Introduction
As traditional SEO gives way to LLM-first discovery, marketers must master new frameworks. Terms like AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) are gaining traction—but what do they really mean in practice?
This post breaks down the differences, overlaps, and strategic uses of each. It’s your cheat sheet for deciding how to prioritize in 2025 and beyond.
1. SEO: The Traditional Foundation
- Focus: Ranking on SERPs (search engine results pages)
- Tactics: Keywords, backlinks, meta tags, crawlability
- Strength: Direct traffic with measurable ROI
- Weakness: Limited in zero-click or AI-generated answers
SEO is still foundational. But it’s no longer sufficient by itself.
2. AEO: Answer Engine Optimization
- Focus: Being cited as the answer by AI tools (ChatGPT, Google SGE, Perplexity)
- Tactics: Clear, extractable content, bullet points, schema markup, FAQs, internal linking, citations
- Strength: Brand trust and answer visibility across platforms
- Weakness: Less trackable attribution, favors established voices
AEO is about being findable when there's no traditional search involved.
