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Answer Engine Optimization: Writing for ChatGPT and Perplexity
KERVAN Team
January 28, 2026 5 min readAI answer engines don't rank pages, they cite passages. Here's how to structure content so yours gets picked.
Traditional SEO optimizes for a ranking position. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) optimizes for a citation. The two require different habits.
What AI Engines Actually Reward
- A direct, self-contained answer in the first 1-2 sentences after a heading.
- Clear structural signals: headers, lists, and tables the model can extract cleanly.
- Explicit entities. Name the thing you're talking about instead of relying on pronouns.
- Schema markup that removes ambiguity about what your content actually is.
None of this replaces traditional SEO. It's an additional layer on top of content that was already well-structured for humans.
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Category: Strategy