The ultimate guide to AEO: How to get ChatGPT to recommend your product | Ethan Smith (Graphite)

Ethan Smith is the CEO of Graphite—the leading SEO growth agency—and my go-to expert on SEO. After 18 years of mastering traditional SEO, Ethan has been at the forefront of what is called AEO: answer engine optimization, or, more simply, getting your product to show up in ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini/Perplexity answers. He’s discovered that ChatGPT traffic converts six times better than Google search—and most companies are completely missing this opportunity. In our conversation, we discuss: 1. His 7-step playbook to rank #1 in ChatGPT 2. Why ChatGPT traffic converts 6x better than Google 3. How early-stage startups can win at AEO immediately (unlike with SEO, which takes years) 4. The three tactics that actually work: landing pages, YouTube videos, and Reddit comments 5. Why help-center content can suddenly be your highest-ROI investment 6. The specific Reddit strategy that works (spoiler: be authentic) 7. Why AI-generated content doesn’t work Brought to you by: Orkes—The enterprise platform for reliable applications and agentic workflows: https://www.orkes.io/ Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Great Question—Empower everyone to run great research: https://www.greatquestion.com/lenny Transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/th... My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/17... Where to find Ethan Smith: • Twitter:   / ethan_l_s   • LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/ethans-linkedin • Graphite: https://graphite.io/ • Graphite Research Papers: https://bit.ly/graphite-five-percent Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X:   / lennysan   • LinkedIn:   / lennyrachitsky   In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Welcome back, Ethan (04:34) The changing landscape of SEO (06:19) AEO (answer engine optimization) vs. GEO (generative engine optimization) (08:13) The impact of AEO (11:51) How early-stage startups can win at AEO (14:34) The quality of AEO leads (15:35) On-site vs. off-site traffic (16:32) Reddit’s role in AEO and avoiding spam (20:11) How AI models use citations (RAG) (21:41) Key principles for winning at AEO (25:00) Avoiding hyper-SEOed content, and the importance of originality (28:55) Actionable AEO playbook: steps and experiments (33:35) Tracking, measuring, and share of voice (38:34) Adapting AEO for B2B, commerce, and early-stage companies (41:11) Is letting AI index your content good? (43:06) Experimentation, control groups, and measuring results (46:15) The future of AEO, SEO, and search channels (51:35) AI-generated content: what works and what doesn’t (55:25) The dangers of infinite AI derivatives (58:44) The future: convergence of LLMs and search (01:00:40) Help-center optimization and the long tail (01:03:18) Lightning round and final thoughts Referenced: • AEO Tools: https://bit.ly/graphite-aeo-tool • The ultimate guide to SEO | Ethan Smith (Graphite): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/th... • Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/in... • Webflow: https://webflow.com/ • YouTube: https://youtube.com/ • Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/ • Quora: https://www.quora.com/ • An inside look at Deel’s unprecedented growth | Meltem Kuran Berkowitz (Head of Growth): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/an... • Dotdash Meredith: https://www.people.inc/ • Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/ • Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ • Perplexity: https://www.perplexity.ai/ • Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ • ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ • Claude: https://claude.ai/ • TechRadar: https://www.techradar.com/ • Yelp: https://www.yelp.com • Tripadvisor: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ • TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/ • Why ChatGPT will be the next big growth channel (and how to capitalize on it) | Brian Balfour (Reforge): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/wh... • AI SEO: Latest Market Intelligence & Landscape Analysis—Summer Sessions:    • AI SEO: Latest Market Intelligence & Lands...   • AI Content Study: https://bit.ly/ai-content-white-paper • Free AI detector: https://surferseo.com/ai-content-dete... • Common Crawl: https://commoncrawl.org/ • AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158... • Looker: https://cloud.google.com/looker/ ...References continued at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/th... Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.