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SEO & AEO

What AEO actually means for your traffic in 2026

AI Overviews now answer the question before anyone clicks. Here is what changes, what does not, and the six things we do on every account to stay cited.

The click is moving, not disappearing

Search did not die when AI Overviews arrived — it changed shape. The informational query that used to send a visitor to your blog now often gets answered on the results page. The commercial query still sends the click, but it sends it to whoever the answer named.

What we actually change

Six things move the needle on almost every account:

  1. Answer-first structure. Put the direct answer in the first 40 words under a question heading.
  2. Schema that matches reality. Organization, FAQ, Article and Product markup, validated — not copied from a plugin default.
  3. Entity consistency. Your name, category, founders and locations described the same way everywhere.
  4. Topical depth. Models cite sources that cover a subject completely, not thinly.
  5. Freshness on cited pages. A citation you earn decays if the page goes stale.
  6. Third-party mentions. Being described accurately elsewhere reinforces trust.

How to measure it

Track branded query volume, referral traffic from AI tools, and a monthly manual citation audit across four engines. Rankings alone will not show you this.

Want us to audit how AI currently describes your brand? Book a growth call.

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