You're probably running SEO already. Maybe with an agency, maybe in-house. Now everyone's talking about AEO. This article answers three questions: what's actually different, do you need both, and can your existing SEO team do AEO for you.

The short version

SEO ranks your website on Google. AEO gets your business named when AI answers a question. They target different buyer behaviors. Both matter. They're not interchangeable, and one can't replace the other.

Rule of Thumb

SEO wins the click. AEO wins the answer.

If your buyer still Googles, SEO matters. If your buyer asks AI first, AEO matters more.

Side by side

SEO
AEO
What ranks
Your website pages
Your business name in an AI answer
Where
Google's blue links
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI, Claude, Gemini
Winning signal
Backlinks + on-page keyword match
Trusted third-party mentions + sentiment + verified listings
Buyer behavior
Buyer types query, scans links, clicks one
Buyer asks AI, reads answer, picks a named business
Time to results
6-12 months
60-90 days for measurable movement
Winner metric
Position in SERP
Citation rate on target queries

Why they use different signals

Google's algorithm ranks pages. It cares about backlinks, on-page keyword usage, page load speed, mobile responsiveness, and dwell time on the page. That's SEO.

AI doesn't rank pages. It reads what the web says about a topic and synthesizes an answer. It cares about which businesses are consistently mentioned as recommendations across authority sources, how those businesses are talked about (sentiment, not just star ratings), and whether their listings are verified across the platforms AI trains on.

That's why the signals barely overlap. An SEO team can build backlinks and optimize your title tags all year without moving your citation rate on ChatGPT. Because ChatGPT isn't reading your title tags. It's reading what other sites say about you.

"I thought AEO was all about us putting out content. But that's only 10% of it. What matters is what the broader markets are saying." · Rocco, Polt.AI

Which should you do first?

Depends on your buyer.

  • Buyer is under 40 and services-shopping (lawyers, med spas, agencies, SaaS): AEO first. Most of these buyers ask AI before Google.
  • Buyer is over 50 and product-shopping (real estate, financial services, luxury goods): SEO still dominant. Add AEO in year two.
  • Buyer is under 40 and product-shopping (DTC, subscriptions, apps): Both, but AEO has more upside because everyone else is still stuck in SEO.
  • Startup with no brand: AEO first. AI recommendations build brand faster than SEO click-through.

The realistic rollout most Trustify clients follow: keep SEO running, layer AEO on top. AEO signals accidentally help SEO too (third-party mentions on authority sites are also backlinks). SEO signals don't accidentally help AEO. So the compounding play is AEO plus existing SEO, not one or the other.

Can your SEO agency do AEO?

Most cannot. Here's why:

  1. Different playbook. An SEO agency's core skill is on-page optimization and link building. AEO's core skill is signal building across third-party sources and review sentiment. Different tactics, different vendor networks, different measurement.
  2. Different tools. SEO agencies use Ahrefs, SEMrush, Search Console. AEO teams need AI visibility scanners that track citation rate on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. Most SEO agencies don't own or subscribe to these tools.
  3. Different tracking. SEO measures keyword position, organic clicks, and impressions. AEO measures citation rate, sentiment trend, and third-party mention count. If your SEO agency's monthly report doesn't have "citation rate" on it, they're not doing AEO.

When we take on a new client, we usually run alongside their existing SEO agency, not against them. Different work, complementary results.

See where your business ranks on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI right now.

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