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You know where you stand
It starts with a measurement, not a proposal. You see in black and white which AI answers name your company and which do not, with a date and a question set.
AEO agency for answer engine optimisation
Your answer becomes the answer.
AEO works on individual questions. Who asks them, what the best answer is in four sentences, and whether yours is written so a system can lift it. Narrower than GEO, and quicker to take effect.
Definition
What answer engine optimisation means here.
Lead KPI
AEO
Share of owned answer passages
Across the questions in your set: how often the quoted paragraph clearly comes from you rather than a comparison portal or a competitor.
- Target answer formats
- Format project, contained
- Audience content leads
Answer engine optimisation works on the smallest unit: a single question and the passage that answers it. The target formats are answer boxes in search, the short reply from an assistant, and the quoted paragraphs inside a chatbot.
The work has three parts. First, finding out which questions your audience actually asks, in their words rather than yours. Second, writing the answer so it holds up without context, because it will be lifted out. Third, marking it up as what it is.
A good answer passage stands on its own. It names the subject rather than saying “we”, it carries the point in the first sentence, and it keeps figures, limits and dates where they belong.
How it runs
Four steps per question cluster.
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Collect questions
From search data, your sales team, your support desk and the follow-ups chatbots ask on their own. The customer's phrasing counts, not the internal one.
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Write the answer
Point in the first sentence, reasoning after it, limits at the end. Fully understandable without the page around it.
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Mark it up
FAQPage or HowTo as JSON-LD, generated from the same source as the visible text. Two copies drift apart.
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Check back
Is the passage being used, and if not, whose text stands there instead. That sets up the next round.
Boundaries
When AEO on its own is not enough.
AEO operates at the level of single questions. If your brand does not appear at all because nobody outside your website mentions you, the best-written passage will not help. What is missing then is trust in the source, not phrasing.
In that case GEO as a full programme is the right frame, or LLMO when it is specifically about sources and mentions. Which of the three applies shows up in the first measurement.
Fits AEO
Checklist
- Many recurring questions yes
- Website with substance yes
- Offer needs explaining yes
- Brand largely unknown rather GEO
Common questions
About AEO.
What is answer engine optimisation?
Optimising individual question and answer pairs for systems that return an answer instead of a list. That includes answer boxes in search, voice assistants and the quoted paragraphs inside chatbots.
What does a quotable answer passage look like?
It answers the question in the first sentence, names the subject rather than saying “we”, stays under roughly eighty words and works without the rest of the page. Anything that only makes sense in context falls apart when lifted.
What role does FAQ markup play?
It makes unambiguous which paragraph answers which question. It is not a ranking factor in the classic sense and guarantees nothing, but it removes room for interpretation. What matters is that markup and visible text are identical.
Is it enough to put many questions on one page?
No, and it usually hurts. Twenty shallow questions on one page produce twenty weak answers. Fewer questions, answered completely, spread across the pages they belong to, work better.
What is answer ownership?
The share of questions in your set where the quoted paragraph clearly comes from you. We measure it per question and per system, because a paragraph can be picked up by one chatbot and ignored by another.
Does AEO apply to voice assistants?
Yes, and more strictly there. Usually exactly one answer gets read aloud, with no alternative beside it. Short, clearly built sentences pay double in that setting.
How long should an answer be?
Two to four sentences for the core answer, then as much context as the topic needs. The length of the page does not matter. What matters is that the opening sentences carry on their own.
What about featured snippets in classic search?
The same work pays into them, because the underlying logic is similar: a clearly bounded passage answering a question. We track them as an extra measure without making them the main goal.
How do you find the right questions?
From four sources: search data, your sales team, your support desk and the follow-up questions chatbots ask on their own. That last one gets overlooked and is the most honest, because it shows what the system is missing.
Will AEO cost us clicks?
Somebody may read the answer and not click. That is the price of appearing at all. Skip the passage and you lose both the mention and the click. So we measure both and cut answers so a reason to click survives.
When is AEO not enough on its own?
When your brand does not appear at all. Then the gap is trust in the source rather than phrasing, and the route runs through GEO or LLMO.
Difference
How others do this, and how we do.
Not a judgement on individual agencies, but a description of two approaches. The right column is checkable, because this website itself is built that way.
| Difference | Usual agency approach | agenticsearch.at |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | A proposal after a first call | A measurement with a date, before anything gets recommended |
| Basis | Keywords from classic search | A question set of real prompts, clustered and prioritised |
| Proof of success | Rankings and a visibility index | Mentions per question and system, with the raw data |
| Reporting | A monthly dashboard with curves | The same measurement repeated, change called only after three runs |
| When unsure | Try it and see what happens | We say what is not evidenced, and write it on the page |
| Tooling | Agency licences, access ends with the contract | The question set and the data are yours, afterwards too |
| Scope | As many channels as possible from one supplier | A capped number of concurrent projects, otherwise we turn it down |
Your guides
You play the lead.
You know your business, your customers and your offer better than any agency does. What is usually missing is solid numbers on how AI systems talk about it, and an order in which to tackle that.
Who is behind this
two people
- Florian Hieß measurement, technology, structure
- Romana Hieß day to day support and implementation
- Operated by Digital Wings GmbH, founded 2010
- Client projects 100+
The number of concurrent projects is capped. When a piece of work needs more capacity than exists, we turn it down rather than take it on.
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You know what comes next
Instead of a list of everything, you get an order. Every step has a result you can verify yourself, including without us.
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You keep the decisions
Your offer and your positioning stay yours. We tell you what stands in the way of visibility and take on the technical part of it.
Next step
Let us find out where you stand in AI answers.
One conversation, 30 minutes, no sales pressure. You leave with an honest read on whether this is worth the effort for you.
