AI Friendly Websites – What is Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO)?
Written by Deirdre Keon on 6th August 2026
AEO, Answer Engine Optimisation is all about structuring your website’s content in a particular way, so it can be easily extracted as a direct answer. These answers are generated by Google’s AI Overviews, featured snippets, People also ask sections and for ChatGPT, Perplexity and many other AI platforms. AI friendly websites should be optimised for SEO, AEO and GEO. So what’s the difference?
What is the biggest difference between SEO and AEO?
Unlike SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), where you are trying to optimise for rankings and clicks, with AEO, you are aiming to optimise for actual enhanced visibility inside answers themselves.
What is the difference between AEO and GEO?
- AEO is all about making a specific piece of content easy to extract as a direct answer.
- GEO, meaning Generative Engine Optimisation, is about visibility across generative searches as a whole, where systems pull from several sources, weigh up all of the various trust signals and decide what deserves to be cited in the final response.
Therefore, optimizing for GEO is all about enhancing a website’s visibility overall in AI-generated responses, which includes extra steps like:
- Adding structured data (schema)
- Incorporating various trust signals like HTTPS, privacy policies.
- Building fast-loading pages with minimal code.
SEO, AEO and GEO – Where to start when creating an AI friendly website?
SEO is still the key starting point when developing an AI friendly website. Without traditional SEO, your content simply can’t even be discovered. AEO then builds on the this by ensuring that the website content presents clear and very well-structured answers. GEO then supports the process by improving the probability of your brand and content being surfaced on AI platforms. It’s like a symphony orchestra, all working together and playing on different levels to create harmony!
Need an AI friendly website? FCDM can help you!
At FCDM, we are experts in designing and developing industry leading, AI friendly websites that are AEO and GEO optimised. During the web design process, our experienced team provide specialist advice and support to make sure that your website content is properly structured and presented, so it is easily processed by AI platforms.