AEO and SEO overlap but diverge in key ways. SEO ranks pages against each other for a query; AEO competes for citation inside the answer the engine generates. A page can rank #3 organically and still be the top citation in the AI Overview — or rank #1 and be invisible to the AI engine.
The signals AI engines weight most heavily: a clear 40-60 word direct answer near the top of the page, structured data (JSON-LD) that names the entity and its properties, dense internal interlinking that proves topical authority, primary research with original data, and an E-E-A-T-shaped byline (Person author with verifiable expertise).
AEO is currently underpriced. Most teams optimize for classical SEO and ignore AEO surface-area signals. Pages that ship a definition box, schema markup, and internal interlinking pick up disproportionate AI citation density at zero additional content cost.
How Lytms scores it
Lytms scores conversion quality, not AEO directly — but the two correlate. Pages that score well on Message (clear value claim, named ICP) and Craft (structured content, performant rendering) are also better-shaped for AI extraction.
See also
See answer engine optimization on your own page.
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