What it means for your advertising
Search engines and assistants increasingly answer a question outright instead of listing links. AEO is the work of being the source of that answer. It favours pages that ask a question plainly in a heading, answer it in the first sentence or two, then add the detail.
The main techniques are question-led headings, concise answers, FAQ sections and structured data: markup that tells search engines what a page contains, such as a list of questions and answers.
AEO grew out of SEO and still depends on it, because a page has to be found and trusted before it can be chosen as the answer. GEO is the closely related work of being mentioned or cited inside generative AI answers. The two overlap heavily and are often used interchangeably. AEO is the older term, with roots in featured snippets and voice search.
An example
Java Roasters adds a page headed “How much coffee does a 30-person office need?” and answers it in two sentences before the detail. Google can show that answer as a featured snippet, and a voice assistant may read it out when someone asks the same question. Neither is guaranteed: the search engine decides which page answers.
Java Roasters is a fictional business, and its figures are illustrative.
How Digital Gurus helps
When you advertise with us, our experts review the site your ads send people to: which questions your pages answer, how plainly they answer them, and whether headings, FAQs and structured data make those answers easy to pick out. You get specific suggestions for what to change. We run paid advertising, so this is advice alongside your campaign rather than a separate service.