Before I proceed, I'm sure by now you know AEO is Answer Engine Optimization, or as some people call it- Ask Engine Optimization.
This is a new term which is used to denote how your contents and the website you're posting to, is affected and shown up on search result.
Let's be honest, nobody reads the whole article & Google knows this too. So with advent of AI they have brough back the updated culture of 'Featured Snippet' with some major changes to it.
Here's a practical example from one of our recent works in January
If you search for 'How Long Does It Take to See Results from ZO Skin Health' you'll see a featured snippet like this: https://prnt.sc/kVXUiCfFvF8Q
This featured snippet shows the answers and links back to the top 5 articles ranking on SERP on this subject (yes ranking).
The second link that says 'Initial Results (2-4) weeks' as well, links to 1 article only, which is ours. https://prnt.sc/pcIqWJc2mn3b
Proof that it is our article (highlighted the part being shown in the result): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Wn6bfQESJzYAPFMDmuspygIVxUBTlX_PwBmub2DOmDI/edit?usp=drivesdk
Now 80% of our works were optimized for Google and not exactly for AEO or Snippets because we wanted page views and not quick answers. However for some of our smaller local service clients, & saas, this worked pretty well.
One example of SaaS client where our writing, and optimization worked is this property management software on SERP: https://prnt.sc/Z22PbFLBIr9_
Now that we saw that we can rank on AI overview here are few things you should do to try & optimize your chances.
Use proper structured data For example in the first one there was 'ListItem' & for second was 'WebPage' schema added apart from other schemas. It's important that Google knows what's he ranking.
Forget writing just after the start I remember doing this 'sandwich formula' of writing info content. Infact one of my early sites that I have sold now, was built on this formula of 'writing answers directly' under the H1 for example:
For 'Is it safe to feed leaves to your pet dragon?'
Article starts with-
Pet dragons are one of the most popular type of 'pets' widely accepted globally, due to it's inert nature, and ability to survive in domestic treatment.
Yes, it's safe to feed leaves to your pet dragon, as in their natural habitat, they would anyways have those.
Then.....
This formula has been history now, and you can answer comprehensively under any headings. A small trick to do this
Ask AI to write the topic in detail of 1000 words.
Then ask it to summarise the answer in a paragraph of no more than 3 sentences.
You can take inspiration or directly copy that paragraph only as it's written by AI following what AI's prefer to give in snippets nowadays.
3. Always make sure the content is in active voice. Voice search, AI results don't prefer contents written in passive. It's easier to speak in active & so, write in active.
Try these and let me know how it goes?
Keep writing!
- Scale gap: Google still processes ~14 billion searches / day; ChatGPT hovers around ~37 million. You’re looking at 1 LLM query for every 400 Google queries.
- Intent gap: Only ≈ 15 % of ChatGPT prompts are classic “informational search.” ≈ 75 % are generative tasks (code, drafts, summaries) that were never clicks in the first place.
- Traffic gap: When Google shows an AI-Overview, downstream organic CTR drops ≈ 70 %. Dedicated AI engines send ≈ 96 % less referral traffic than classic Google results.
Implication: Chasing LLM citations is fine as a branding bonus, but it’s not a growth lever for most sites. Spend effort proportionally.
A pragmatic playbook (what actually moved the needle in my own tests)
1) Question-first headings – treat every H2/H3 like a unit-test: Q in, 40-60 word A out, then elaborate.
2) Answer-first, expand-later – inverted-pyramid writing is a killer for snippet extraction.
3) Chunk + schema – short paragraphs, lists, FAQ/HowTo markup. The clearer the structure, the higher the chance an LLM copies you verbatim.
4) Keep it fresh & sourced – stats with a 2025 timestamp and a citation get surfaced more often (recency + trust signals).
5) /llms.txt – a zero-cost “robots.txt for LLMs” to spotlight the pages you actually want crawled.