To get cited in AI Overviews, restructure content so the first sentence under each heading directly answers the question, deploy FAQPage and Article schema, convert comparisons into tables, replace vague claims with specific numbers, and ensure the page already has organic visibility for the query.
The prerequisite nobody mentions
Before any structural work matters, the page has to be crawlable, indexed and already carrying some organic visibility for the query in question. AI Overviews draw predominantly from content that already performs in organic search for that topic.
This means AEO on a page with no organic presence produces very little. If a query has no page of yours ranking anywhere near it, the work is SEO first — coverage and relevance — and structural optimisation second. Skipping that order is the most common reason AEO programmes underperform.
Step one: answer in the first sentence
Under every H2 and H3, the first sentence should answer the question the heading poses. Supporting context, nuance and caveats follow afterwards. Most B2B content does the reverse, opening with context and arriving at the answer in paragraph three.
A practical test: read only the first sentence under each heading on a page. If those sentences alone form a coherent set of answers, the page is structured for extraction. If they form a set of introductions, it is not.
Step two: shape headings as real questions
Use the phrasing buyers actually type rather than keyword-tool constructions. ‘How much does content syndication cost per lead?’ is closer to a real query than ‘Content syndication pricing overview’.
Source these from search console query data, from sales call recordings, and from the questions that arrive in your inbox. The gap between how a company describes its topics and how buyers ask about them is usually wide and always instructive.
Step three: deploy schema properly
FAQPage markup is the highest-leverage schema type for AEO because it maps question directly to answer in machine-readable form. Article, Organization, Service and BreadcrumbList provide the surrounding entity and context layer.
- Deploy FAQPage on every page carrying a genuine FAQ section
- Ensure the marked-up answer matches the visible on-page answer exactly
- Add BreadcrumbList site-wide so hierarchy is explicit
- Include dateModified and keep it accurate
- Validate everything — partial or broken markup produces partial confidence
Consistency across all pages matters more than perfection on any one page, because engines cross-reference and inconsistency reduces confidence in all of it.
Step four: convert comparisons into tables
This is the most reliably underused tactic in AEO. Extraction systems handle tables extremely well — the structure is explicit, the relationships are unambiguous, and the content can be lifted without interpretation.
Any comparison currently written as prose is a candidate: options versus options, before versus after, tiers, timelines, cost drivers. Converting three prose comparisons into three tables is often a half-day of work that measurably shifts citation rate.
Step five: replace vagueness with numbers
Answer engines cite statements they can present with confidence. ‘Implementation typically takes 6 to 12 weeks depending on migration scope’ is citable. ‘Implementation time varies depending on your requirements’ is not, because it contains no information.
B2B content is full of the second kind, usually because someone was worried about committing to a number. The commercial instinct to stay vague and the technical requirement to be specific are in direct conflict here, and specificity wins citations.
Step six: track it
Build a query set of thirty to eighty questions and run it monthly. Record citation presence, competitor citations and factual accuracy of what is said about you. Without this you are guessing, and because outputs vary between runs, a single check proves nothing.
Expect movement within six to twelve weeks on pages that already had organic visibility. Pages that needed to earn visibility first will take the SEO timeline plus the AEO timeline, which is why the prerequisite matters.