AEO vs SEO | Which One North Herts Businesses Should Pick

Sat with a tree surgeon in Hitchin a couple of months back. Proper old school bloke, been at it since the mid-nineties. He'd been paying an SEO company about two hundred and fifty quid a month for the last three years. When I asked what he was getting for it, he pulled out a report full of graphs and said "apparently I'm on page one for tree surgeon Hitchin."

Fair enough.

Then I asked him to open ChatGPT on his phone and type in "I've got a large ash tree that needs taking down in Hitchin, who should I call?"

Two names came up. Neither was his.

He stared at the screen for a while. Then he asked me the question I hear about four times a week now: "So do I bin the SEO and do this AEO thing instead?"

The short answer

Both. You need both.

But the balance between them has shifted dramatically in the last year, and if you're still putting all your money into traditional SEO without thinking about AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), you're leaving the door wide open for competitors who are.

Let me break down what each one actually does for a local business, because there's a lot of waffle out there and I'd rather just be straight with you.

What SEO is still good for

Google hasn't died. People still search on it. When someone in Stevenage types "emergency plumber near me" at eleven o'clock at night, they're probably using Google, and your SEO determines whether you show up in that map pack or get buried on page three.

Good local SEO means your Google Business Profile is sorted, your website ranks for the terms that matter, and you're picking up clicks from people who are ready to buy. For trades and service businesses across North Hertfordshire, that's still real money coming through the door.

But.

The competition is brutal. Every business with a website is doing some version of SEO, even if badly. Getting into those top three map pack spots for anything competitive around Hitchin or Letchworth takes months of work and a fair bit of budget. And Google keeps tinkering with how results display. Their AI overviews are eating organic clicks for breakfast. You can do everything right and still wake up one morning to find Google's rearranged the furniture.

SEO is a renting game these days. You pay to maintain your position. The moment you stop, you slide.

AEO is something different

AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimisation. If you want the full explanation I've written a longer piece on what AEO is and why it matters for North Hertfordshire businesses. But here's the quick version.

Instead of trying to appear in a list of ten links on Google, you're trying to be the business that ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini actually names when someone asks a question.

Think about what that means.

Someone asks "who's the best kitchen fitter in Baldock?" and instead of getting ten websites to compare, they get one or two names. Maybe three. That's the entire shortlist. Everyone else might as well not exist.

There's no second page to scroll to. There's no "well maybe I'll click the seventh result and see." You're either the answer or you're invisible.

To get there, your website needs to be structured so AI tools can read it, understand it, and feel confident enough to put their name behind recommending you. That means real FAQs answering the questions people actually ask (not "why choose us" fluff). Service descriptions that are specific enough for the AI to match against a query. Location signals on every page so it knows where you work. And evidence, like case studies and detailed testimonials, so the AI has actual proof you're credible.

Why I'd put money into AEO right now

I've been doing marketing in some form for fifteen years. Very few things get me properly excited about a channel anymore.

AEO does. And here's why.

Nobody's doing it.

In Royston right now, I've found zero businesses with anything resembling an AEO strategy. Stevenage, maybe two. Baldock? Nothing. Hitchin has a small handful but they're mostly in hospitality, not trades or professional services.

Compare that to SEO where everyone and their nephew has had a crack at ranking for something. The competition for AEO in North Hertfordshire is essentially nonexistent. You're not fighting for position against a hundred other businesses. You're one of three or four who've even started.

That tree surgeon I mentioned? We built his AEO content out in November. By late December he was the first name ChatGPT mentioned for tree surgery across most of North Hertfordshire. With traditional SEO, getting that kind of visibility in a competitive trade would take six months minimum. Probably longer.

I should be clear, that timeline isn't guaranteed for everyone. Some markets are harder. Some need more content work. But the window right now is massive. And it won't stay this open forever.

Here's what most people miss though

Strong AEO content, proper FAQs, detailed service pages, case studies that actually describe what happened, all of that also helps your SEO. Google wants the same things AI does: specificity, authority, content that answers real questions rather than rambling about nothing.

It's not double the work. It's one set of content doing two jobs.

My wife runs a small business (completely different industry, nothing to do with marketing) and even she said it makes sense. When my wife says something I do makes sense, I know I'm onto something. She's not easily impressed.

Our packages include both AEO and SEO built as one system, because separating them would be daft. Like hiring someone to fit a bathroom but telling them not to bother with the plumbing.

When the budget's tight

Not everyone's got a big marketing budget. I know that. Half the businesses I talk to in Letchworth and Baldock are sole traders or small teams watching every penny. So if you've got no budget but you've got an afternoon free, here's what I'd tell you to do.

Write five to ten proper FAQs on your main service pages. Not the marketing questions. The real ones, the ones your customers actually phone you about. Give each answer a proper paragraph, minimum. More if you can.

Make sure your site mentions the actual towns you work in. Hitchin, Letchworth Garden City, Baldock, Royston, Stevenage, Knebworth, St Albans. Don't just say "Hertfordshire." The AI needs specifics.

Then write one case study. Just one. Pick a job you did recently. What the customer wanted, what you did, how it turned out, and name the town. Three or four paragraphs.

Costs you nothing. Helps both SEO and AEO. And it puts you ahead of most businesses in North Hertfordshire because, and I genuinely mean this, most of them still haven't bothered.

For more on getting AI to recommend you specifically, have a read of how to get your business recommended by AI. And if you'd rather have someone build the whole thing for you, book a call and we'll talk through what it looks like for your business.