AI SEO and AEO Workflow
Build pages that can rank in search and earn citations in answer engines by being useful, specific, sourced, and trustworthy.
The Solo Operator AI Workflow Pack
Get practical AI workflow checklists for content, onboarding, automation, research, tool selection, and follow-up systems.
Definitions
- AI search visibility: the chance that AI answer engines can understand, trust, summarize, cite, or surface a page for a relevant question.
- Answer Engine Optimization: improving visible content so answer engines can extract clear, source-supported answers.
- Generative Engine Optimization: structuring content so generative search systems can understand entities, evidence, examples, and caveats.
- Citation-ready page: a page with a direct answer, examples, comparisons, sources, workflow steps, schema, and trust warnings.
Worked example
Query: AI client onboarding workflow. A citation-ready ForgeCore page should define the workflow, list inputs, show setup steps, compare tool options, include a copyable prompt, cite official tool docs, and warn when automation should stay human-reviewed.
SEO vs AEO vs GEO vs LLMO
| Method | Goal | Page asset to add | Bad practice to avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO | Rank and earn clicks | Search-intent title, internal links, crawlable text | Keyword stuffing |
| AEO | Be extracted as an answer | Definitions, short answers, FAQs, sources | Unsupported claims |
| GEO | Be useful in generated summaries | Examples, comparisons, entities, proof | Fake authority |
| LLMO | Help models parse the site | Clear navigation, llms.txt, canonical hubs | Treating llms.txt as a ranking guarantee |
Workflow
- Choose one buyer-intent query cluster.
- Check what Google, Perplexity, and ChatGPT cite or summarize.
- Record cited brands, URLs, content format, and repeated claims.
- Compare cited pages against your page.
- Add missing definitions, examples, comparisons, sources, trust warnings, and schema.
- Validate that structured data matches visible page content.
- Recheck the query in 30 days.
Trust warnings
- Do not invent expertise.
- Do not publish unsupported stats.
- Do not hide affiliate incentives.
- Do not use schema for content that is not visible.
- Do not assume llms.txt is a ranking signal; treat it as a low-cost content map.
Prompt to copy
Audit this page for AI search visibility. Identify missing examples, sources, definitions, workflow steps, comparisons, schema opportunities, and trust warnings.