What is answer engine optimisation and how is it different from SEO?
Answer engine optimisation, or AEO, is optimising for the systems that answer a question rather than list results. That includes AI assistants, AI overviews in search results and any tool that reads pages and summarises them. The goal is not a position on a page. It is being the source a system reaches for when it composes an answer, and being named when it does.
The difference from traditional SEO is the unit of work. SEO optimises a page to be chosen and clicked. AEO optimises a passage to be extracted and reused, which is not the same thing. A page can rank perfectly well and never get quoted, because the answer somebody needed was buried in the fourth paragraph behind an introduction nobody asked for.
The overlap is large and that is good news. Technical health, clear structure, genuine expertise and a site that loads properly all still matter, because a page an answer engine cannot crawl or parse is a page it cannot quote. AEO is an extra layer on competent SEO rather than a replacement for it.
How do you write content that AI answers will quote?
Answer the question in the first two or three sentences after the heading, in a passage that makes sense on its own. No preamble, no it depends, no pronouns pointing back at a sentence the reader will not see. If the extracted passage begins with this means or as mentioned above, it is useless out of context and will not be used.
Name things explicitly. Write conveyancing solicitors in Hastings rather than we, and state the business name in the passages where being credited matters, because a system quoting you cannot credit a pronoun. Keep the short answer to roughly forty to sixty words, which is about the length these systems tend to lift, then expand underneath for the human reader who wants the detail behind it.
- Put the direct answer immediately under the heading.
- Use headings phrased as the question someone would actually ask.
- Make each answer self-contained, with no pronouns referring elsewhere.
- Name the subject, the service and the location explicitly.
- Keep the short answer short, then expand below it.
Does structured data help you appear in AI answers?
It helps by removing ambiguity. Structured data states in machine readable form what a page is, who published it and what the business is, so nothing has to be inferred from the layout. FAQPage markup pairs questions with answers explicitly. LocalBusiness carries your address, opening hours and service area. Organization ties the name, logo and profiles together.
Keep it honest and keep it matching. Markup that describes content not visible on the page causes problems, and opening hours that contradict your Google Business Profile create exactly the uncertainty you are trying to remove. Structured data is a description of the truth, not a place to make claims.
Why does entity consistency matter for AI answers?
An answer engine has to decide that the business on your website, the one in the directory listing and the one on the Google Business Profile are the same business. That is easier when the name, address, phone number and description match everywhere. Trading as variations, an old address on a directory and three different phone numbers all make the match harder and the mention less likely.
Be consistent about what the business does as well as what it is called. If the website sells web design and SEO, the profile description, the social bios and the directory categories should say the same thing in the same words. Vagueness is what stops a system stating confidently that you do the thing someone asked about.
What is llms.txt and do you need one?
llms.txt is a proposed convention: a plain text file at the root of a domain that describes the site and links to its most useful pages, so a language model has a clean summary instead of parsing navigation and boilerplate. It is a community proposal, not an official standard, and no major AI provider has committed to honouring it.
Adding one is cheap and harmless, so it is reasonable to include if you are already doing the work. Treat it as an option rather than a priority. It is not a substitute for clear pages, and anyone selling llms.txt as the way into AI answers is overselling it.
Should you allow AI crawlers in robots.txt?
The trade off is genuine. Blocking AI crawlers protects your content from being used in training and in answers that may never send anyone to your site. Allowing them is the only reliable way to be quoted and credited when someone asks a question your pages answer. You cannot have the visibility without the access.
For most UK small businesses, being findable is worth more than being protected. Publishers with content that is the product itself reasonably decide the other way. Check what your robots.txt currently says, because plenty of sites are blocking crawlers they do not realise they are blocking, having inherited the rules from a template.
Do reviews and citations still matter?
They matter more, not less. When a system has to decide which of four local firms to name, it leans on evidence outside your own website. Reviews, directory listings, local press, supplier pages and anywhere else your business is described independently all help confirm that the business is real and does what it says.
Reviews that mention the specific service and the location are the most useful, because they connect your name to the thing people are asking about in language the system can read. Ask for them properly, keep the profile current, and treat your presence elsewhere on the web as part of the site rather than separate from it.