The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Overview

This episode dives into the transformative rise of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), a new frontier in digital growth that focuses on optimizing for AI-driven tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini. Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite, shares his expertise on how businesses can adapt to this shift, why AEO leads convert six times better than traditional SEO traffic, and actionable strategies for leveraging this emerging channel.

Notable Quotes

- ChatGPT is driving more traffic to my newsletter than Twitter. - Lenny Rachitsky, on the surprising power of AEO.

- Early-stage companies can win quickly by getting mentioned as many times as possible by citations. - Ethan Smith, on the unique opportunities AEO offers startups.

- AI-generated content doesn’t work. The future is AI-assisted, not AI-automated. - Ethan Smith, on the pitfalls of relying solely on AI for content creation.

🧠 The Rise of AEO and Its Impact

- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses on getting products or content featured in AI-generated answers, such as those from ChatGPT or Google’s AI overviews.

- Unlike traditional SEO, AEO emphasizes being cited across multiple sources, as LLMs summarize from a range of citations rather than prioritizing a single link.

- Companies like Webflow have seen a 6x higher conversion rate from AEO traffic compared to Google search traffic, highlighting its value.

- Early-stage startups can benefit immediately from AEO, bypassing the long ramp-up time required for traditional SEO.

📈 Winning Strategies for AEO

- On-Site Optimization:

- Create landing pages targeting specific questions and long-tail queries.

- Answer follow-up questions about product features, use cases, and integrations directly on your site.

- Off-Site Optimization:

- Focus on being cited in diverse sources like YouTube videos, Reddit threads, and authoritative blogs.

- Authenticity is key on platforms like Reddit—engage as a real user, provide value, and avoid spamming.

- Experimentation:

- Use AEO tracking tools to monitor your share of voice across LLMs.

- Run controlled experiments to test the effectiveness of different strategies, ensuring reproducibility of results.

🛑 Why AI-Generated Content Fails

- Fully AI-generated content often lacks originality and fails to rank well in search engines or LLM citations.

- Google and AI models penalize derivative content, leading to what Ethan calls model collapse, where AI systems summarize their own outputs, reducing diversity and accuracy.

- The future lies in AI-assisted content creation, where humans refine and enhance AI outputs for quality and authenticity.

📚 The Untapped Potential of Help Centers

- Help center content is a hidden gem for AEO, as users frequently ask detailed, product-specific questions in LLMs.

- Optimize help centers by:

- Moving them from subdomains to subdirectories for better indexing.

- Cross-linking articles to improve navigation and visibility.

- Expanding content to cover long-tail, niche use cases based on customer queries and support tickets.

- Opening help centers to community contributions can further fill content gaps and improve citation potential.

🔮 The Future of AEO and Search

- AEO and traditional SEO are converging, with AI-driven tools incorporating features like clickable shopping cards and maps.

- The growth of LLMs as a traffic source is accelerating, with platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity becoming significant channels.

- Businesses must adapt by focusing on high-quality, diverse citations and leveraging AI tools responsibly to stay competitive.