It used to be that everyone wanted to know how to show up at the tops of the search engines. Now some of those searches are going towards how to show up in answer engines like ChatGPT.
That being the case, here are 9 effective tips for showing up in answer engines.
- Find the queries, rather than the keywords: Traditional SEO strategies hinge on keyword research and finding keywords with low difficulty so you can get to the tops of the SERPs for them. In answer engine optimization, or AEO, keywords are still important, but queries containing them are more important, as people will be searching in the form of full interrogative statements rather than as simple, short tail keywords.
- Come up with good information: The single most important element of AEO, or answer engine optimization, is answering questions accurately and succinctly. Unlike traditional SEO, there is no way to game the system. Only quality content that answers the question will come out on top.
- Answer more than one question: While you don’t want any fluff in copy optimized for answer engines or AI overviews, if you can get away with answering multiple relevant or related questions in a single piece of copy, that will improve the overall performance of the page or post in question. It will also boost its performance in search engines.
- Offer something original: When answering a question intended to perform through an answer engine, one of the most important things you can do is lean on experiential information. In this age, subject matter experts are going to become very important to digital marketers because they know what they’re talking about.
- If you must rely on other sources, skyscrape them: It’s not always possible to rely on your own experience to answer a question for digital marketing purposes, but if you must rely solely on other sources for your AEO strategy, make sure you take only the good information and include as much as you can that’s relevant to the expected search query.
- Make sure there’s author attribution: If you publish the copy yourself, it’s better if you attribute the work to yourself, as answer engines consider the origin of information and the expertise of the author, just like search engines – or rather, because they use search engines to find information, they do by extension. This is one of the big aspects of optimizing content for AI engines.
- Include links to other sources for claims you rely on if you can: External links are considered dicey in SEO, but in AEO and for AI platforms, they can help a post build credibility by establishing a citation chain.
- Publish on a domain that has authority if you can: The better your work has of showing up in search engines, the better the likelihood that it will also be generated as an output through an AI tool like ChatGPT. Therefore, signals like domain authority are also valuable for AI powered engines here.
- In short, what works for SEO works for AEO: At the end of the day, what works for SEO is generally effective for AEO. When in doubt, follow all best practices for search engine optimization, as it will improve the chances that your website or post will be featured as an output through an answer engine.
Why Work with Digital Marketing Professionals for Answer Engine Optimization Services
Some online businesses choose to work with digital marketing partners for answer engine optimization services to improve the chances that their website shows up as an output.
Investing in these services as part of an organic digital marketing strategy can improve brand awareness, overall visibility, improve SEO efforts, generate new traffic, attract new potential customers, and even open up new channels for revenue.
