AEO vs SEO vs GEO: what are you actually buying?

AEO, SEO and GEO overlap. For a business buying help, the useful distinction is which customer questions, website problems and commercial outcomes the work addresses. Three labels do not automatically justify three separate retainers.

SEO means search engine optimisation. AEO means answer engine optimisation. GEO means generative engine optimisation. Agencies use the latter two in different ways, so ask for the actual work behind the name.

This guide uses practical working definitions. They help you compare proposals; they are not official product categories or guarantees that a search engine will select your business.

A working comparison

“AI search optimisation” is another useful umbrella term. It describes the area without requiring a buyer to learn the acronyms first. None of these labels removes the need for a usable website or a service people want.

One page can support all three

Imagine a commercial maintenance company whose service page says only “complete solutions for your business”. That is a weak starting point for a customer comparing suppliers.

A useful improvement would explain the equipment covered, the geographical service area, what a visit includes, how pricing is agreed and what information the customer should provide. Existing evidence, such as a documented inspection process, can support those statements. An enquiry link then gives the reader somewhere relevant to go.

The technical work might make that page accessible and easier to find through internal links. The editorial work might answer a question about emergency call-outs. A visibility review might check whether an AI search result describes its service area accurately. These are connected jobs on the same information, rather than a reason to publish three copies of the page.

See our worked service-page example for a practical way to organise the answer, supporting evidence and next step.

What should a proposal actually include?

Ask the supplier to complete this brief in plain English:

1. Buyer: who is making a decision, and what are they trying to decide?
2. Questions: which specific questions matter to that decision?
3. Existing owner: which current URL should answer each question?
4. Evidence: which business facts, examples or documents support the answer?
5. Changes: what will be written, fixed or tested, and by whom?
6. Measurement: what can be observed before and after, with what limitations?

A proposal that identifies five worthwhile page improvements may be more useful than one promising fifty articles. The number of deliverables is meaningful only when each has a distinct job. Google's spam policies warn against substantially similar doorway pages and scaled content created primarily to manipulate visibility.

Which results belong in which report?

Keep delivery, visibility and sales separate. A corrected page title is a completed task. A search impression is evidence of exposure. A linked citation in a saved AI answer is an observation from that answer. A visit is a website session. An enquiry is a person contacting the business. Each answers a different question.

Those stages can help explain a customer's journey, but they cannot be casually substituted for one another. A crawler fetching your page does not establish that an assistant recommended you. A customer clicking a booking link does not establish that they booked or attended a call.

Agree the question set, platforms, location, dates and reporting definitions before work starts. Otherwise changing the sample can make a chart improve without showing a comparable improvement in visibility. Our measurement guide explains how to keep commercial reporting useful.

What should you be wary of?

Be cautious about guaranteed recommendations, secret ranking switches, invented case studies and a universal “AI score” with no method behind it. Appropriate structured data can describe a page, but Google's structured data guidance explicitly says correct markup does not guarantee a search feature will appear.

Ask what you will own when the work ends: the edited pages, evidence log, technical findings and a plan you can use. Then compare the scope and total cost, rather than deciding from the acronym on the proposal cover.

Where Blue Canvas fits

Our AEO and AI search optimisation service brings the audit, website improvements and measurement into one agreed scope. We start by checking existing pages and buyer questions. The goal is useful information and a clearer route to an enquiry, with observed results reported honestly.

If you are weighing up suppliers, use the AEO agency comparison checklist before committing to ongoing work.