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AEO·8 min read

The answer engine checklist we run before publishing any B2B page

Answer engines do not reward longer pages. They reward pages that state one answer clearly, back it with evidence a machine can parse, and make the source of that evidence obvious. This is the checklist we run before anything goes live.

By Praveen Kumar · Founder, Vectura Digital

01 / 07

Start with the question, not the keyword

Write the exact question a buyer would type or speak, then answer it in the first 60 words of the page. Everything after that paragraph is supporting evidence, not preamble.

02 / 07

Make the structured data match what a person sees

FAQ, Article, Service and Organization markup only helps when it repeats the visible content. Mismatched markup is the most common reason a page is parsed but never cited.

03 / 07

Name the person behind the claim

Every page carries an author or reviewer with a role and a date. Anonymous pages are treated as lower-confidence sources by both classic search and generative answers.

04 / 07

Cite dated, checkable sources

Link to primary documentation, your own data, or a named study with a date. Undated claims age badly and are quietly dropped from answer sets.

05 / 07

Link the supporting pages

Each answer page links to the two or three pages that prove it and receives links back. Isolated pages rarely get picked as the canonical answer for a topic.

07 / 07

Re-check after 30 days

Query the question in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search and Perplexity. Record whether you were cited, and what was cited instead. That gap list becomes your next round of edits.

About the author

Praveen Kumar, Founder, Vectura Digital

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Sources

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