What is AEO? The short version, then the long one.

Broadly, yes. Answer Engine Optimisation, Generative Engine Optimisation and LLM optimisation all describe the same job: making a business visible and recommended inside AI assistants. We say AEO because the thing being optimised for is the answer, and that keeps everyone focused on what the customer actually sees.

No. AI assistants and search engines read the same site, so classic SEO hygiene is part of the work and comes with it. What changes is the goal: being named and recommended in an answer, rather than ranked in a list of links that fewer people click.

No, though it overlaps. Digital PR earns new coverage by pitching stories to journalists, and we don't do that. What we do is make the evidence that already exists about you accurate, consistent and complete, because that's what an AI assistant checks before it recommends anyone: your reviews, your listings, the directories and registers you appear in, and any coverage you already have, all saying what your site says. If you have a PR agency, we plan around them, and their coverage works harder once the rest of the picture agrees with it.

First mentions often appear within the first two or three months, once the site can be read and the facts agree everywhere. Recommendations take longer because they depend on independent proof, which takes time to build. That's why the programme runs for six months, or twelve on Steady, and is measured every month; our work shows what the curve has looked like.

Some of it, and our research explains how. Fixing crawlability, making details consistent and answering buyer prompts directly are all things a capable team can do. The parts that take sustained effort are the monthly measurement across platforms, the independent proof, and keeping up as the platforms change. A free assessment shows you where you stand either way.

Yes, and often fastest. A local or specialist business has a small set of questions to win, and AI assistants reward clear identity and consistent details more than size. See AEO for B2C and local businesses.

For twenty years or more each, alongside digital marketing, sales and web development. The classic work is familiar ground, and the hygiene AEO depends on is part of the programme anyway. What changed is where the decision happens: a buyer who used to compare ten blue links now gets two or three names and a reason. We built for that rather than adding it to a service designed for something else, and we work alongside an existing agency rather than over it. Where we came from.