For decades, much of digital marketing has focused on a simple pair of objectives: populate a webpage with high-quality content, and get that webpage to rank as highly as possible among search results.
Billions of dollars are spent every year to increase the odds that a given decision-maker will click on just the right blue link on the search results page (SERP).
But what if that decision-maker doesn't click at all... and so never ends up on your webpage?
A 2024 study conducted by SparkToro found that only 36% of searches in the US result in clicks to the open web; the other 64% never leave the Google ecosystem.
Decision-makers who used to navigate company websites for information are increasingly likely to get their answers from knowledge panels, AI summaries, videos, and images, right on the SERP.
For B2B marketers, that means their exclusively click-driven digital strategies will no longer suffice.
Businesses today must adapt to a new, answer-oriented search process that never leaves the SERP. That relatively new process, often referred to as answer engine optimization (AEO), is a strategy that aims to present a business to decision-makers even if they never click onto the company page.
And AEO comes with an entirely new set of rules and conventions to master.
What Is AEO, and How Does It Drive Zero-Click Results?
Traditional SEO is focused on getting a webpage to rank highly in search results, like Nvidia.com being the top blue-link result when someone searches for "AI computing."
AEO, meanwhile, is focused on getting the company's most critical content to surface directly on the SERP—thereby marketing to zero-click searches. These "rich results" on SERPs can take many forms, from featured snippets and knowledge panels to AI overviews and FAQs, and they require marketers to create content which is not only identifiable to the search engine but also usable for producing concise answers to specific queries.
Below is a brief guide to building AEO into a B2B content strategy.
1. Structure content for extractability
The first step toward getting search engines to display content is clarifying where that content should be extracted from in the first place.
AEO uses structure to highlight specific sections or data points that are conducive to answer-focused results, making it easy for the engine to identify relevant snippets and consider them for use on the SERP.
Succinct headers and bullet points are essential for guiding engines toward the sections that are relevant to a specific search. Marketers should place the most crucial information within the first 100 words after each of these headings, making the jump from query to answer as direct as possible.
Then implement schema markup—a contextual tag format for search engines—to designate certain data points as FAQs to be displayed in "People also ask" or "Things to know" sections of the SERP.
2. Write self-contained snippets
Even if a search engine can locate relevant information, it will paste that information as a snippet on the SERP only if it can fully answer the user's query without reference to the surrounding context. Snippets must, in other words, be authoritative, concise, and self-contained enough to be presented as a standalone answer.
Marketers should begin by writing headers that match common searches in full. The header of a service page might, for instance, read "What is AEO in B2B Marketing?" instead of something like "B2B AEO Services." Those headers should be immediately followed by articulate answers of 50 words or less that do not reference or rely on other parts of the page for support.
Marketers can Google their targeted searches and study the snippets that are currently featured to get a better understanding of how the engine prioritizes information within their specific industry.
3. Optimize for natural language
As natural language processing (NLP) technology becomes more prevalent, decision-makers are more and more likely to conduct searches in everyday language.
Voice-operated smart assistants have become ubiquitous, as have GenAI-chat platforms like Gemini, Copilot, and ChatGPT. Even in the standard Google Search box it is becoming more common to search with phrases than with keywords.
As a result, marketers will need to adapt their content for a new kind of long-tail, conversational keyword. Instead of optimizing for "Best B2B CRM," they must incorporate full clauses like "What's the best CRM for mid-cap B2B finance firms?" NLP-based assistants, chatbots, and engines are far more likely to match this kind of content with the questions they receive and then present it to the user as-is.
4. Leverage the Knowledge Graph
Google's Knowledge Graph is an interrelated database of 500 billion facts about 5 billion entities that constitute the engine's understanding of the real world. It uses that data to provide topical information for searches, typically displayed in the prominent "knowledge panels" above or beside the blue-link results.
For B2B marketers, that constitutes one of the best and most reliable methods of getting critical information across to decision-makers from the SERP.
Marketers can begin by claiming knowledge panels via a Google Business profile and verifying or adding basic information, such as the company's website, physical address, and contact information.
They must then start annotating their webpages with schema markup—the same tag format referenced above—to earmark specific data for integration within the Knowledge Graph. This is how businesses can show product or service information, technical-support videos, client reviews, and more without having to rely on a single click.
Bottom Line
AEO is not entirely replacing SEO; 36% of searches do still end in clicks, after all. But in a time when clicks are no longer the standard outcome of a Google search, B2B marketers must adapt to reach the other 64%, or risk losing visibility and missing key opportunities.
Only the marketers who can incorporate both AEO and SEO into their content strategy will optimize for 100% of searches—and earn their businesses more revenue as a result.
