Adapting your content strategies for AI search SEO attracts quality traffic that’s more likely to convert.
AI search — which includes Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini — represents more opportunities for potential customers to discover your brand. According to Semrush, AI search visitors are expected to surpass traditional search traffic by 2028.
Answer engine optimization (AEO), also known as AI search engine optimization (SEO), helps you get seen by more potential customers who are ready to convert. Understanding how AI-powered search algorithms work will help you shape your website’s content so it’s more likely to be quoted directly in AI-generated answers and stay competitive as AI search evolves.
What’s answer engine optimization?
AEO optimizes your content to appear in AI-powered search engine result pages (SERPs). These pages often target specific search intent queries, like “how to” and “what is.” AI search engines pull information from various sources and combine it into a concise response that addresses the query and links to more information.
With the right optimization, you can improve your chance of appearing in AI-generated answers, where clicks can lead to more than 4 times as many conversions. At Webflow, we found that AI search traffic was 6 times more likely to convert than non-brand SEO traffic. That’s because traffic from AI search is often primed to convert more than traffic from traditional searches — the searcher had a specific need and found an immediate answer and relevant, trusted resources.
AEO vs. SEO
While AEO and SEO share some tactics, they ultimately serve different purposes:
- AEO is about being the source that answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini pull into direct responses. Success is measured by whether your content is cited or directly quoted in AI-generated answers.
- SEO is about ranking well in SERPs. Success is measured via impressions, clicks, and organic traffic.
Both approaches overlap on elements that matter: backlinks, domain authority, and high-quality content. The difference lies in how information is structured and delivered.
For example, assume you’re writing an article called “Top 10 marketing best practices.”
For SEO, you’d focus on your keyword strategy (including topic-relevant keywords like “marketing best practices” and “digital marketing tips”), align with search intent, craft a compelling title tag and meta description, and write scannable sections.
For AEO, you’d format the article so an AI model can instantly extract reliable, standalone insights. That means:
- Concise, direct answers under clear headings
- Definitions and context in plain language
- Ensuring your content is cited across the web (AI search engines often cross-reference multiple sources before choosing what to surface).
AEO and SEO are complementary strategies. Together, they optimize content for both visibility in traditional search results and inclusion in AI-generated responses.
AI search algorithms explained
AI answer engines don’t work the same way as organic search results. Rather than relying on a comprehensive index of pages, they break down queries to determine their subject and look for relevant answers. They do this by using large-language models (LLMs) trained on internal datasets and by pulling in new information through retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
The pre-trained, internal data comes from proprietary or publicly available datasets like Common Crawl, which offers a vast library of content for LLMs to learn from. Specialized datasets like The Stack and Project Gutenberg can help train answer engines that need a narrower focus.
If an answer engine determines that answering a query requires up-to-date information, it’ll rely on RAG to find those sources. RAG provides a framework for finding and vetting new information from external sources, such as newly released articles and news sources. To be relevant with RAG, you must become a credible source from which it can draw current answers to topical queries. Focus on providing fresh content with original insights and information.
Benefits of AI search optimization
Adapting your content with AI SEO strategies will drive more traffic to your site, but the benefits don’t stop there. AEO can increase how often you appear in AI-generated answers now and in the future. Here’s how:
- Increased visibility: Regular placement in AI-generated answers puts your content at the top of SERPs. Over time, repeated exposure builds recognition and establishes your site as a reliable source.
- More qualified traffic: Visitors who click into your site after finding an answer to their question usually aren’t just browsing. They now have the information they need to make an informed decision and are ready to take action.
- Future-proof content strategy: AI answer engines are here to stay, and companies will continue to invest in them. Preparing your content now helps you gain a competitive edge as this technology becomes a larger part of internet searches.
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5 ways to optimize for AI search engines
With AI search reshaping how people discover content, driving traffic to your site now calls for a mix of smart SEO tactics and AEO optimization. You must refine your SEO efforts by structuring your content so that AI search engines can easily draw from it when generating answers. These five AEO strategies will help.
1. Refresh content regularly
Content freshness is a key factor that answer engines use to select content, and that’s only increasing with new technologies like FreshQA. Posting new content often and regularly updating existing pages caters to AI search engines’ favoring of relevance. This applies to everything on your website, including landing pages and product descriptions.
To keep your content fresh and relevant, here are a few best practices to follow:
- Update your best-performing pages quarterly to keep content younger than 90 days old. Use SEO tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to track and flag content before it passes the three-month mark.
- Avoid time-sensitive words like “new,” “upcoming,” or “recently,” and focus on evergreen topics that will be relevant long term. AI often overlooks dated content, and evergreen pages require less upkeep since they rarely need major rewrites.
- Research keywords related to each topic regularly and incorporate new information into the copy to stay current with search trends.
- Research questions people are asking about each topic and put short, direct answers in your content. This increases the likelihood of AI systems referencing your site in their responses.
- Add internal links to relevant pages you’ve created since the last update. Doing so strengthens your site’s structure and makes it easier for search engines to crawl it.
- Add "last updated" timestamps to all content pages so AI-powered answer engines can easily determine freshness.
2. Optimize content to answer questions
When people use AI platforms like ChatGPT or voice search tools like Apple’s Siri, their queries tend to be longer and more conversational. For example, instead of typing “personal cloud server setup,” they might ask, “How do I set up a personal cloud server at home without hiring IT help?” When researching topics to cover, prioritize natural-sounding questions like this, using those phrases to guide your content ideas.
Once you know which questions people are likely to ask, incorporate them directly into your content to optimize for AI search. Turn these questions into headings followed by text that answers them as concisely as possible. If you find several relevant questions, add an FAQ section to include them all.
When writing answers for conversational searches, start by rephrasing the question with the keywords. For example, if the query is “How do I set up a personal cloud server?” begin with something like “To set up a personal cloud server, you must…”
3. Structure content for AI extractability
Optimize your content outline so topics and subtopics appear in clearly defined headings and lists. These act as labels that AI systems use to detect content relevant to search queries. When content is labeled clearly, AI can more easily determine its relevance.
Here are a few best practices for structuring AI-friendly content:
- Write headings that match likely questions and start terms like “What is” and “How to.” Content following each heading should contain three paragraphs at most. If you need to go longer, add subheadings.
- Keep paragraphs short (around 2-3 sentences), write in active voice to make each point direct, and avoid run-on sentences.
- Introduce every list with a sentence explaining its purpose, and use related keywords within each list item.
- Use images sparingly to boost understanding. Always include alt text that uses keywords to describe the image and its purpose, and focus on clarity and relevance. AI checks this text to gauge relevance to the search query, so make it as detailed and optimized as the rest of your content.
4. Create original content
Your best chance of showing up in AI-generated answers is when your answer is the top-ranking one. Early placement builds authority, making it harder for others to outrank you later.
Prioritizing original topics also strengthens your domain authority. Every click from an AI-generated answer tells the search engine your page satisfied the query, which can lead to backlinks and better visibility in both AI answer engines and traditional search engines.
Spotting opportunities for original content takes creativity and consistent monitoring. Subscribe to industry newsletters, scan social media platforms, and follow niche forums to catch trends and emerging topics early. Once you do, move quickly using a streamlined workflow and AI-powered marketing tools to publish before your competition.
5. Write content others will cite
AI answer engines favor domains that are cited elsewhere, including in blog articles, whitepapers, and social media posts. To get backlinks from these sources, write content that others will want to link to.
Here are some content types that might get you backlinks from other sites:
- Statistics: Conduct surveys and review publicly available data to uncover stats that other sites want to use to prove their own points.
- How-tos: Provide a definitive tutorial on completing complex tasks like setting up an email marketing campaign or conducting user research. Other sources can use these how-to articles as a shortcut, linking to your content to cover essential concepts.
- Comparisons: Test different products and services, then compare them to highlight their pros and cons. Other sources may want to lean on your analysis so they don’t need to make their own.
How to track AEO impact
Tracking AI search traffic is different from monitoring SEO-driven clicks. Checking traffic sources reveals whether people are coming from AI domains, but it won’t confirm whether your content appeared in AI-generated answers. To determine that, follow the tips below.
Measure AI referral traffic and conversions
Review your site analytics for referrals from LLM domains. This shows users clicked through to your content from an AI-generated answer. Referring domains to track include:
- chatgpt.com
- chat.openai.com
- copilot.microsoft.com
- perplexity.ai
- gemini.google.com
- claude.ai
- chat.mistral.ai
- poe.com
- chat.qwenlm.ai
- chat.deepseek.com
- grok.com
Track brand mentions, position, and citations
Use AEO tools like Profound and Ahrefs to monitor citations to your content in AI-generated answers and brand mentions in other sources like Reddit and LinkedIn. An increase in mentions often means improved visibility in AI searches.
Add a “How did you find us?” form
In your sign-up flows, add a question that asks users how they discovered you. In the dropdown menu, add options like “ChatGPT,” “Google Gemini,” and “Perplexity” so you can determine which of these AI systems is bringing in the most traffic.
Identify the search topics that drive business value
Turn these topics into questions, then address those questions in your content. Monitor your site analytics to see if there’s an upward trend in traffic from search queries for those questions.
Boost your site’s visibility with smart AEO strategies
Optimizing your website for AI search means understanding how AI-powered algorithms find and present information, then creating content that earns their trust. From using clear, concise language to structuring pages with the right keywords and alt text, the goal is to position your site as a reliable source of answers. It isn’t as simple as flipping a switch, but with Webflow, it’s easier than you might think.
Webflow’s AEO Maturity Model gives you a real-time analysis of your site’s AI search readiness. It evaluates technical and content factors like your website’s keywords, alt text, and authority, while providing actionable tips to improve your chance of becoming a top AI search result.
Make your content the first thing AI sees, with Webflow.
See how you show up in AI search
Run your site through Webflow’s AEO Maturity Model for a real-time score and next steps.
