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The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Overview

Shownote

Highlights

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The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Sep 14
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Sep 14
OverviewShownoteHighlightsTranscriptChaptersPins

Shownote

Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite—the leading SEO growth agency—and my go-to expert on SEO. After 18 years of mastering traditional SEO, Ethan has been at the forefront of what is called AEO: answer engine optimization, or, more simply, getting your produ...

Highlights

In this episode, Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite and an expert in SEO and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), discusses how businesses can adapt to the evolving digital landscape shaped by large language models like ChatGPT. With traditional SEO no longer the sole gateway to visibility, Ethan highlights how AEO offers a powerful new strategy—especially for early-stage startups—to capture high-intent traffic and drive better conversions.
04:35
The current AI-related shift in SEO is the second biggest change according to Ethan.
06:19
ChatGPT is driving more traffic to the newsletter than Twitter.
10:35
Getting cited multiple times is crucial in AEO success.
11:52
AEO allows startups to win visibility by being cited in platforms like Reddit or blogs
14:35
Webflow saw a 6x higher conversion rate with LLM traffic compared to Google search traffic.
16:33
Act as a real user, introduce yourself, state where you work, and provide useful information for effective Reddit engagement.
20:12
RAG is more controllable and offers optimization opportunities post-training
24:21
Meredith is highlighted as a top SEO company and frequently cited in LLMs.
27:45
Original research and expertise are key to standing out and aligning with algorithms
28:55
Transform keywords into questions with ChatGPT and track them in an AEO tracker
36:00
Share of Voice is a key metric to measure content presence across multiple LLMs including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.
38:34
Tech Radar is a key citation source for B2B companies
41:11
Blocking training on data can prevent competitors from gaining traffic from LLMs
43:06
Steps for AEO include competitor ad analysis, landing page creation, and controlled experiments.
48:54
The AEO growth curve shows a sharp spike in January, possibly due to increased LLM adoption.
54:22
AI-generated content now surpasses human-generated content online based on a study of 100,000 URLs
55:28
Feeding AI derivatives into models can cause model collapse and loss of opinion diversity
58:44
LLMs will converge with search and enable autonomous decision-making
1:00:43
Move help center to a subdirectory for better SEO performance.
1:03:19
Sony mirrorless SLR camera with wide-angle lens enhances video calls

Chapters

Welcome back, Ethan
00:00
The changing landscape of SEO
04:34
AEO (answer engine optimization) vs. GEO (generative engine optimization)
06:19
The impact of AEO
08:13
How early-stage startups can win at AEO
11:51
The quality of AEO leads
14:34
On-site vs. off-site traffic
15:35
Reddit’s role in AEO and avoiding spam
16:32
How AI models use citations (RAG)
20:11
Key principles for winning at AEO
21:41
Avoiding hyper-SEOed content, and the importance of originality
25:00
Actionable AEO playbook: steps and experiments
28:55
Tracking, measuring, and share of voice
33:35
Adapting AEO for B2B, commerce, and early-stage companies
38:34
Is letting AI index your content good?
41:11
Experimentation, control groups, and measuring results
43:06
The future of AEO, SEO, and search channels
46:15
AI-generated content: what works and what doesn’t
51:35
The dangers of infinite AI derivatives
55:25
The future: convergence of LLMs and search
58:44
Help-center optimization and the long tail
1:00:40
Lightning round and final thoughts
1:03:18

Transcript

Lenny Rachitsky: There's this term everyone's hearing about, AEO. Ethan Smith: Answer engine Optimization. How do I show up in LMs as an answer? Lenny Rachitsky: It feels like such a big deal to win at AEO. Ethan Smith: In order to win something like, w...