Step one: see your actual answers
Before changing anything, run your buyers' twenty most valuable questions through ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity and record who gets named, how you are framed when you appear, and which sources the answers cite. Everything else in AEO is guesswork without this baseline, and it routinely reorders a team's priorities in an afternoon.
Step two: remove the reasons assistants distrust you
Contradictory entity data is the most common and cheapest problem: mismatched names, stale addresses, three different pricing claims across the web. Make your facts agree everywhere they appear, and correct any wrong statements assistants are currently repeating by fixing the sources they got them from. These repairs move answers faster than any new content.
Step three: publish answers, not articles
AEO content has one job: resolve a specific buyer question immediately. Lead with the answer in the first two sentences, use the buyer's phrasing in the title, add FAQ schema, and cover the follow-up questions on the same page. One direct page per moment beats ten blog posts circling the topic.
Step four: earn the citations behind the answers
Your baseline from step one shows which sources power competitor mentions: usually a couple of listicles, a review platform and a few community threads. Update the stale ones, pitch the ones that omit you, and participate in the communities as a named expert with disclosure. Answer engines echo their sources, so changing the sources changes the answers.
Step five: re-measure monthly and expand
Re-run the same prompt set monthly, compare mention rate, position and sentiment, kill what did not move and double down on what did. Expect first movement in four to twelve weeks, and compounding after that as citations accumulate. If you want the whole loop run for you, Aethon pairs the measurement with the execution, and starts every engagement with the free audit from step one.
