Glossary
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)
Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring content so an answer engine can extract a single direct response and attribute it to your brand. It targets surfaces that resolve a question in place — AI Overviews, featured snippets, People Also Ask and assistant replies — rather than a ranked list of links.
In plain terms
Write the answer first, in one clean paragraph, then prove it. If a machine has to summarise your page to answer the question, you have already lost the extraction.
Why it matters for B2B
Answer surfaces sit above everything else on the page and often resolve the query without a click. Being the extracted answer is the difference between being the source of record for a question and being a link nobody reaches.
How to apply it
- Open each page and each section with a 40-60 word answer to the exact question in the heading.
- Use question-shaped headings that match how buyers actually phrase the query.
- Keep facts, figures and definitions on the page itself rather than behind a download.
- Match structured data to what is visibly on the page.
Related reading
Related terms
Back to the full glossary (25 terms).
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