TL;DR
- AEO makes your brand citable by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini — not just Google
- 70% of AI queries end without a click to any website — you must be cited to exist
- 6 core signals determine if AI trusts your content over anonymous forums
- Technical readability, schema, and citation authority are the top 3 ranking factors
- Hema measures all 6 signals in a single free audit — no credit card needed
The Dawn of AI Search
Something fundamental shifted when ChatGPT launched. For the first time, users could ask a question and get a direct answer — no links, no clicking, no searching. AI became the answer engine. Your brand either gets cited in that answer, or it doesn't exist to that user.
“"The goal of AI Search is not to provide a list of links, but to provide a definitive answer. Your brand's survival depends on being the source of that answer."”
Why Traditional SEO Is No Longer Enough
Traditional search engines are becoming answer engines. Users no longer click through ten blue links — they read a synthesised summary. If your content isn't structured to be digested by an AI, your organic traffic will vanish into the zero-click abyss.
The 6 Core AEO Signals
AI models don't rank pages. They cite sources they trust. These 6 signals determine whether your brand gets cited or ignored.
Technical Accessibility
Ensuring LLM crawlers can access and parse your JSON-LD schemas without friction.
Factual Density
The ratio of verifiable facts to marketing fluff. AI prefers dense, data-rich content over long-form prose.
Citation Authority
Being cited by authoritative entities the LLM already trusts as primary sources.
Semantic Consistency
Your brand voice must remain identical across all touchpoints to prevent AI hallucination.
Natural Dialogue Flow
Optimise for conversational queries users actually ask their voice assistants and AI chats.
Sentiment Alignment
AI weighs public sentiment about your brand. Reviews and community trust are now ranking factors.
See How AI Ranks Your Brand Right Now.
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Start Free Audit →LLM Crawling Patterns
Understanding how AI crawlers discover and index your content is essential. Unlike traditional search crawlers that follow links, LLM crawlers prioritise structured data, schema markup, and factual density when selecting sources to cite.
- •GPTBot — OpenAI's web crawler, respects robots.txt directives
- •PerplexityBot — Indexes content in real-time for Perplexity answers
- •ClaudeBot — Anthropic's crawler, focused on high-quality text content
- •Google-Extended — Controls Gemini's access to your content
Brand Mentions & Citations
Every time an AI model answers a question in your category, it either cites your brand or someone else's. Hema tracks every mention, every citation, every sentiment shift across all major AI platforms — so you know exactly where you stand.
Measuring Your AI Score
Your AI Visibility Score is a composite metric that measures how well your brand performs across all 6 AEO signals. It's updated daily and benchmarked against your competitors.
Key Metrics & KPIs
- •Share of Voice across AI platforms
- •Citation frequency and recency
- •Sentiment score per platform
- •Competitor gap analysis
- •Content freshness index
The Future of Search
Search is no longer a destination — it's an embedded experience. AI answers are appearing in messaging apps, productivity tools, and enterprise software. The brands that optimise for AI citation today will own the answers of tomorrow.
Getting Started with Hema
Hema is the only platform that monitors, measures, and improves your AI visibility across every major AI platform. Start with a free audit and see exactly where your brand stands in 60 seconds.
Frequently Asked Questions
Sarah Mitchell
Head of AI Strategy at Hema
Sarah is the Head of AI Strategy at Hema. With over 15 years in digital marketing, she now focuses on how brands can thrive in the generative AI era.