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Know who your website should speak to and what to say.
Run SEO and AEO as one workflow, not two projects. Write each page to answer a real buyer question in plain language, give it the structure machines can read, then earn authority the way SEO always has.
Do that and one piece of work pays off twice. You rank in Google and you get cited by AI.
Worth mentioning early. This is a post-decision post. In other words, it’s a follow-up post.
It would be helpful if you had already determined you need both SEO and AEO (the answer is yes, you do). If you need more convincing, then read SEO vs. AEO: what's the difference and do you really need both? first, then come back.
This one is about how to do SEO and AEO together.
Why doing both usually means doing neither
Here's what I watch happen. An owner reads that they need SEO and AEO, agrees, and turns it into two separate to-do lists. SEO goes to one person. AEO becomes a project that starts "next quarter." Backlinks and page speed live in one world. Q&A content and schema live in another.
Six months later, both lists are half-done. The site ranks okay and still doesn't get quoted. Or it picks up the occasional AI citation on a foundation too thin to rank.
I believe the reason most businesses do one of these badly is that they treat them as two projects. They're not two projects. They're one workflow with two payoffs.
The page that answers a buyer's real question, in plain language, with clean structure and real authority behind it, is the page Google ranks and the page ChatGPT quotes. Same page. Same work.
Now, I don't think this means SEO and AEO are identical, or that you can ignore the parts that don't overlap. You can't. It means you build them in one motion instead of two.
The one workflow, step by step
Here's the order that makes the work compound instead of competing for your attention.
- Start with the message, not the keyword. Both channels surface what your page actually says. If the page never states plainly what you do, who you serve, and how you work, Google has a thin signal, and an answer engine has nothing to lift. Get the message right first, and every step after it gets easier. This is the whole point of the M2M Framework : market first, message second, everything else third.
- Build each page to answer one real buyer question. One page, one question, answered in the first sentence, then backed up underneath. "What does a Webflow site cost for a growth-stage business?" beats "Our Services." The first sentence is what gets quoted. The rest is what earns the ranking.
- Give it the structure machines can read. Question-shaped headings, a FAQ block with schema, clean HTML, and facts stated in plain text instead of buried in a PDF or an image. This is the layer most "good SEO" pages skip, and it's most of what AEO adds on top.
- Earn authority the way SEO always has. This is the part AEO does not replace. Internal links, credible backlinks, fast pages, and a sane site structure. An answer engine is more likely to quote a page that also carries real authority, and you still need that authority to rank. Skip this step, and you get cited rarely and ranked poorly.
- Publish on a cadence, and measure both. Track rankings the way you always have. Then track citations too: run the questions your buyers would ask and see whether you get named. One scoreboard for two channels.
Notice what's happening across those five steps. Not one of them is "do SEO" or "do AEO." Each step serves both at once. That's the whole point of running them as one workflow.
What to do this month if you already have a site
You don't need to rebuild anything. Start here.
- Pick your three highest-intent pages. Usually, a core service page, your pricing or "how we work" page, and your best-performing blog post.
- Rewrite the opening of each to answer the buyer's actual question in the first two lines, in plain language.
- State fit and pricing ranges in text on the page, not in a deck you email later.
- Add a five-question FAQ with schema to each one.
- Keep every bit of SEO work you're already doing. None of this replaces it. It rides on top of it.
If you have never checked where you stand with AI tools, see why your business might not be showing up in AI search before you touch anything. You can't fix a gap you haven't measured. For the deeper version of the on-page work, the full playbook is in AEO for Service Businesses: A Practical Guide to Getting Cited by AI .
And if you are wondering why you business isn’t bringing in the leads you want even though you are marketing like crazy, check out my Free Marketing Health Check
Your Marketing Isn't Bringing in Leads and You Can't Figure Out Why
Score your marketing across 7 key areas in 5 minutes and find out exactly what's holding back your leads and what to fix first.
Where this goes wrong
Two failure modes, and I see both constantly.
The first is AEO content without a foundation.
You start pumping out Q&A blog posts before the site has any authority or structure underneath it. The posts read fine, and nothing happens, because there's nothing for either channel to stand on.
The second is SEO with copy that an AI can't quote.
The page ranks on backlinks and domain authority, but it's all adjectives. No clear answer, no fit, no pricing, no structure. Google ranks it. An answer engine reads it, finds nothing concrete, and names a competitor who spelled it out.
Both come from the same mistake: picking a side.
Run only AEO, and you build on sand. Run only SEO, and you go unquoted. Run them as one workflow, and each one covers the other's blind spot.
I believe the businesses that win the next few years won't be the ones that picked a channel. They'll be the ones who stopped treating this as a choice and built every page to do both jobs at once.
So here's the question worth sitting with: if you opened your three most important pages right now, would each one answer a real buyer question clearly enough to rank, and plainly enough to get quoted? If you're not sure, that's where to start this week.
Your Marketing Isn't Bringing in Leads and You Can't Figure Out Why
Score your marketing across 7 key areas in 5 minutes and find out exactly what's holding back your leads and what to fix first.
Questions You Might Be Asking
Yes, and it's less work than doing them separately. The same page work that earns a ranking also earns an AI citation when you build it right. Splitting them into two timelines is what creates double the effort and half the result.
Not really, because the two share a foundation. AEO leans on structure, clear answers, and authority, and that last piece is pure SEO. Anyone who sells you AEO as a standalone service without touching your site's fundamentals is selling you half a solution.
First AI citations usually appear within 90 to 120 days of consistent, well-structured publishing, and steady visibility takes 6 to 12 months. SEO compounds on a similar curve. Because the work overlaps, you're building both clocks with the same effort.
Start by updating what you have. Most sites get the fastest lift from rewriting their three or four highest-intent pages to answer real questions clearly and adding FAQ schema. New pages come later, once the core pages are pulling their weight.
Watch two things side by side: your rankings for target queries, and whether AI tools name you when you ask the questions your buyers would ask. Check both monthly. If you're showing up in places you weren't before, in either channel, the workflow is doing its job.
