Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): How to Rank in AI & Capture 4–12x

AI Marketing Podcast – AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) with Elina Panteleyeva

Guest: Elina Panteleyeva, Founder of ShowUpWithAI
Host: Mark Fidelman
Topic: How to rank in AI answers (AEO) and capture high-intent leads from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Mark and Elina break down Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—how to become the brand that AI agents and chatbots recommend first.

Elina shares:

• Why AI-driven leads convert 4–12x better
• How to optimize your website, content, and off-site signals for AI
• What’s changing from traditional SEO to AEO/GEO
• Real-world case studies of brands exploding inbound leads in 15–60 days
• Why agentic commerce is the next big wave—and how to get ahead of it

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Timestamps & Segments

[0:02:46–0:04:52] Warm-up & context

• Light banter about calls and busy schedules.
• Mark mentions bringing a company public (Exascale Labs) and dealing with heavy legal sign-offs on marketing.
• Sets the stage that this is an AI + marketing focused audience.

[0:04:52–0:08:59] Guest intro & origin story

Your setup and question:

• 0:04:41 Mark: “All right, so we're going to talk about the AEO… I’m going to be the voice of the listener and walk through it as if you were talking to me for the first time.”

Key points:

• 0:07:39 Elina’s background:
  • Founder of ShowUpWithAI
  • Worked at an AI startup, got laid off in 2023.
  • Bootstrapped an e‑commerce brand to seven figures.
  • Noticed people using ChatGPT to choose doctors, therapists, services.
• Realization:
  • “There’s no page two of chat.”
  • She spent hundreds of hours studying documentation, signals, and how LLMs evaluate brands.
  • That research became ShowUpWithAI

[0:08:59–0:12:13] Why AEO matters now

Your question:

• 0:08:59 Mark: “Okay, so why should anyone care about AEO?”

Key points:

• People coming from AI/chat are 4–12x more likely to convert.
  • They’ve already discussed their problem with an AI.
  • They trust the model and are now ready for a solution.
• AI is always recommending someone—you or your competitor.
• It’s still early:
  • Most businesses aren’t optimizing for AI yet.
  • Results can come within 30–60 days.
• Elina: AEO is “the biggest ROI you can get in 2026.”

Your follow-up question:

• 0:10:13 Mark: “What if 1,000 plumbers are doing this? How does ChatGPT know which one to recommend?”

Key points:

• Right now, 1,000 plumbers are not doing it, which is why starting now matters.
• LLMs care deeply about recommendation quality:
  • If they recommend bad options, users switch models (Claude, Perplexity, etc.).
• Models use specific signals different from traditional SEO:
  • On-site: technical optimization, schema, phrasing, blogs, structure.
  • Off-site: Reddit threads, YouTube, reviews, third‑party mentions.

[0:12:13–0:15:05] Signals, platforms & AI-optimized content

Your question:

• 0:12:13 Mark: “Is that primarily how you rank… or is there something else you have to do to make sure you’re top of mind, especially locally, for ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude?”

Key points:

• It’s industry-dependent:
  • Some spaces are Reddit-heavy.
  • Others lean on YouTube, Trustpilot, or specific review sites.
• Local AEO:
  • Google Business Profile + reviews are critical.
• Website & content structure matter a lot:
  • Blogs should be AI-optimized, not “typical” blogs.
  • Key elements:
    • Summary at the top
    • FAQs at the bottom
    • External citations to credible sources
    • Internal linking: blogs → service pages; services → blogs
• There are “100+ more” technical and structural factors behind the scenes.

Your next question:

• 0:13:51 Mark: “So it’s no longer the link-sharing game with SEO or trying to get links in high-traffic sites?”

Key points:

• Big difference vs. traditional SEO:
  • Backlinks still help, but…
  • AI can infer trust from unlinked brand mentions.
• Example:
  • Someone mentions your brand on Reddit without a link.
  • If your website is properly set up, AI can:
    • Recognize the entity
    • Attribute that mention back to your site and brand
    • Treat it as a credibility signal

[0:15:05–0:18:07] Search behavior shift & Google’s AI overview

Your question:

• 0:15:05 Mark: “Do you have any breakdown of how many people are doing Google searches vs AI now… it used to be like 99/1?”

Key points:

• Tracking is tricky:
  • People find you via chat/AI then go Google your brand.
  • In Google Search Console, you’ll see a spike in branded searches if AEO is done right.
• Behavior changes:
  • People still use Google, but:
    • They rarely scroll far.
    • They definitely don’t hit page two.
  • The new game:
    • “How do you get into that Google AI overview box?”
    • That’s where the real battle is now.

Your commentary:

• You share your own behavior:
  • You now start most product/service discovery via ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini, not Google.
  • You trust AI to synthesize reviews, source data, and filter out “gamed” SEO.
• Strategic takeaway:
  • If you’re paying 30% to Amazon vs 0% on your own site, AEO is crucial.
  • Do “whatever you can” to rank high in AI results.

Your next question:

• 0:17:06 Mark: “Is there any software that tells you where you rank in these AI systems? With SEO there’s a lot—what about AEO?”

Key points:

• There are tools for AI visibility tracking.
• The real bottleneck:
  • Implementation is like a 30-hour/week job:
    • Ongoing optimization
    • Technical/content updates
• You must define the prompts/queries you want to rank for:
  • Tools need a list of target prompts.
  • If you choose the wrong prompts, the data is misleading.

[0:18:07–0:20:30] Prompt strategy & why “just use an agent” doesn’t work

Your clarification/question:

• 0:18:07 Mark: Paraphrased – So you basically have to reverse engineer prompts back into FAQs, summaries, ranking signals, etc. And if you don’t, it gets hard unless you focus on a few phrases.

Key points:

• Elina’s tip:
  • Scrape Reddit for your industry.
  • Use AI (e.g., Claude) to extract pain points and questions.
  • Those questions are likely the same queries people ask AI models.
• This gives you a starting list of prompts to optimize for.

Your provocative question:

• 0:18:46 Mark: “Why shouldn’t I just have an AI agent do all this for me? Why wouldn’t I get 100 agents to post as fake customers on Reddit?”

Key points:

• Reddit hates self‑promotion—especially from new accounts.

• There’s a case study:

  • A casino tried something similar.
  • Result: their entire domain got banned.

• Platforms now aggressively detect:

  • Bot-like behavior
  • Coordinated fake posts

• Beyond Reddit:

  • You must know:
    • How to script YouTube videos so AI will cite them.
    • What to say, when to say it, and how to structure them.
    • How to format blogs and web pages exactly for AI.

• If you simply tell an LLM:

  “Optimize me for AEO,”
  you’ll get a basic, shallow implementation that everyone else has—
  not the nuanced, multi-signal strategy that actually moves the needle.

[0:20:30–0:23:27] Case studies & ROI

Your question:

• 0:20:30 Mark: “Do you have any examples of companies or individuals you’ve helped and what the results were?”

Key case studies:

1. Eight-figure franchise brand
   • Start: ~9% visibility for their target prompts.
   • After ~15 days: 55% visibility.
   • Lead impact:
     • Went from 1–2 inbound leads per week
     • To 3 inbound leads on a single Saturday (within ~20 days).
2. 20‑year-old marketing agency
   • Was getting ~1 lead every other day.
   • After AEO work:
     • 4–5 inbound leads per day.
     • And from industries they’d never seen inbound from before.

Your follow-up question:

• 0:21:56 Mark: “How long did it take these companies to set things up so leads started showing up?”

Key timing details:

• Franchise:
  • Started ~20 days before the results she cites.
  • Saw big movement in 15–20 days.
• Agency:
  • Saw strong inbound increases in ~35–40 days.
• Elina’s positioning:
  • She typically says 30–60 days to see increases.
  • If your customer LTV is > $10k, AEO is a “no‑brainer.”
  • AEO work builds durable assets:
    • YouTube videos
    • Content
    • Brand signals
  • Those assets pay off beyond AI search itself.

[0:23:27–0:24:28] AEO vs SEO: where should budgets go?

Your question:

• 0:23:27 Mark: “Should people stop spending money on SEO and focus everything on AEO? What do you tell companies that hire you?”

Key points:

• Elina:
  • Her company focuses on AEO, and good SEO is a byproduct.
  • Contrast: traditional SEO shops slap on “AEO” at the end.
• Her thesis:
  • AI is here to stay and expanding.
  • Agentic commerce is coming:
    • Personal agents that know you better than you know yourself.
    • They’ll make purchasing decisions automatically.
  • If AI/agents can’t find you, you’re not even in consideration.
• Therefore, primary focus should be:
  • Optimizing to show up in AI search as the recommended option.

[0:24:28–0:26:41] Agentic commerce & future state

Your commentary:

• You agree agentic shopping is inevitable.
• Likely path:
  • Starts from LLMs → evolves into persistent agents.
  • They’ll look at:
    • What people like you have bought.
    • High‑rating clusters.
• Implications for sellers:
  • Need to provide great products and service.
  • Need strong public signals: reviews, mentions, satisfaction.
• You tie this into your upcoming book:
  • “Agent Shock” – coming out next month.
  • This AEO focus is one of the core recommendations.

Your question to close the AEO topic:

• 0:25:27 Mark: “Is there anything we didn’t cover that we should have?”

Key points:

• Elina reiterates:
  • Best time to start was 3 months ago, second best time is now.
  • This isn’t fake scarcity; someone in your industry is already being recommended by AI.
  • ROI is currently very high and very fast, like SEO in the early 2000s.

[0:26:19–0:27:21] Future episode idea: ChatGPT ads vs AEO

Your suggestion / question:

• 0:26:19 Mark: You propose a future episode on:
  • ChatGPT ads
  • How to take advantage of them
  • How they interact with organic AEO
• Note that you’re just starting to see ads and know nothing about pricing or mechanics yet.

Elina: Open to coming back for that topic.

[0:27:21–0:29:07] Post-show wrap-up

• You explain your goals with the podcast:
  • Learn what’s happening in your industry.
  • Meet potential customers, especially people needing compute / data centers.
  • Talk about:
    • AI infrastructure
    • Data center boom vs actual deployments
    • Security topics like the Hugging Face hack
• Quick tangent on:
  • Novel data center ideas (e.g., ship in the water using the ocean for cooling).
  • The gap between announced and actually built data centers.
•