The playbook

What SEO & AEO actually look for

A plain-English guide to the factors Google and AI answer engines reward — exactly which ones Surfaced handles for you, and which are still up to you. No hand-waving.

SEO — classic search

Getting found on Google's results: the right content, structure, technical health, and authority so your pages rank.

AEO — AI answer engines

Getting recommended when buyers ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini — by being the clearest, most trusted, most quotable source.

What the badges mean

CoveredFully automated — Surfaced does it for you.

Partial + guidanceWe handle part of it and give you step-by-step guidance (plus done-for-you options) to reach full coverage.

These are the key levers— the factors with the biggest, most actionable impact. They aren't the whole picture: Google uses 200+ signals and AI engines have no published rulebook, so other things (user engagement, content freshness, brand mentions, community/forum presence, and more) can also determine success.

What SEO looks for

Helpful content that matches intent

Covered

Pages that genuinely answer what the searcher wants.

How: Keyword & question research finds the intent; drafting and rewrites produce content built to match it.

Keyword & topic coverage

Covered

Covering the terms and subtopics people actually search.

How: Keyword research + question expansion surface what you're missing, with real volume and difficulty.

Titles & meta descriptions

Covered

Compelling, accurate titles/snippets within length limits.

How: Every draft and rewrite generates an SEO title and meta description; the audit flags weak ones.

Clear heading structure

Covered

Logical H1–H3 outline that's easy to scan.

How: The site audit grades structure; drafting writes properly structured pages.

Internal linking

Covered

Links between your own pages to pass authority and context.

How: Internal-linking suggestions tell you which pages to link to and from.

Technical health & Core Web Vitals

Covered

Speed, mobile-friendliness, stability (LCP, CLS, INP).

How: The technical scan runs PageSpeed Insights on your key pages.

Structured data (schema)

Covered

Markup that helps Google understand and feature your pages.

How: Schema and FAQPage generators produce ready-to-paste JSON-LD.

Freshness

Covered

Keeping important pages current.

How: Content-decay detection flags pages losing traction; rewrites refresh them.

Rank monitoring

Covered

Knowing where you actually rank over time.

How: Daily rank tracking for chosen keywords, plus your real Search Console numbers.

Avoiding keyword cannibalization

Covered

Not having several pages compete for one term.

How: Cannibalization detection flags queries split across multiple pages.

Indexability (robots, sitemaps, canonicals)

Covered

Making sure Google can crawl and index the right pages.

How: The audit checks canonical tags, noindex, viewport and lang on every page — and we generate a sitemap.xml + robots.txt for you to publish.

E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authority, trust)

Covered

Signals that you're a credible source.

How: The Authority pack generates Organization/author schema, an About-page draft, and a trust-signal checklist; entity presence adds Knowledge-Graph trust.

Backlinks / off-site authority

Partial + guidance

Other reputable sites linking to you.

How: We track your backlink profile, but earning links (outreach, PR) is on you.

Image & media optimization

Covered

Compressed images, descriptive alt text.

How: The scan flags images missing alt text and the alt-text generator writes descriptive alt for them; PageSpeed flags heavy media.

Hosting, HTTPS & redirects

Partial + guidance

Secure, fast infrastructure and clean redirects.

How: We surface indexability and canonical issues in the scan; server, HTTPS and redirects are applied by your host.

Local SEO & Google Business Profile

Covered

Maps, reviews, local listings.

How: The Local SEO pack generates LocalBusiness schema, a NAP-consistency checklist, and a Google Business Profile + citations action plan; track local keywords in rank tracking.

What AEO looks for

Getting cited / recommended by AI

Covered

Whether ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity & Gemini name you.

How: AI visibility tracking asks the real buyer questions and records who gets recommended.

Direct, quotable answers

Covered

Leading with a clean answer an AI can lift verbatim.

How: The AEO audit scores extractability; drafting opens pages with a direct answer.

Extractable structure (lists, tables, FAQs)

Covered

Formatting AI can parse and quote.

How: The audit flags it; FAQ schema and drafts add scannable structure.

Coverage of real questions

Covered

Answering the actual questions buyers ask AI.

How: Prompt tracking + question expansion widen what you cover.

Entity recognition & trust

Covered

Being a known entity (Knowledge Graph, Wikidata).

How: The entity-presence check shows your status and how to strengthen it.

llms.txt

Covered

An AI-readable overview file at your site root.

How: One-click llms.txt generator built from your homepage and pages.

Knowing why a competitor wins

Covered

Understanding what their cited page does better.

How: Why-they-win analysis reads their page and gives you a plan.

Reputation in AI answers

Covered

How positively the AI describes you, not just if.

How: Sentiment analysis on each answer that mentions you.

Authoritative third-party citations

Partial + guidance

Being referenced by sources AI already trusts.

How: We show who gets cited and why, but earning those mentions is on you.

Coverage across every AI engine

Covered

Showing up in all the assistants buyers use.

How: We track ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews; Microsoft Copilot is the only engine not yet covered.

“Guidance included” means you're never on your own

Every factor above is either automated for you or comes with step-by-step guidance inside your dashboard — exactly what to do to reach Covered. And for the hardest one — earning backlinks and media coverage — we offer done-for-you services:

Press Releases

Guaranteed placement on 400+ outlets (Business Insider, MarketWatch, AP News…) with high-authority backlinks and “as seen in” credibility.

Explore Press Releases →

Media Outreach

Pitch 500,000+ verified journalists and 200,000+ podcasts to earn real coverage, citations, and the third-party trust AI engines reward.

Explore Media Outreach →

See where you stand

Point Surfaced at your site and get a scored, prioritized plan across every factor above.

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