🎧 Highlights:
[00:00:00] Intro – “Don’t start with SEO. Start with AEO.”
[00:00:36] Why this is the right time to focus on answer engine optimization
[00:01:30] Case study: Webflow drives 8% of signups from LLMs
[00:03:00] Onsite vs. offsite optimization — Reddit and YouTube matter most
[00:06:18] Why Help Center content outperforms traditional SEO pages
[00:13:30] Why AEO is ideal for small startups without big budgets
[00:16:39] “SEO is not dead” — and why Google’s share of search stays stable
[00:19:39] Myths: LLM.txt, robots.txt, and how misinformation spreads
[00:23:06] The scientific method for testing what actually works
[00:25:57] Affiliates and citations — how paid mentions impact LLM rankings
[00:27:27] How to find high-value questions to target
[00:31:12] 60+ AEO tools — and the new “content scoring” era
[00:35:06] How to build an AEO agency (and what services to offer)
[00:39:36] Marketing Graphite — why thought leadership still wins
[00:43:00] The AEO roadmap: what to do first, step by step
[00:47:00] The MasterClass SEO story
[00:48:18] Fires, gardens, and creative thinking in constraint

SEO is changing—and the next frontier is AEO: Answer Engine Optimization.

In this episode, Andrew Warner sits down with Ethan Smith, founder of Graphite, to break down how brands are already winning visibility on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude — before their competitors even realize what’s happening.

Ethan explains why SEO isn’t dead, but answer engines are the next big channel — and how to optimize your site, videos, and community presence so AI models actually cite your brand in their answers.