The Answer Authority Method
A five-stage system that turns your firm into a source AI engines recommend by default. Built specifically for professional services, where trust and credentials decide who gets the call.
What AEO actually is
Answer Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring your firm and its content so AI engines recommend you when a prospective client asks. Where SEO competes to rank a page, AEO competes to be the answer the AI actually gives.
Five stages, in order
We sit with your team and pull the real questions your prospects ask AI: “best [practice] for…”, “how much does… cost”, “is X firm any good”, and the comparisons they run before they ever call. Then we test what the engines answer today.
→You get: A ranked map of 30–50 priority questions and the firms currently cited for each.
We add the schema markup engines rely on to read a firm correctly: Organization, Service, FAQ, Review, and Person for your named experts. No guesswork left on the table.
→You get: Validated JSON-LD across your site, error-free in Google’s Rich Results Test.
We rewrite and add pages the way AI extracts them: a direct answer in the first lines, short paragraphs, definitions, comparison tables, and an FAQ on every page. Sourced, attributed, current.
→You get: Answer-first pages built to be quoted, not just ranked.
We make your firm unmistakable across the web. Consistent name, description, and credentials across your profiles, directories, and earned mentions so engines recognise you as a verifiable, trusted entity.
→You get: A consistent entity footprint that raises your trust signal with every engine.
We query the engines on your priority questions every month and track your citation share against competitors. You see what moved, what to fix, and where you are winning.
→You get: A monthly citation-share report across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
Same web, different game
| AEO | Traditional SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| What it optimizes for | Being the named answer AI gives | Ranking a page for human clicks |
| Where you appear | Inside the AI answer, often before any link | In the list of blue links |
| Primary metric | Citation share across engines | Keyword rankings and organic traffic |
| Content format | Answer-first, Q&A, comparison, schema | Long-form pages, backlinks |
| Entity consistency | Critical | Helpful, not central |
| Time to first signal | Weeks for schema and formatting | Months |
Read the full breakdown in AEO vs SEO for professional services.
We get you cited across the engines your clients already ask
How the work runs
Is AEO a replacement for our SEO? +
No. They are complementary. SEO still earns Google clicks; AEO earns the AI recommendation that increasingly comes first. The on-site foundations overlap, so good AEO usually strengthens your SEO as a side effect.
How long until we get cited? +
Schema and on-page answer formatting can be picked up within weeks. Entity authority and consistent citation across engines build over roughly two to three months as the engines re-crawl and learn to trust the signals.
Do you write the content or do we? +
We do the heavy lifting, drafted in your firm’s voice and reviewed by your subject-matter experts before anything ships. Named expert attribution is part of how engines decide to trust you.
Which engines do you cover? +
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude.
How do you report progress? +
A monthly citation-share report: the priority questions, who gets cited for each, and how your share changed versus the prior month and your competitors.
Put the method to work
Start with a free AI-visibility audit. We will show you which of these five stages will move your firm into the answer fastest.
30 minutes. No pitch. You keep the findings.