What is AEO and why does my Australian business need it now?
AEO — Answer Engine Optimisation — is the discipline of structuring your web content so that AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite your business when generating answers to user questions. Australian businesses need it now because the shift from search-based to answer-based discovery is already happening in your market — particularly among business buyers, younger consumers, and anyone using a smartphone voice interface to find services. The businesses that build AI citation infrastructure in 2025 will have a compounding advantage over those that wait until it becomes mainstream.
How long before I see measurable results from AEO Strategy?
The first citation improvements typically appear within 60 to 90 days of page restructure and schema deployment. Perplexity re-indexes frequently and often shows results within four to six weeks. Google AI Overviews can take eight to twelve weeks to reflect content changes. The full programme — from audit completion to first monthly tracking report — typically runs across a twelve-week period. The monthly tracking reports from month two onward show the compounding effect as more pages are restructured and more citation opportunities are captured.
How much does AEO Strategy cost in Australia?
The AEO Strategy programme for Australian businesses starts at AUD 4,500 for the full audit, question mapping, page restructure, and schema implementation across up to five priority pages. Monthly monitoring and expansion retainers begin at AUD 1,200 per month. Larger engagements covering ten or more service pages, multiple business locations, or ongoing content production are scoped individually. Every engagement begins with a free AI Visibility Audit, so you know exactly what you are investing in before any payment is required.
Which AI platforms does the programme target?
The standard programme targets five AI platforms: ChatGPT (OpenAI), Perplexity AI, Google AI Overviews, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Bing Copilot. These five represent the AI engines most commonly used by Australian consumers and business buyers at present. For businesses with international client bases, the scope can be extended to include Claude (Anthropic) and other engines. Australian-specific context — including localised question phrasing and competitor benchmarking against Australian businesses in your category — is built into every engagement.
How do you measure whether the programme is working?
Results are measured through a monthly citation scan that tests 50 to 100 predefined questions across all five target AI engines. We measure citation rate (percentage of questions that return a citation for your site), citation position within the AI-generated answer, and competitor citation rate for the same questions. The monthly report shows month-on-month movement across all three metrics. We also track referral traffic from AI engines where it can be attributed in analytics, though direct attribution from AI engines remains inconsistent across platforms.
Can AEO work for my business if I am based outside Sydney or Melbourne?
AEO Strategy works for any Australian business that serves clients or customers who use AI engines to make purchasing decisions — regardless of location. We have worked with businesses in Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and regional centres. The question mapping phase specifically accounts for the geographic phrasing your local market uses, so whether your clients are asking "best commercial lawyer in Brisbane" or "business accountant Gold Coast," the question map and page restructures are tailored to your actual market.
