary by prompt, location and time of day. AI answers change from one run to the next and each tool samples its own set of prompts, so I'd treat any percentage a dashboard shows as something to watch over time, and I wouldn't be surprised if a different tool gave you a completely different figure.
If you'd rather have this handled for you, I offer AI SEO as an extension of my SEO work, covering ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode alongside your normal search visibility.
What This Means for Your SEO Work
Day to day the changes are fairly small and sit on top of the SEO you should already be doing, so these are the ones I'd focus on:
- Make sure the first sentence under each heading answers that heading on its own, as that's the bit an AI Overview or ChatGPT is most likely to lift.
- Add structured data such as FAQ schema where it genuinely helps the page as part of your technical SEO, but bear in mind Google says structured data isn't required for generative AI search and there's no special schema.org markup you need to add.
- Make sure your robots.txt isn't blocking OAI-SearchBot or any other AI crawler you want to let in. Google says you don't need an llms.txt file to appear in its AI features, so I wouldn't spend time on one.
- Make sure your Google Business Profile, local listings and the way your business is described across the web are consistent, which is the same work that goes into local SEO.
All of this sits on top of good SEO done well. If you're not sure where your site stands then an SEO audit is a sensible place to start, and I'm happy to include a look at how you're showing up in AI answers as part of it. Just drop me a message and we can set up a free discovery call to talk through what you're looking to achieve.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is AEO in Digital Marketing?
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimisation, and it's the work of getting your content picked as the direct answer to a question, whether that's a featured snippet, a voice assistant reply or an AI Overview. It's mostly good SEO with a bit more focus on clear, question-led content, and there's more in my post on answer engine optimisation.
What Is the Difference Between SEO, GEO and AEO?
SEO gets your pages ranking in the search results and AEO gets your content picked as the direct answer to a question, while GEO is about getting your business cited in the answers AI tools like ChatGPT give. As the comparison table above shows, they share the same foundations with a few AI-specific extras such as query fan-out.
Is Google Ads Considered SEO?
No. Google Ads is paid search, where you pay for your ads to show and for the clicks they get, whereas SEO, AEO and GEO are all about organic visibility you don't pay for per click. The two channels often work well alongside each other, though.
Do AI Visibility Tools Give Accurate Numbers?
They give you a rough idea at best, as most AI visibility tools sample a small and fairly inconsistent set of prompts and AI answers change by prompt, location and time of day. A single dashboard figure is only a snapshot, so I'd treat it as a direction of travel.
