Even though Google is still getting more than a billion searches per day (and the number of searches it’s getting is actually increasing) ChatGPT and other AI platforms are hot on its heels.

Now, for some background. For quite some time, organic marketing channels like SEO have been considered the best in terms of ROI and overall value. Not only do SEO campaigns offer the best return in terms of a dollar figure (usually) they also benefit the company that invests in them in other ways.

This has some eCommerce entrepreneurs wondering if the next iteration of organic marketing is answer engine optimization, or AEO.

The question is not whether or not AEO can benefit a business - it can - it is a question of whether, if you’re already working with an eCommerce SEO agency, you need additional services for AEO.

What’s the Main Difference Between SEO and AEO?

To answer this question, we need to take a closer look at how SEO and AEO work.

There are over 200 ranking signals that influence a website’s standings in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and collectively, SEO is a set of practices to optimize these.

Traditionally they have been grouped into one of four main categories, which are off-page SEO,  which consists of linking and reputation management, on-page SEO, which is concerned with optimizing metadata and other factors that live on each web page, technical SEO, which consists of eliminating website issues and ensuring a high user experience (UX), and content.

Far and away, the most important pillar of SEO nowadays is content. Many eCommerce SEO experts  simply will not tell you this but it is entirely possible for a website with very low domain authority and no link profile to rank on page one as long as it has good copy, and of course, the website is sound.

Just like SEO, AEO is a collection of practices that get a website, or at least one of its pages, to be featured by an AI engine, such as in the AI overview, or by ChatGPT. For an eCommerce company, the emphasis might be on getting a product to show up.

When it comes to AEO, again there is some nuance, but by far, the most important ranking factor is content. Good content that answers specific questions people are asking will get featured by answer engines, period.

Ultimately, the main difference (if you can even call it that) between SEO and AEO is that there is even more of an emphasis on copy in AEO.

The Takeaway

Ultimately, if your eCommerce SEO agency is doing a good job, and your rankings are improving in the search engine results, it’s almost inconceivable that they aren’t producing good copy for your campaign. In the modern era it is effectively impossible to rank effectively in the SERPs without it.

That being the case, you likely do not need to invest separately in a partnership with an eCommerce SEO agency and an AEO services provider, since investing in SEO should necessarily increase your visibility through answer engines and other AI tools.

Getting Started with an eCommerce SEO Agency

While you may not need to invest in both, some of your marketing spend should be devoted to either one or the other, whether or not you hire an eCommerce SEO agency or prefer to do the work in-house.

Either way, organic marketing is one of the keys to sustained growth. Get started developing a plan for organic marketing growth in the near future if you haven’t done so for your business yet.

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