Doing AEO
How do SEO and AEO work together?
By the RankNext team · Updated July 2026
The short answer
SEO and AEO run on the same foundation: a crawlable site, a complete business profile, steady reviews, and content that answers real customer questions. SEO aims that foundation at rankings; AEO aims it at AI answers. Do the SEO fundamentals first, then add the AEO layer: deeper schema, question-shaped pages, and regular checks of what AI engines actually say.
One foundation, two scoreboards. Google ranks your pages, and AI engines cite those same pages when they can crawl and trust them. The overlap is so heavy that the real difference between AEO and SEO is what you measure, not what you build.
SEO fundamentals come first because AI engines cannot cite what they cannot crawl. That means indexable pages, fast load times, accurate listings, and reviews that keep arriving. The AEO layer sits on top: deeper schema, pages shaped around the exact questions customers ask, and monthly sampling of AI answers to see who gets named.
Teams that run SEO and AEO as separate projects do the same work twice and measure it half as well: two vendors, two reports, and no single view of rankings and AI visibility together. Run it as one program with both scoreboards, and use our AEO best practices checklist for the layer most SEO audits skip.
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