Free AEO checker for featured snippets, PAA, and voice answers

What is AEO?

AEO is Answer Engine Optimization: structuring a page so featured snippets, People Also Ask, voice assistants, and AI answers can lift a self-contained reply. It is not the same as ranking for a keyword in a classic SERP.

When a buyer asks “what is the best X for small business?”, the engine wants a heading that restates the question and a 30-50 word answer that needs no surrounding essay. SEO Evolution Analyzer scores that pattern on any public HTML. BandMasterBD.com went from 32/100 to 100 on AEO after the fix pack added FAQ, HowTo, and QAPage schema plus question blocks — the same IDs this checker still uses.

Readiness on seo-ea.com is AEO 25% + AIO 25% + GEO 25% + crawlability 25%. This page does not change that blend. It highlights the AEO tab so you can see why a snippet-shaped page still fails if titles are 12 characters or every H2 is a product slogan.

Which AEO signals does the checker score?

Seven signals. Atomic answers weigh 18, FAQPage schema and question H2s weigh 15 each, HowTo weighs 10, QAPage and tables weigh 8, title length weighs 6. Pass is full weight, warn is half, fail is zero.

Details live in the learning center and the AEO guide. Markup vocabulary is schema.org FAQPage, HowTo, and QAPage.

Why do atomic answers weigh more than schema?

Schema labels a Q&A pair. The atomic paragraph is the text an engine can speak or paste. Weight 18 beats FAQPage at 15 because a labeled empty FAQ still has nothing to extract.

The analyzer looks for an H2 or H3 whose text contains a question word, then a following paragraph of roughly 30-400 characters of mostly plain text. Two such blocks pass. One warns. None fails. Long essays under a question heading do not match; neither do answers buried three sections later.

If the heading asks the question and the next paragraph answers it in 30-50 words, you have given an answer engine the only shape it reliably quotes.

FAQPage JSON-LD should repeat those same questions and answers. The checker does not verify that JSON-LD matches visible copy; Google’s Search Central guidance still expects visible, accurate FAQ content. HowTo is a warn when missing because not every URL is a procedure. QAPage is aimed at community threads, so marketing homepages will often warn and that is expected.

Do comparison tables help AEO?

Yes. One HTML table or definition list passes the structured-data-tables signal. Zero warns. Tables extract cleanly into snippets and into AI Overviews that compare options.

Use a real <table> or <dl>, not a div grid that looks like a table. The regex is <table and <dl. Pair the table with question H2s such as “Which AEO signals does the checker score?” so the surrounding copy stays extractable.

How long should the title tag be for AEO?

30 to 65 characters pass. Shorter or longer titles warn. A missing title fails. That range is the AEO title signal, weight 6 — small compared with atomic answers, but a missing title is still a fail.

Write the title as the query you want extracted, then restated as H2s on the page. SEO Evolution Analyzer does not rewrite titles on this landing; the home analyzer’s snippet-fix and fix-pack tools emit suggested meta once you have a baseline AEO score here.

How do you raise a low AEO score?

Add three question H2s, two atomic 30-50 word answers, FAQPage JSON-LD, a comparison table, and a 30-65 character title. Add HowTo if the page teaches steps. That is the full AEO checklist.

1. Rewrite key H2s as questions people type, using how / what / why / when / where / who / which.
2. Place a 30-50 word standalone answer in the next paragraph — not a teaser, not a 400-word essay.
3. Emit FAQPage JSON-LD that mirrors those visible Q&A pairs.
4. Add one comparison table and, if the page is a procedure, HowTo schema with ordered steps.
5. Re-run this AEO checker, then compare AIO and GEO on GEO vs AEO vs AIO.

Crawlability still gates the headline readiness number. Blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, or Google-Extended caps readiness at 40 even if AEO is 100. Check robots on the full analyzer, then wire repeats through the SEO MCP server.

Does AEO replace keyword research?

No. AEO decides the shape of the answer. Keyword research still decides which questions deserve that shape. Seed a topic on the home analyzer, then rewrite the winning queries as H2s on this URL.

Informational queries (“what is”, “how do I”) are the natural AEO set. Commercial queries still want a table and a direct recommendation paragraph so a snippet can extract a comparison. Transactional pages rarely need five FAQs; they need one clear “how much does X cost?” block. The AEO checker will warn on HowTo and QAPage for a pricing URL — accept the warn rather than stuffing fake procedures.

After the on-page AEO score moves, use the AI citation checker to see whether generative engines quote the new atomic answers. Citation rate is GEO outcome. AEO is the extractable source material. The pricing page lists when live tests leave the free pool. Compare other products on compare.

What does a 100 AEO score look like in HTML?

A 100 AEO page has FAQPage JSON-LD, three question H2s, two atomic 30-50 word answers, a table or definition list, a 30-65 character title, and usually HowTo if it teaches steps. QAPage can still warn on a marketing URL.

BandMasterBD.com hit 100 AEO after the fix pack emitted those artifacts — not after buying links. Copy the pattern: visible questions, short answers, labeled schema, one comparison table. Re-scan this checker until atomic answers and FAQPage pass before you touch GEO sameAs. The demo video at YouTube shows the before/after. The AEO guide and learn pages use the same weights this form returns from /api/analyze.

How does voice search use AEO pages?

Voice assistants read one short answer aloud. A 30-50 word atomic paragraph after a question heading is close to that spoken length, which is why the checker weights atomic answers at 18 — higher than FAQPage schema.

Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant do not recite your H1 and three marketing bullets. They pick a snippet-sized block. If that block is a 400-word essay, they skip you. If it is a slogan, they skip you. Write the spoken answer first, then expand below it. HowTo schema helps when the query is a procedure with ordered steps; it remains a warn when missing because not every URL is a procedure. Title length (30-65 characters) still matters for the visual snippet that accompanies some voice cards. Re-scan after you rewrite; the AEO column updates from HTML only, not from Search Console snippet reports.

Should homepages chase a perfect AEO score?

Usually no. A homepage can warn on HowTo and QAPage and still pass FAQPage, three question H2s, two atomic answers, a table, and title length. Stuffing fake procedures to force HowTo is worse than accepting the warn.

Put the 100 AEO target on a pillar guide that actually answers questions. Link that guide from the homepage CTA. Product SKUs need one “how much does it cost?” block, not five FAQs. The AEO checker will keep HowTo as warn on those URLs. That is the intended design: weight 10, warn if missing, never a hard fail. FAQPage is the hard fail (weight 15) when you claim to answer questions with no labeled Q&A. Title tags still need 30-65 characters on every template. Re-scan this page after template changes; then open GEO vs AEO vs AIO if the other columns moved.

Writers should paste the live URL into this AEO checker after each template deploy. Engineering should keep FAQPage JSON-LD in sync with visible questions. If the regex cannot see a 30-50 word paragraph under the H2, the atomic-answer signal fails no matter how good the JSON-LD looks. That is the gap BandMasterBD.com closed on the way from 32 to 100 AEO, documented on the home demo and the analyzer case study.