WHAT IS AEO? HOW TO OPTIMISE YOUR BRAND FOR AI SEARCH ENGINES

AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising content to appear in AI-generated responses from platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Claude. It focuses on structured formatting, authority signals, and direct answer provision rather than traditional SEO ranking factors. With traffic from ChatGPT projected to overtake Google by 2028 according to Semrush, understanding how to optimise for AI search engines is now critical for B2B marketing success.

Why AEO Matters for UK Businesses in 2025

The shift from traditional search to AI-powered answer engines represents the most significant change in how buyers discover solutions since Google's dominance began. Research from HubSpot's marketing team shows that visitors arriving from AI search engines convert at 3× the rate of traditional organic search visitors. They arrive pre-qualified, having already seen an AI endorsement of your brand.

For B2B companies offering SEO services or HubSpot integration, this shift creates both opportunity and urgency. When a marketing director asks ChatGPT "What should I look for when choosing a HubSpot partner in the UK?", you need to be mentioned in that response—not just ranking on page one of Google.

Mike King, founder and CEO of iPull Rank and two-time Search Engine Land Marketer of the Year, explains the fundamental difference: "It is a profound mistake to say that optimising for generative AI is just SEO. From a straightup business perspective, all the business people that are hearing you say that are thinking that you don't understand business and you're going to miss out on opportunities."

Where to Start: Measure Your Current AI Visibility

Before optimising anything, you need to understand where you stand. Asia Frost, Senior Director of Global Growth and Paid Advertising at HubSpot, emphasises this foundation: "It all starts with understanding where you're strong and where you have gaps."

HubSpot released the AEO Grader in March 2024 as a free tool to assess brand visibility across major answer engines. It shows exactly how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude relative to competitors. The tool is now available in six languages and doesn't require a HubSpot subscription.

At Whitehat, we've integrated AEO visibility tracking into our SEO audit process. The initial scan provides a report card showing where clients fall short, enabling immediate action on high-priority gaps.

Mike King recommends a specific approach: "The first place to start is measuring where you stand and then prioritising the opportunities where you're not showing up. One of the things that I often see as an opportunity is around branded terms, particularly related to things like pricing."

On-Site Content Optimisation for AI Search

Structuring content for AI extraction differs fundamentally from traditional SEO strategy. AI engines are "lazy readers" that need clear, extractable information units.

The JavaScript Problem

ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude cannot execute JavaScript. If your content only appears after JavaScript runs, AI engines will miss it entirely. Google and Bing render JavaScript, but the AI crawlers do not.

Kyle Denhoff, Senior Director of Content at HubSpot, explains the solution: "We just published a series of pricing blog posts on our blog. All the information that ChatGPT needed about all of our features and how they were priced. And we saw pricing accuracy across all AI services go up immediately and significantly."

This technical reality affects how we approach HubSpot CMS implementations for clients. Critical content must be server-side rendered or present in the raw HTML.

Content Structure That AI Can Extract

Mike King outlines the essential on-page tactics: "Making sure that it's accessible is the first thing. Then structuring the content is very much like the things that we've done historically for SEO, like making sure you have clear headings, making sure that you're using things like bullet points and tables and so on."

The concept of "atomic units" is critical. King explains: "You don't want to have a paragraph that's talking about four or five different things. You want a paragraph that is very specific to whatever the topic is because it's easier for a large language model to parse out that information and then use it as part of the response."

When creating content marketing for clients, Whitehat now applies these atomic content principles systematically:

• One idea per paragraph — Each paragraph should be extractable independently
• Clear headings — Descriptive H2/H3 tags that signal content to AI
• Structured formats — Bullet points, tables, and numbered lists for scannable information
• Data points with sources — Unique, corroborated statistics that AI can cite
• Answer-first formatting — Direct answers in opening sentences, not buried after context

The Power of Unique Data

King emphasises proprietary data: "You also want to be using data points that are very clear, ideally unique ones to you as well. Like if you have a fact in your content that is supported by the other facts that are corroborated, then they are going to use that because you're the only source for it."

This aligns with our approach at Whitehat. When conducting HubSpot implementations, we track client-specific performance metrics. These become proprietary data points that AI engines cannot find elsewhere, making our content uniquely valuable for citation.

Off-Site Strategy: Building Authority Where AI Looks

On-site optimisation is only half the equation. Brand websites make up just 10% of AI citations. Third-party sources—Reddit, review sites, industry publications—account for 90% of citations.

This reality fundamentally changes how we think about digital marketing. It's no longer sufficient to optimise your own properties. You must build presence and authority across the platforms AI systems trust.

The Reddit Opportunity

Mike King identifies Reddit as the platform "working like gangbusters" for AEO. OpenAI has a $60M data licensing deal with Reddit. Reddit presence in AI Overviews increased 450% from March to June 2025, accounting for approximately 7.15% of all AI Overview citations.

However, Reddit is allergic to inauthentic promotion. Kyle Denhoff explains HubSpot's approach: "What we've seen is when engagement or participation on HubSpot's subreddit goes up, then positive mentions of HubSpot go up across Reddit, so within all the communities that we are not actively moderating. And so we've actually really focused on making the HubSpot subreddit a really great place to hang out because we see ripple effects across the ecosystem."

The strategy isn't about promotional posting. It's about building genuine community value that creates organic, positive brand mentions across the platform.

Review Platforms and Social Proof

G2 and Capterra are heavily cited by AI engines for B2B software recommendations. ChatGPT cites G2 for 33% of software review citations. Capterra dominates Claude citations for B2B software.

Asia Frost notes the statistics: "100% of ChatGPT-recommended software tools have Capterra reviews. 99% have G2 reviews." A 10% increase in reviews correlates with a 2% increase in AI citations.

For our digital marketing agency services, we now systematically request reviews from satisfied clients on these platforms, guiding them to mention specific features, measurable results, and our unique differentiators.

Digital PR and Brand Mentions

Mike King frames the off-site strategy as creating "consensus across the web." He uses a raffle metaphor: "You're creating as many raffle tickets as possible across the web so that you can win that raffle."

The approach involves coordinated campaigns where a single message or statistic appears in multiple authoritative places:

• Industry publications — Guest posts and contributed articles with consistent positioning
• Podcasts and webinars — Speaking opportunities where you control the message
• Partner content — Co-marketing with complementary brands
• Community participation — Thoughtful engagement in relevant forums and discussions

King explains: "The whole point is that you want to get that message in as many places as possible. When ChatGPT goes out and it's doing all its synthetic queries, it keeps running into that stat."

Link Building Still Matters (But Differently)

King challenges volume-focused link building: "It's far more about relevance at this point than it is about volume. Really focus on getting five to ten really high quality links that are very relevant to the subject matter that your site is covering."

This aligns with our white hat SEO approach—prioritising authority and relevance over quantity. Five highly relevant links from authoritative sources in your space carry more weight than hundreds of generic directory submissions.

Channel Alignment: The Strategic Integration Challenge

Kyle Denhoff identifies a critical challenge many teams face: "As you grow and scale, folks are implementing things that work on their channel, are native for their channel, but it's actually can we get aligned on the content strategy, the foundation, the message, and then execute against that."

Mike King reinforces this: "People look at generative AI and AI search as a technical problem. It is more a content strategy problem than anything else."

Successful AEO requires cross-functional alignment that many organisations struggle to achieve. The SEO team optimises on-site content. The social media team builds community presence. The PR team secures external mentions. But without a unified message and coordinated execution, these efforts don't create the consensus AI engines need to cite your brand.

At Whitehat, we approach this through our inbound marketing methodology. AEO isn't a separate workstream—it's integrated into content strategy, social media execution, and authority building from the start.

The Measurement and Iteration Framework

Asia Frost emphasises measurement throughout: "I think that's something we did as well. We did the initial scan and got that report card and started to see where we were falling short and then what actions we wanted to take right away."

The measurement approach should mirror traditional SEO but adapted for AI:

HubSpot's AEO Grader provides the baseline. From there, systematic testing reveals what works. Frost explains: "Once you have that idea of your visibility gaps, that's when you're going to develop your strategy. And that strategy is going to be both on-site, the content that you create and you own, and it's going to be off-site."

Frequently Asked Questions About AEO

How Whitehat Approaches AEO for Clients

At Whitehat, we've integrated AEO into our core service delivery from strategy through execution. Our approach combines the proven fundamentals—structured content, technical accessibility, authority building—with systematic measurement and iteration.

We start with visibility assessment using HubSpot's AEO Grader and manual testing across platforms. This reveals immediate opportunities like pricing visibility gaps or technical JavaScript issues preventing AI crawlers from accessing content.

Our content strategy now defaults to AI-optimised structure: atomic paragraphs, answer-first formatting, proprietary data integration, and clear heading hierarchies. Every piece of content serves both traditional SEO and AEO objectives.

For clients using HubSpot, we ensure CMS implementations don't hide critical content behind JavaScript. We structure pricing pages, service descriptions, and case studies for maximum AI extractability while maintaining conversion-focused design.

Off-site, we systematically build authority through review platforms, industry publications, and community participation—always with consistent messaging that creates the consensus AI engines look for when deciding which brands to cite.

If you're ready to make sure your brand appears when your ideal clients ask AI for recommendations, we can talk about your AEO strategy.

References and Further Reading

1. HubSpot Marketing Team (2024). AEO Grader: Measure Your AI Search Visibility. HubSpot.
2. Semrush (2024). The Future of Search: AI Search Engines Study. Semrush Blog.
3. Backlinko (2024). How to Optimize for ChatGPT Search: Complete AEO Guide. Backlinko.
4. Search Engine Land (2024). The Complete Guide to AI Search Optimization. Search Engine Land.
5. Gartner (2024). Predicts 2025: Marketing Leaders Must Pivot to AI-First Strategies. Gartner.
6. iPull Rank (2024). Building an Answer Engine Optimization Strategy. iPull Rank Blog.