I run an SEO team at Nurotech, and for most of the twelve years we've been doing this, "choosing keywords" meant one thing: open Ahrefs or SEMrush, pull search volume, pick the terms with the best volume-to-competition ratio, and build pages around them. That process still works. It is still how the majority of organic traffic gets won.
But over the last year, a second question has started showing up in almost every client call: "will this get us mentioned when someone asks ChatGPT?" That is not the same question as "will this rank on Google," and it does not get answered by the same keyword list. I want to walk through what actually changes when you're choosing keywords for AEO or GEO, using real examples from our own client work, not theory.
A quick note on terms before I go further. AEO, Answer Engine Optimization, is the older name for this discipline, originally used for voice search and Featured Snippets. GEO, Generative Engine Optimization, is the term that has taken over since 2024 and specifically targets AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot. We use GEO internally because it's the current industry term, but the keyword-selection logic underneath both is the same, so I'll use AEO and GEO interchangeably here since that's how the terminology has actually settled.
Traditional SEO keyword research answers one question: what short phrase is enough people typing into a search bar that ranking for it is worth the effort? You're optimizing for a list of ten blue links, so you're competing on relevance and authority for a fragment.
AEO service keyword selection answers a different question: what full question is someone actually asking an AI assistant, and does my content give a self-contained, citable answer to that exact question? You're not competing for a spot on a results page. You're competing to be the source the model pulls from when it writes one paragraph.
That difference in what you're optimizing for changes what a "keyword" should even look like on your list.
I built a simple filter for our team that I now run every candidate keyword through. I call it the Two-Box Test. For any keyword or phrase, ask which box it was actually typed into: the Google search bar, or an AI chat box.
Search-bar phrases are fragments. Nobody types "which digital marketing agency should I hire in Delhi that has good reviews and works with schools" into Google. They type "digital marketing agency Delhi" and scan the results themselves.
Chat-box phrases are full questions, often with context attached. That same person, in ChatGPT, is far more likely to type something close to the full sentence, because the interface rewards specificity and the model does the scanning for them.
If a keyword only makes sense as a fragment, it belongs on your traditional SEO list: build a page, optimize the title tag and headings, go after backlinks. If a keyword only makes sense as a full sentence, it belongs on your AEO list: it needs a direct, self-contained answer near the top of a page, not a page built around ranking for the fragment version of it. Most valuable topics need both treatments, just written differently.
The following is a real, documented example from three client engagements we ran GEO for, not a hypothetical.
When we ran GEO for three local service clients, ProBrothers Construction in Media, PA, VC Woodworks in West Chester, PA, and Competitive Signs in Montclair, NJ, we tracked the exact queries each business ended up cited for on ChatGPT. Twenty-one citations across the three, a 100% citation rate.
What stood out to me was how different those cited queries looked from a traditional SEO keyword list. A conventional list for VC Woodworks would have included something like "custom cabinets West Chester PA" or "cabinet maker Chester County." Reasonable, high-volume, exactly what Ahrefs would surface.
What ChatGPT actually cited them for included "Custom Mudroom Maker in West Chester," where they were listed first, and "Fireplace Cabinet Maker Near West Chester," also listed first. Those are not phrases that would have scored well in a keyword-volume tool. Nobody is searching "fireplace cabinet maker" ten thousand times a month. But they are exactly the kind of specific, needs-based question a person asks an AI assistant when they already have a fireplace built-in project in mind and want a name, not a list of ten options to filter through themselves.
Competitive Signs saw the same pattern: cited for "Yard Sale Sign Maker in Montclair," a query with close to zero traditional search volume, but a completely natural thing to ask an AI assistant.
| Dimension | Traditional SEO keywords | AEO / GEO keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Short fragments and head terms with modifiers | Full natural-language questions, often hyper-specific |
| Example | "SEO company Delhi" | "which SEO company should I hire in Delhi" |
| Where they come from | Search-volume tools: Ahrefs, SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner | Testing real questions directly against ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot |
| What you optimize | Title tags, meta descriptions, headings, internal links | 40-60 word self-contained answer blocks, FAQ schema, entity signals |
| Success metric | Ranking position, GSC clicks and impressions | AI citation rate, citation rank, whether the brand is named at all |
| Typical volume tracked | 4 priority keywords on a starter plan, 15-25 across the funnel on a growth plan | 10-20 commercial questions tracked monthly, per engine |
| Where the win actually happens | On-page content plus backlink authority | On-page answer content plus off-site entity signals like Google Business Profile and directories |
Myth 1: AEO keywords are just longer versions of SEO keywords. They're not longer versions, they're a different category. "Fireplace Cabinet Maker Near West Chester" isn't "custom cabinets West Chester" with extra words bolted on. It's a different question with a different intent, and it would never have made it onto a traditional keyword list built from search-volume data, because the volume for that exact phrase is negligible.
Myth 2: if you rank well on Google, you'll automatically get cited by AI. I learned this the hard way looking at our own site's data, not a client's. In June 2026, the only commercial query our own site got cited for by ChatGPT was "performance marketing company in Delhi," and that citation came entirely from our Google Business Profile, an off-site signal, not from anything on nurotech.in itself. Ranking on Google and being cited by an AI model draw on overlapping but genuinely separate signals.
Myth 3: AEO keyword research replaces SEO keyword research. It adds to it, it doesn't replace it. Classic Google search still accounts for roughly 70-80% of total search queries by most current industry estimates. If you drop your traditional keyword strategy to chase AI citations, you're optimizing for the smaller, faster-growing slice of the pie while walking away from the larger one.
The Google Business Profile finding is the one that actually changed how I run keyword workshops with clients now. I used to treat GEO keyword selection as an extension of content strategy, purely about what you write and where you put it on the page. The data from our own site told me that's incomplete. A keyword can be "won" for AI citation purposes by an off-site listing that has nothing to do with your blog content at all.
That changed the order of operations for me. Now, before we even start picking AEO keywords for a client, we check what's already claimed and consistent across their Google Business Profile, directory listings, and any third-party review sites. Picking the right question to answer means nothing if the entity data behind your brand name is thin or inconsistent, because that's often where the citation actually originates.
For traditional SEO, the process hasn't changed much. Pull volume data, map keywords to funnel stage, prioritize based on competition and business value, build or update pages against a shortlist, roughly 4 keywords for a tightly scoped local campaign up to 15-25 for a national growth plan.
For AEO, the process starts differently. Instead of a keyword tool, we list out 10-20 real questions a buyer would plausibly type into ChatGPT or Perplexity about the client's category and location. We run those questions against the major engines to see who currently gets cited, including competitors. Then, for each question that matters and isn't currently answered by the client, we write a direct 40-60 word answer near the top of the relevant page, backed by FAQ schema, and we check the off-site entity signals, starting with Google Business Profile, are consistent enough for an AI model to trust the name.
The two lists rarely overlap much. That's the part that took me longest to accept. I kept expecting the AEO list to be a subset of the SEO list, just phrased as questions. In practice it's closer to a parallel list, built from a different kind of research, aimed at a different kind of visibility.
1. Do I need a separate keyword research process for AEO, or can I just extend my SEO list?
You need a separate process. SEO keywords come from search-volume tools and are chosen for ranking potential. AEO keywords come from testing real questions directly against AI engines and are chosen for whether your brand can be cited as the answer. Some overlap exists, but building one list from the other misses most of the value.
2. How many AEO keywords should I actually track?
We track 10-20 commercial questions per client, run monthly across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot, and record cited versus not cited per engine. That's a manageable number to monitor properly and matches what we've found produces measurable movement over a few months.
3. Does a high-volume SEO keyword ever make a good AEO keyword too?
Sometimes, but rewrite it as a full question first. "SEO company Delhi" as a fragment won't get cited. "Which SEO company should I hire in Delhi" is the same underlying topic, phrased the way someone actually asks an AI assistant, and it's the version worth building an answer block around.
4. If I only have budget for one, which should I prioritize?
Start with SEO if your site is new, thin on content, or not ranking for anything yet. Classic search still drives the large majority of traffic, and GEO built on a weak foundation has little to cite. Add AEO once your technical SEO is solid and you're already ranking for a reasonable set of non-brand keywords.
5. How long before I see results from AEO keyword targeting?
Based on our own client work, first citations typically show up within a few months of publishing answer-ready content and fixing entity consistency. Consistent citation across multiple engines takes longer and is closer to an ongoing discipline than a one-time project, similar to how SEO authority compounds over time.
If you want us to run this same comparison against your own site, an AI visibility audit will show you exactly which questions in your category are already being answered by a competitor's name instead of yours.
Rajeev Gupta, Founder, Nurotech