SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO: what should a business actually change?

Understand the decision

Identify what customers ask and whether your pages answer those questions completely. Review technical access, internal navigation, factual claims and the action after reading. Google's generative search guidance continues to build on SEO fundamentals. Keep platform-specific reporting separate from assumptions about how every assistant works. The sensible first project is usually improving important pages, not buying an unsupported special optimisation package.

A practical approach

Write a direct answer to a real customer question, then provide the context that prevents the answer being misleading when quoted alone. Define terms, identify the business or product clearly and distinguish your own method from external evidence. Keep essential facts in accessible page text. Google’s generative search guidance continues to emphasise SEO fundamentals and useful content; special files or phrasing do not guarantee selection by an AI answer system.

• Prioritise important customer questions.
• Make answers accessible in page text.
• Substantiate business facts and claims.
• Measure each platform through available evidence.

Illustrative example

A consultancy could publish a clear guide explaining engagement scope and link to its service page. It would identify the publisher and cite relevant external guidance. It would then inspect search discovery and available citation reports without claiming that the guide must appear in a particular AI answer.

A mistake to avoid

Avoid hidden prompts and guaranteed-citation promises. A system selecting your page is an external outcome, not something a content author can establish through wording alone.

What to review

Track relevant discovery, verified citations where reporting exists and useful enquiry journeys; do not combine them into an invented universal AI score.

Turn the guide into a working brief

Keep a record of the question, the page that answers it, the evidence supporting factual claims and the date the facts changed. Where a platform provides citation reporting, use it to inspect which pages appear and the surrounding query context. Review quoted passages for accuracy and usefulness rather than chasing a single visibility score. Avoid hidden prompts, invented credentials and unsupported claims about guaranteed AI citations.

Common questions