How do AEO services compare to traditional SEO?

SEO and AEO services share foundations but differ in what they optimize for. SEO focuses on rankings in Google's organic results. Metrics include rankings, clicks, and organic traffic. Tools used for monitoring SEO performance include Google Search Console, Moz, Semrush, and Ahrefs. AEO focuses on getting cited in AI-generated answers on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews. Metrics include brand mentions, domain citations, prompt coverage, and sentiment. The tool landscape is evolving, but common tools for LLM citation tracking and brand mentions are Ahrefs AI Citations and Otterly AI.

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Both AEO and SEO reward well-structured, authoritative content. But AI systems often draw from sources outside Google's top 10. The overlap between AI citations and top organic results is only about 12%. That said, they still work best together. AI models still rely on web content to generate answers, so strong SEO feeds AEO visibility.

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