One of the most effective ways to improve brand authority and visibility is to optimize the chances of citations from AI generated web search responses. In this new sphere known as Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), there are several factors that lead to a company being cited more often. While new strategies have emerged to optimize AI citations, the importance still lays heavily on SEO fundamentals, most notably the improvement of brand authority, keyword optimization, and solid backlink profiles.
An AEO Page Analysis Case Study
To identify the main drivers behind AEO citations, we looked at over 5000 different URLs in the fintech/personal finance space and compared their basic SEO data to the number of times cited in a fintech-related query in ChatGPT. Only queries with over 20k searches were used, and the average search volume of a query in our dataset was around 200k. The domains that were focused on include Nerdwallet, Bankrate, Bank of America, Chase, Credit Karma, Thepointsguy, Investopedia, and a handful of pages commonly cited alongside pages from these domains.
The success of a page in terms of AEO citations is driven by a plethora of different factors, however if a page is weak in SEO fundamentals, then it will likely not see as many citations. In our research, three variables stood out as being the most fundamental drivers of AEO citations, and they can be chalked up to domain authority, keyword optimization, and strong backlinks. Improving in each of these areas is associated with a higher chance of being cited more often.
Domain Authority
The first variable of interest is domain authority. In our research, it has been apparent that ChatGPT relies heavily on pages that come from domains that are trustworthy. We used Ahrefs’ domain rating variable and compared each page in our fintech dataset to the number of citations they received from ChatGPT. Below is sampled 500 pages from our dataset, and it shows a clustering of pages with 90 domain rating or above getting cited more often.
In our multiple linear regression model, we found that a 1 unit increase in Ahrefs domain rating is associated with 1.5% more citations from ChatGPT.
Keywords
A fundamental aspect of SEO is optimizing a page with keywords so that search engines can identify certain topics within a page’s content. AEO works in a similar way, as shown by our data findings. Below is a sample of 500 pages from our fintech dataset and it shows a positive correlation with # of keywords on a page and ChatGPT citations.
Our regression model has revealed that a 1% increase in the number of keywords on a page is associated with an increase of ChatGPT citations by .08%.
Backlinks
Another fundamental aspect for a page to be optimized for SEO is to have a solid set of meaningful backlinks to your page. This is a signal for a page’s popularity and credibility, and LLM models seem to favor that according to our research. In another sample of 500 URLs in the fintech space, we have shown that a positive correlation exists between backlinks and ChatGPT citations.
Our model has shown that a 1% increase in the number of backlinks a page has is associated with .06% more ChatGPT citations.
Conclusion
The research above presents statistically backed data showcasing that fundamental SEO principles are drivers behind Answer Engine Optimization. AI models simply favor more credible domains as explained by the lack of citations for those domains with lower Ahrefs domain ratings. Furthermore, keyword optimization and stronger backlink profiles are both positively correlated with the number of AI citations that a specific page receives. Striving in the competitive space of AEO is a challenge, but the optimization of these simple metrics can improve any website’s visibility to AI models.
