What is AEO? An introduction to answer engine optimization
How does your business appear as a source in answer engines such as Perplexity and ChatGPT Search? Key concepts and first steps.
· 1 min read · Kieosa Editorial
Search behaviour is changing. Instead of typing “dentist open in the evening in Nilüfer” and browsing ten results, people ask an AI assistant the same question and get a single, synthesised answer. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the discipline of being cited as a source in that answer.
What is an answer engine?
An answer engine understands the user's question and produces a direct answer compiled from sources on the web. Perplexity, ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews and Copilot belong to this group. Most show the sources they cite below the answer.
Which sources do answer engines prefer?
- Structured data: address, phone and opening hours marked up with Schema.org.
- Short, factual blocks: self-contained paragraphs of 40–80 words.
- Question-and-answer format: headings like “Where is…?” or “What time does … open?” with clear answers.
- Consistency: the same information appearing identically across sources.
- Accessibility: AI bots not blocked by robots.txt.
The first three steps
- Measure your site's AI visibility score.
- Make your business details consistent everywhere.
- Publish your structured data — a Kieosa profile does this for you automatically.
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