SEO vs AEO: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters for Your Business

SEO helps websites rank in search results; AEO helps provide direct answers to users via AI and voice assistants.

SEO vs AEO: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters for Your Business

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, new acronyms and strategies pop up all the time. While most marketers are familiar with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), there's a rising star gaining attention: AEO (Answer Engine Optimization).

But what exactly is the difference between SEO and AEO — and do you need both? Let’s break it down.


What Is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

It focuses on:

  • Keyword research: Identifying terms your audience is searching for.

  • On-page optimization: Using keywords in titles, content, and metadata.

  • Technical SEO: Improving site speed, mobile responsiveness, and crawlability.

  • Backlinks: Building links from reputable sites to improve authority.

The goal of SEO is to get your site ranked as high as possible in search results, so users click through to your site.


What Is AEO?

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is about optimizing your content to provide direct, structured answers to questions — especially for AI-powered platforms and voice assistants like Google Assistant, Siri, and ChatGPT.

It focuses on:

  • Structured data: Using schema markup to help machines understand your content.

  • Featured snippets: Formatting content to appear in “position zero” on Google.

  • Question-based content: Targeting specific user queries with concise answers.

  • Entity-based optimization: Ensuring your brand is recognized and accurately represented by AI and knowledge graphs.

The goal of AEO is to get your content selected by AI-driven answer engines — even if it means users don’t click through to your site at all.


Key Differences at a Glance

Feature SEO AEO
Focus Ranking in search engines Providing answers to user queries
Platform Google Search, Bing, etc. AI tools, voice assistants, chatbots
Format Web pages with optimized keywords Structured, short-form answers
Strategy Traffic-driven Accuracy-driven
Tools Used Keywords, backlinks, metadata Schema markup, FAQs, entity recognition

Do You Need Both SEO and AEO?

Absolutely.

SEO brings users to your site — it’s still essential for traffic, conversions, and brand discovery. But AEO is increasingly important as more users turn to AI, voice search, and direct answers over traditional browsing.

If you want your brand to stay visible in the age of AI, you’ll need to balance both approaches:

  • Use SEO to get found.

  • Use AEO to get understood.


Final Thoughts

As search behavior shifts toward questions and AI-driven tools, brands need to move beyond traditional SEO. AEO is not replacing SEO — it's complementing it. By combining both strategies, you’ll be better positioned to meet users wherever and however they search.