Start with the shared foundation
Search engines and AI systems both need to access, parse and understand the public material around a brand. That means crawlable HTML, specific page titles, sensible internal links and language that says who the organisation helps and how.
Where the layers differ
SEO asks whether a page can rank. Answer engine optimisation asks whether it contains a clear answer that can be extracted. Generative engine optimisation asks whether the wider evidence is strong and consistent enough for an AI system to use or cite.
What to publish
Build dedicated pages for real services and sectors. Add articles for recurring buyer questions. Connect both to case studies, named methods and clear ownership. A smaller set of strong pages is more useful than dozens of near-identical variations.
How to measure it
Track ordinary search performance and conversions, then run a fixed set of representative prompts across relevant AI tools. Record whether the brand appears, how it is described and which sources are cited. Visibility without accuracy is not a win.
