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Lenny's 🏦 Vault

Answer Tracking Monitors LLM Share of Voice

by Ethan Smith on September 14, 2025

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of optimizing content to appear in AI language model responses, representing the second biggest shift in search since Google's algorithm changes that eliminated spam content in the late 2000s.

Core AEO Principles

Understanding the Fundamental Differences from SEO

  • AEO builds on SEO but with key differences in how content is ranked and displayed:
    • In Google, ranking #1 means you win the traffic
    • In LLMs, you need to be mentioned multiple times across citations to win the answer
    • The "head" works differently - being mentioned most frequently matters more than domain authority
    • The "tail" is larger - average prompt length is ~25 words vs ~6 words in search
    • Early-stage companies can win at AEO much faster than SEO (no need to build domain authority first)

AEO Traffic Value

  • LLM-driven traffic converts at significantly higher rates than search traffic
    • Webflow saw 6x higher conversion rates from LLM traffic vs Google search traffic
    • Users are highly primed through conversation before clicking
    • Attribution is challenging - users often open new tabs and appear as direct or branded search traffic

Effective AEO Implementation Strategy

  1. Question Research

    • Transform your high-value search keywords into questions
    • Use competitor paid search terms as a starting point
    • Mine questions from sales calls, customer support, and Reddit
    • Ask ChatGPT to transform keywords into likely questions

  2. Answer Tracking

    • Set up tracking for your target questions (similar to keyword tracking)
    • Track share of voice - how often you appear across multiple runs of the same question
    • Track question variants - different phrasings of the same question
    • Monitor across different LLM surfaces (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, etc.)

  3. Citation Analysis

    • Identify which sources are appearing in answers for your target questions
    • Develop specific strategies for each citation type (video, UGC, affiliates, blogs)
    • Different industries have different citation patterns (B2B vs commerce vs marketplaces)

  4. On-Site Optimization

    • Create landing pages for high-value questions (traditional SEO still works)
    • Answer all follow-up questions comprehensively
    • Focus on the "tail" - specific use cases, features, integrations, languages
    • Move help center from subdomain to subdirectory for better performance

  5. Off-Site Optimization

    • YouTube/Vimeo videos (especially effective for B2B topics with less video content)
    • Reddit optimization (authentic participation, not spam)
    • Affiliate mentions (paying for inclusion in trusted sources)
    • UGC platforms (Quora, etc.)

  6. Experimentation

    • Set up proper test and control groups (e.g., 100 questions you optimize, 100 you don't touch)
    • Track for several weeks before and after intervention
    • Reproduce successful experiments multiple times to confirm results
    • Don't assume best practices you read are correct - test everything

Platform-Specific Considerations

  • B2B Companies

    • Focus on specific citations like TechRadar that appear frequently
    • Create content for highly specific long-tail questions about features and integrations
    • Optimize help center content to answer detailed product questions

  • Early-Stage Companies

    • Skip traditional SEO and focus exclusively on AEO
    • Target citation optimization and long-tail questions
    • Create content for questions that have never been answered before

  • Commerce Companies

    • Optimize for shoppable cards that appear in answers
    • Implement schema markup for rich snippets
    • Focus on review count and visibility

Avoiding AI Content Pitfalls

  • 100% AI-generated content (no human editing) doesn't perform well in either Google or LLMs
    • Only 10-12% of content in Google search and ChatGPT is fully AI-generated
    • AI-assisted content (human edited) is effective and recommended
    • Purely AI-generated content leads to "model collapse" - an infinite loop of derivatives
    • This creates a convergence on single opinions rather than wisdom of the crowd

The most effective AEO strategy combines traditional SEO principles with new citation optimization techniques while maintaining high-quality, human-edited content that comprehensively answers user questions.

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