Answer engine optimisation (AEO) is the work of shaping your pages so that search engines and AI tools can lift one clear answer from them: the featured snippet above Google’s results, the expanding questions in People Also Ask, the reply a phone or smart speaker reads aloud, and the short passages quoted inside AI answers. I do it for UK businesses whose customers search in questions, such as how much a loft conversion costs, whether a sole trader needs an accountant, or what separates two similar products.
This page covers one part of my AI search optimisation work. If the AI summary at the top of Google is what is taking your clicks, Google AI Overviews optimisation is the closer fit. If the worry is ChatGPT or Perplexity leaving your brand out of their recommendations, look at generative engine optimisation for AI assistants.
What AEO changes for a business
Most service and product pages are written to persuade, so the fact a buyer is hunting for sits halfway down, inside a paragraph about something else. Search systems increasingly match a question to a specific passage rather than to a page as a whole (Google calls one version of this passage ranking), and a buried answer often loses to a competitor who states it in the first two lines.
AEO restructures the pages that ought to answer your customers’ questions so that each answer is easy to find, easy to quote, and still accurate when it is read on its own. When it works, your page is the one shown in the featured snippet or under a People Also Ask question, your site’s name sits beside the answer, and anyone who wants the detail has an obvious reason to click through to you.
It usually makes the page better for people too. Someone arriving from a search wants the answer first and the nuance second, which is exactly the order AEO produces.
Who AEO suits, and who it does not
It suits businesses whose buyers research with questions before they make contact:
- trades and home improvement firms, where people ask about cost, how long a job takes and whether they need planning permission or building regulations approval;
- accountants, solicitors and financial advisers, where people ask what a process involves or what a rule means for their situation;
- private clinics, where people ask what a treatment involves, what recovery looks like and what it costs;
- software and B2B suppliers, where people ask how to do a task or how two approaches compare;
- online shops selling products that need explaining, such as sizing, compatibility or care.
It suits a business less when its customers’ questions have short factual answers that settle the matter on the results page. Someone asking how many millilitres are in a pint gets the number and rarely clicks. That is zero-click search, and for questions like that a snippet brings visibility rather than visits. Before any rewriting starts, I sort your questions into those likely to send people to your site and those that are not, so the effort goes where it can pay back.
It is also the wrong first step for a site Google is not indexing properly. Featured snippets are normally taken from pages already ranking on the first page of results, so technical SEO fixes come first wherever crawling or indexing is broken.
What the AEO work covers
Question research
I collect the questions your customers actually ask: Search Console queries that already reach your site, the People Also Ask boxes and related searches around your main terms, your sales and support inbox, and what your staff hear on the phone. I then assign each question to the one page that should answer it, so you do not end up with a service page, a blog post and an old FAQ page all competing for the same answer.
Answer-first rewrites
Each target question gets a heading phrased the way people ask it, with the answer directly beneath. My working length for that opening answer is about 40 to 60 words, roughly what a paragraph snippet displays, though Google sets no fixed limit. Detail, exceptions and examples follow. Where the honest answer is “it depends”, the opening says what it depends on and gives a realistic range, because a vague answer is rarely the one chosen.
Formats that match the results page
Google shows snippets as paragraphs, lists and tables. If the results for a question already favour a numbered list of steps, a page that answers in a block of prose is working against the format. I match each answer to what the results page prefers: numbered steps for processes, tables for comparisons and prices, a short paragraph for definitions.
Page structure and markup
Answers need proper headings, real HTML lists and tables rather than styled boxes, and text present in the page source rather than loaded by JavaScript after the page opens. Where structured data honestly describes the page, such as an article’s author and date or a product’s price, I add it or brief your developer; larger projects belong to my schema markup and structured data service. Markup does not earn a featured snippet by itself, and I will not add any that misdescribes a page.
Trust around the answer
An answer about health, money or the law needs a named author with relevant experience, a date it was last reviewed, and its sources. A quoting system has more reason to trust a page that shows who stands behind it, and so does the reader. I never invent credentials: if the expertise sits with someone in your business, I help you show it properly.
Spoken answers
A spoken answer is short and heard without the page around it, so the same self-contained passages serve voice search. For businesses with local customers, the common spoken questions are about opening hours, location and whether you do a particular job, and Google answers many of those from your Google Business Profile rather than your website. I check both.
How I run an AEO project
- Baseline. I record which of your target questions show a featured snippet or People Also Ask box today, which site holds each one, and where your pages currently rank. The check is done on UK results, signed out. Search Console does not report featured snippets as a separate result type, so this record is what every later comparison is made against.
- Prioritise. I rank the questions by how directly they lead to an enquiry or sale and by how close your page already is. A page sitting fourth for a question is a far more realistic target than one that does not rank at all.
- Rewrite and restructure. I write the changes or brief your writer, page by page, keeping your tone and checking every factual claim with you. Nothing goes live that commits your business to something it cannot deliver.
- Technical check. I confirm the changed pages are crawlable, indexed and not blocked from snippets by a stray nosnippet or max-snippet setting, then request recrawling in Search Console.
- Measure and adjust. I repeat the baseline check monthly. Snippets can change hands from one week to the next, so a lost one is a prompt to study what the new holder does better, not a reason to panic.
Problems I see most often on UK sites
- Answers buried in an accordion at the foot of the page, written as one-line replies too thin to quote, or so cautious they say nothing.
- Prices withheld on principle. “Contact us for a quote” is rarely chosen for a “how much does it cost” question. A typical range with the factors that move it often is, and it also filters out enquiries that were never going to fit.
- Headings that are slogans, such as “Why choose us”, where a heading phrased as the question would tell readers and search engines what the section answers.
- American answers to British questions. Copy drafted from US sources quotes dollars, US law and US terms, and is a poor match for someone asking about HMRC, the NHS or planning rules in England.
- Tables and step-by-step guides saved as images, so their structure is invisible to search engines and screen readers alike.
What you receive
- A question map: the questions worth pursuing, each assigned to the page that should answer it, with the current holder of any snippet.
- Rewritten sections or full page drafts, or a brief for each page if your own writer will do the work.
- A list of technical and markup changes written so a developer can act on it without a meeting.
- A monthly record of which questions show your page in a snippet or People Also Ask box, set beside clicks and impressions for the same queries from the Search Console Performance report.
- A short monthly note on what changed, what I think caused it and what I would do next.
Next step
Send me the five or six questions your customers most often ask before they buy, along with the page on your site you would expect to answer each one. I will look at what Google shows for them in the UK and tell you which are worth pursuing and what I would change first. Get in touch to book a consultation and we can start there.