Winning out in the cluttered world of digital marketing hinges on how well AI systems understand and trust the content you produce.
If you missed it, part 1 of this blog explored the foundations of Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), the two essential strategies for digital discoverability today. Now, in part 2, let’s dive deeper into the technical and structural aspects that help your content thrive across AI-driven platforms.
Semantic Depth: Go Beyond Keywords
Search engines and generative tools now prioritise context over exact-match keywords. This means you have to have a strong understanding of related terms, cultural context and have to shift to written answers. To achieve semantic depth, your content must demonstrate relevance in a more meaningful way:
- Cover each topic in a thorough, structured manner.
- Answer commonly asked and adjacent questions.
- In conversational content, use related terms or synonyms interchangeably.
By doing so, you help large language models (LLMs) and AI-driven systems extract accurate and valuable insights, improving your chances of being featured in generated answers.
Structured Data Markup: Speak AI’s Language
Structured data markup (schema) is essential for both AEO and GEO. It allows AI tools to understand the meaning of your hierarchy and purpose:
- Apply FAQ schema to content that answers specific questions.
- Use article, product, and service markup where relevant.
- Implement breadcrumb and author schema to build credibility.
This technical layer gives your website an AI-friendly structure, helping it become more accessible and interpretable for intelligent systems.
Real-Time Accuracy: Keep Your Content Fresh
AI systems prioritise real-time accuracy and current information when selecting content to include in responses. Outdated pages do not get preference. Fresh content ensures relevance to both search engines and generative models.
Technical Steps to Enhance GEO
To align your website with how AI works, consider the following foundational tactics:
- Use an AI-Friendly Structure
- Organise content logically with clear headings and subheadings.
- Break content into short paragraphs and bullet points.
- Use internal linking to guide users and bots through your site.
This improves both user experience and AI readability.
Write in a Conversational Style
Conversational content helps engage readers and makes it easier for AI models to interpret tone, intent, and meaning. A natural, accessible style bridges the gap between human audiences and machine understanding.
Align with E-E-A-T Principles
To increase credibility in an AI-powered world, demonstrate:
- Experience: Share real-world insights and examples.
- Expertise: Publish well-informed, accurate content.
- Authoritativeness: Reference credible sources.
- Trustworthiness: Include testimonials, credentials, and secure elements.
Strong E-E-A-T alignment builds trust with AI systems and users alike. These files ensure AI bots can reach and process your most valuable content, increasing your visibility across generative platforms.
Crawlability Checklist: Make Your Content Reachable by AI
To rank well and be featured by AI systems, your content must first be accessible. Ensuring your site is easily crawlable by both search engines and AI tools is a foundational step. Here’s how you can achieve that:
- Use robots.txt wisely
When you use robots.txt, you can control and limit various crawlers’ access to your content. It should allow helpful AI and search crawlers to access your content while blocking malicious bots. As more AI platforms launch their own crawlers, staying updated on which ones to permit becomes critical. - Add LLMs.txt file
A new best practice for AI-era optimisation is adding LLMs.txt markdown file in your site’s root directory. This file guides AI systems to key content and signals that your site is ready for large language model indexing. - Reduce JavaScript dependency
AI crawlers struggle with JavaScript-heavy pages. When key content relies on client-side rendering, it can go unnoticed. Keep your structure lean to ensure your most valuable pages are fully processed. - Use proper HTTP status codes
Clear status codes help AI and search bots understand what’s live, redirected, or removed. Use 301 and 302 for redirects, and 404 or 410 for removed content to maintain site clarity.
The Future is AI-First: Is Your Brand Ready?
AEO and GEO work is no longer optional. They are the core of digital marketing strategy in a search environment increasingly driven by AI. Optimising early and comprehensively helps you gain long-term visibility, authority, and audience trust.
Take the Next Step with 3 Dots Design
At 3 Dots Design, we build content ecosystems designed for today and future-proofed for tomorrow. Our team helps you combine conversational style, semantic depth, structured data, and technical GEO work into a seamless digital strategy. Beyond AEO and GEO, we also support strategic services like digital PR and influencer marketing to amplify your content’s reach and to build strong, AI-recognisable brand signals across the web.
Whether you’re just starting or evolving your AI-focussed marketing approach, we’re here to help. Get in touch and let’s create a smarter, more discoverable brand presence together.