Published by Tenth Gear Consulting

While focusing on SEO, don’t ignore AEO

Have you noticed that the nature of finding information online is changing?

You heard the long standing advice - if you want your business to be found by potential customers, concentrate on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and ranking it at the top of the search results.

But now instead of googling and then scrolling to click on the high ranking link, your customers are increasingly turning to AI-generated summary snippets, voice search or just asking chatbots. It’s more user-friendly to get the answer directly (or ask AI to generate a complex research report) but this trend dramatically reduces direct traffic from search engines.

And unless you also focus on AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), your business may become invisible.

AEO vs SEO

While SEO focuses on achieving a higher rank in search results, the goal of AEO is to have your online presence understood by a new generation of AI-powered search engines - and your content selected as the best and most accurate answer. It’s still about authority and building your brand, so don’t think that SEO is no longer relevant.

But how are the best answers selected?

If you want to get your site linked in the AI summary snippets, you must help the algorithm to understand and rank your content.

Optimizing for AEO

Optimizing for AEO means making things easier for humans and robots.

• Do you answer common questions using language people actually use?

• Are those questions listed in your headings - with concise answers underneath?

• Can humans scan and understand what you are saying quickly - and does that provide a complete answer?

• Do you have a structured data markup on all essential pages so AI can understand your content better?

• Are important people, places and concepts related to your business represented in this structured data?

AI practical use cases: not just for asking questions

It’s always helpful to see the real examples of how people use the tools - not only does it give you ideas to replicate in your own business, it sparks imagination on what else is possible.

What do other businesses use AI for - right now, without complex vendor contracts and with the straightforward monthly fees?

Content Creation and Optimization

Think beyond creating draft blog posts and website content. Consider generating product descriptions, social media content and marketing brochures.

Try generating training materials and SOP or creating automated policy reviews.

Data Analysis

Use AI to extract messy data from PDFs, websites and documents in Excel. Analyze sales and the impact of your marketing efforts, identifying patterns and trends. Review pricing and analyze best areas for cost cutting.

Content Summarization

No time to read all the latest business books on your list? Extract the most important advice as applicable to your specific business situation.

Need to analyze a large volume of documents quickly? Load them to NotebookLM to generate summaries and ask questions.

Customer Service

Optimize writing emails (and manage conflict resolution) by feeding drafts to AI and generating polite and helpful email copy for your customers.

Keep answering the same questions? Outsource basic customer inquiries to the chatbot.

Automation

Create custom automation processes for your business - think employee onboarding and training, inventory management and sales processes.

Software

It was never easier to DIY. Make minor updates to your website - or create a brand new one, just by talking to the AI.

Create custom data feeds between your legacy software - or a quick Proof of Concept app to test-drive your idea.

Have an old app you rely on - but nobody knows what it does? Generate missing documentation for your existing business applications.

Operations

Quickly create financial forecasts and marketing plans. Optimize your pricing. Brainstorm new ideas and sales strategies. Run a competitor analysis and find your unique advantage.

Photo and Video

Improve your product photography, generate images for content, and touch up professional headshots.

Start experimenting today

In past issues we’ve touched the topic of cost-cutting. Using AI effectively can be an additional piece of that budget puzzle - what can you do today to improve your business?

Nobody wants to touch legacy systems - but the help is here.

Businesses that have been around for a while are more likely to run on legacy software - created out of necessity back when SaaS was not a thing, and so heavily tailored to the specifics of the operations, the replacement feels like an impossible task. Especially since the documentation had been lost.

Usually reverse engineering old code logic is a long and expensive task - I worked on the apps that took weeks, if not months, to analyze. But now you can use multiple AI-powered coding agents to generate a high-level summary of the application and expand from there.

It’s not perfect yet - but in my tests the completion curve is significantly accelerated, which helps to bring the costs down.

Re-evaluate your legacy apps - is it time for the upgrade?

Security alert: even brief exposure compromises your data.

The known expression “Internet is forever” had never been so true - you never know when AI comes looking and indexing.

Research from Lasso Security exposed a use case where a private software code collection on GitLab (online code management system commonly used by software developers) was accidentally made public for a very short time - and AI tool Copilot copied and indexed it.

The problem is once AI copies the information, it’s very difficult to completely remove it. Anything your business puts online by mistake, even briefly, is compromised.

Mistakes do happen, so it may be a good time to review your security policy outlining data handling guidelines and preventive measures to prevent accidental exposure.

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