Once upon a time, search was simple. You picked your topic and keywords, wrote a helpful post, crossed your fingers, and hoped Google would send you clicks. Now, more users are skipping links entirely and turning to AI-generated answers instead. Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity pull content from across the web to summarize, cite, and explain, without always sending traffic back to the original site.
This shift is already underway. According to recent data from Pew Research, users are far less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in Google results. People are clicking less in traditional search results but more within AI tools that surface content in different ways. That’s why AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) strategies are gaining traction.
In this post, we’ll cover what makes content AI-friendly, how to structure your site so it gets crawled and cited by search engines and AI tools, what AEO and GEO mean for your long-term SEO strategy, and how to stay visible as search behavior continues to evolve.
AEO: Getting Picked Without Getting Clicked
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is about getting your content seen in search results, even if users never click through. When someone searches on Google or Bing, they might see a snippet, dropdown box, or AI-generated summary that answers their question right on the page. That’s a zero-click search.
This isn’t a new behavior though. Snippets, voice results, and People Also Ask boxes have been pushing search in this direction for years. What’s different now is the speed and scale. AI has accelerated the shift and expanded it across more types of queries.
The goal of AEO is simple: capture visibility inside the results page. To do that, structure your content so the search engine can easily lift and display it. Use clear headlines, direct answers, and a format that’s easy for machines to read.
And this opportunity is growing fast. According to Semrush, Google’s AI Overviews appeared on just 6.49% of searches in January 2025. By May 2025, that jumped to nearly 20 percent. If your content isn’t built for zero-click visibility, you’re going to miss where users are actually engaging.
GEO: Getting Name-Dropped by AI
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is all about showing up in AI-generated answers. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t just summarize. They pull from multiple sources to build responses. GEO helps make sure your content is one of them.
Unlike traditional search, these tools aren’t just ranking web pages. They’re pulling pieces of content, interpreting them, and rewriting them into answers. If your site is easy to crawl, clear to parse, and credible enough to trust, you have a stronger chance of being cited, referenced, or included as part of the output.
The goal is to become a source inside the AI-generated response itself. Even if users never open a browser, your content still shapes what they see, learn, or act on.
Search Engine Land found that AI-driven referral traffic is climbing fast. Across 391 small business websites, visits from tools like ChatGPT rose by 123% in just six months, with ChatGPT driving more traffic than any other AI platform.
AEO, GEO, and SEO, Oh My!
Let’s untangle the alphabet soup.
SEO is the foundation. It’s how you optimize content for search rankings by making sure your site is discoverable, relevant, and technically sound. That work still matters. Without it, your content probably won’t get surfaced at all.
AEO builds on that by targeting how your content gets shown in search. It focuses on structuring content for direct answers inside Google, Bing, and voice assistants. The goal is to be the answer in a zero-click search.
GEO pushes things even further. It’s about making your content clear, trustworthy, and well-formatted enough to be pulled into generative tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. These tools synthesize responses from many sources, so visibility here means becoming part of the answer itself.
In short:
- SEO gets you ranked
- AEO gets you picked
- GEO gets you cited
What Makes Content LLM-Friendly
AI tools do not always link back, so you will not always get the click. Still, your content can shape the response if it is visible, structured, and trustworthy enough to be pulled in.
To do that, you need to write for both humans and machines. This requires plain language, clean formatting, and a clear value proposition. LLMs prioritize what they can crawl, segment, and trust. Here are a few ways to make your content more LLM-friendly:
Write Clearly and Structure for Scanning
- Use plain language
Limit jargon, define terms for non-experts, and focus on direct, factual writing. - Break content into scannable sections
Use clear headings, bullet points, and summary boxes. This helps AI segment your content and pull out meaningful pieces. - Add Q&A-style content
Format sections as questions and answers where relevant. FAQs, glossaries, and quick summaries improve your chances of showing up in both search snippets and AI responses. - Avoid putting key text in images
Use live text for anything important. AI cannot crawl what it cannot see. - Include a clear value proposition
State your value clearly with a concise summary of what you do and who you help. Position it near the top of key pages.
Build Credibility and Authority
- Highlight E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)
Show credentials, cite reputable sources, and include author bios where relevant. Keep your content secure, up to date, and user-friendly. - Be clear about your value
Add a one-to-two sentence summary of what you do and who you help. Place it high on your homepage and service pages. - Earn quality backlinks
Just like traditional SEO, LLMs tend to favor content that others reference. Building links from reputable sources increases your chances of being cited.
Note: According to Pew Research, the most frequently cited sources in both Google AI summaries and standard search results are Wikipedia, YouTube, and Reddit. Those three alone accounted for 15% of all sources listed in AI summaries, showing how much weight these tools place on content that is widely linked and trusted.
Optimize for Intent and Context
- Target informational queries
Focus on answering real user questions in a way that’s easy to understand. Mirror natural search behavior and conversational phrasing. - Create multi-format content
Infographics, charts, videos, and downloadable guides help diversify your footprint. Include alt text, file names, and transcripts to make them machine-readable. - Keep content fresh
Update pages regularly. Include visible publish and update dates to signal relevance and authority.
Monitor and Refine
- Check how AI tools describe you
Prompt ChatGPT, Gemini, or Bing with your brand name. See what comes up. If it’s off, update your content to improve how you’re interpreted. - Track visibility across AI and search
Compare what shows up in AI-generated answers versus traditional search results. Use the gaps to guide new content creation.
Structuring Your Content for AI Visibility
Once your content is clear and credible, make sure it’s structured in a way machines can read and use. LLMs rely on code-level signals to parse, prioritize, and surface your content.
Use Semantic HTML
- Use tags like <article>, <section>, and <header> to define structure
- Follow heading hierarchy (<h1> to <h3>) so machines understand content order
Let AI Crawlers In
- Do not block bots like GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or Google unless absolutely necessary
- Consider adding a llms.txt file to define how AI crawlers should interact with your site
Add Schema Markup
- Use schema types like FAQPage, HowTo, or Article to signal page purpose
- Tag key details like publish dates, reviews, and pricing with structured data
Strengthen Internal Structure
- Use internal links to connect related content and reinforce hierarchy
- Prevent orphan pages by making sure every important page is linked
- Use canonical tags to avoid duplication and confusion
Keep Code Clean and Crawlable
- Avoid JavaScript-heavy navigation or dynamic content that hides from bots
- Use clean, readable URLs and well-structured HTML
- Keep your sitemap and robots.txt file updated
Support Accessibility and Clarity
- Use descriptive alt text for all images
- Ensure logical heading order and keyboard-navigable structure
- A well-labeled site helps both users and AI understand what’s important
Signal Freshness
- Include publish and update dates in both the visible content and schema
- Refresh older content regularly to stay current in AI rankings
Add Metadata
- Use OpenGraph and Twitter Card tags to control how your content appears when shared or summarized by AI
- These tags are often the first thing crawlers scan
Staying Visible in the AI-First Search Era
AEO and GEO are not replacing SEO. Instead, they are building on it. Traditional SEO still matters, but visibility now has more dimensions. A well-structured piece of content can do triple duty: it can rank, it can answer, and it can influence.
The best strategy is to avoid chasing hacks and instead create content that is so clear, credible, and useful that both search engines and language models want to include it.
In the AI era,traffic means more than clicks. It includes mentions, summaries, and being seen as the source worth pulling from.
If you’re rethinking your content strategy for this new search landscape and want a partner who can help you, reach out. We’re already helping organizations build smarter, AI-ready content and we’d love to help you too.