The most effective SEO and AEO strategy focuses on creating content that genuinely brings value to the user and answers their queries, while being easily sourced by search engines. It’s about combining clear answers, structured content, and optimized technical elements to enhance visibility and engagement.
Here’s how you can create a winning strategy combining both SEO and AEO.
Watch what our Senior HubSpot Consultant Lisa recommends:
In this new AI world, simply ranking high on search engines is no longer enough.
As you all know, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your website get discovered by attracting relevant organic traffic through optimized content, keywords, and technical best practices.
On the other hand, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) takes it a step further by focusing on delivering precise answers to users’ questions, increasing your chances of appearing in featured snippets, voice search results, and AI-driven platforms.
According to Neil Patel's blog, the rise of answer engines has dramatically increased zero-click searches, with users often getting everything they need without ever visiting a website — meaning that if your content isn’t optimized for these AI-driven responses, you inevitably lose visibility.
The most effective digital strategy today combines both: SEO brings visitors to your page, while AEO ensures they find exactly what they’re looking for.
As Semrush points out, “Strong SEO fuels AEO, and together they boost your chances of being cited in AI results. AI favors trusted domains: Strong organic rankings and authority make a domain more likely to be cited.”
While SEO and AEO work together to improve visibility and deliver better user experiences, they focus on different outcomes. As Semrush explains:
“At the simplest level, SEO is about ranking in traditional search engines, while AEO is about being included in AI-generated answers. But the two overlap.”
To help you understand how each approach contributes to your overall strategy, here’s a simple side-by-side comparison of their key differences:
|
Aspect |
SEO | AEO |
| Goal | Attracting traffic by ranking higher in search engine results | Act as a source for AI search engines by delivering precise answers to user questions |
| Content Strategy | Keyword-rich content, meta tags, headings, internal links, structured data | Answer-first content, FAQs, semantic structure, stand alone paragr |
| User intent | Visit a website for in-depth details or receive an immediate answer directly in the search results. | Receive comprehensive details directly from the AI search results. |
| Technical Implementation | On-page optimization, mobile-friendly design, fast loading speed, schema markup, backlinks | Structured answers, semantic triples, FAQ schema, voice search optimization, scannable formatting |
| Outcome | Brings visitors to the website and rank high in SERPs | Be a frequent source for AI engines |
So, with SEO attracting traffic and AEO delivering precise answers, the big question becomes: what is the best strategy for combining these two approaches?
Effective SEO goes beyond just keywords. It’s about creating content that is discoverable, relevant, and structured for both users and search engines. Key principles include:
Keyword Optimization: Use a primary keyword strategically in titles, headings, URLs, and meta tags.
Content Structure: Organize content with H1/H2/H3 headings, scannable paragraphs, and clear meta descriptions.
Technical Practices: Ensure your site is mobile-friendly, fast, secure, and easy to navigate.
Linking & Authority: Include links to your internal pages and external links to reliable sources.
Monitoring & Updates: Regularly track performance and refresh content to stay aligned with search intent. You can use the SEO functionality in HubSpot for that.
These are just a few of the essential steps for building a strong SEO strategy. To explore the full process in detail, make sure to download the complete checklist we’ve prepared for you.
AEO focuses on answering user questions clearly and quickly, optimizing content for AI-driven platforms, featured snippets, and voice search. Core strategies include:
Answer First: Start with a clear, direct answer to the user’s question, and use a question as the title.
Evidence & Credibility: Cite credible sources and include semantic triples (subject → verb → object) to support claims.
Voice & AI Optimization: Optimize for high-intent, action-oriented queries, including “how to” questions.
Clear CTA & Product Relevance: Tie every section back to the product or solution you’re highlighting and end with a CTA.
Read the full steps in our complete AEO checklist.
By combining these SEO and AEO practices, you not only attract more visitors to your website but also provide the answers they are actively seeking, improving engagement, trust, and conversions.
Beyond the topics covered here, there are many other strategies and details that can help optimize both SEO and AEO.
That’s why we created a fully adaptable excel template that brings all these best practices together in a practical guide. With it, you can implement each step in an organized way, adjust it according to your needs, and ensure your pages are always prepared to achieve better results in search engines and AI-driven answer platforms.
In the template, you'll find the action, the description and a comment explaining its purpose. You can use the checkboxes to mark each step as completed for your articles, and easily add new columns for upcoming content if needed.
If you would like to understand more about the concept of AEO and AI visibility - read here our deep research on AEO.