Are you struggling to build a strategy that works for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), AI Optimization (AIO), and traditional SEO?
You’re not alone. But too many marketing leaders are chasing hype. They’re debating generative AI prompts while their site is slow, semantically messy, or inaccessible.
Here’s the problem: if your DOM is div-soup, headings are skipped, links are vague, and your hero image takes three seconds to load, every downstream system—answer engines, agents, rankers, and even ad quality—gets worse. LLMs don’t hallucinate performance; they read what you ship.
Engines and agents reward the same fundamentals: fast, clear, consistent, and trustworthy pages. The inverse is also true: when pages load fast and structure is honest, extraction is reliable, and UX improves. That reduces bounce and lifts conversion.
So let’s skip the hype and fix the base layer. This isn’t “SEO busywork”. This is the non-negotiable foundation.
The 12-Part base layer playbook
We’ve built a 12-part playbook to fix it. Each section explains the principle and, more importantly, how Siteimprove operationalizes it so your fixes actually stick.
1. What is a clean HTML hierarchy?
Clean, predictable HTML is the scaffolding every engine and every person relies on.
You must lead with a single, descriptive <h1> that states the page topic. Step down through headings in order (<h2>–<h6>) to express sections, never skipping levels or leaving headings empty. Write link text that names the destination (not “click here”) and avoid placeholder links like href="#".
The result is machine-readable, accessible content that screen readers can navigate and agents can extract confidently—improving snippets, comprehension, and maintainability in one move.
8. Solving for authority: internal linking and orphan control
Authority and discovery flow through links, not wishes.
Ensure your money pages sit close to the homepage (≤3 clicks) and that every important page is referenced by at least one descriptive anchor. Curate related-links blocks inside templates. This ensures crawlers find what matters faster and users don’t bounce into orphaned cul-de-sacs.
9. The “right way” to signal content provenance and freshness
Answers age. Make it obvious when a page was last updated and who owns it—especially for pricing, compliance, and API docs. Keep URLs stable. These signals help users trust you and help engines decide whether to surface your page for time-sensitive queries.
10. Using FAQ blocks as an open data layer
Agents reward short, specific answers anchored to credible pages.
Build FAQ blocks that mirror real customer questions, then answer in 1–3 sentences with a link to deeper documentation. Keep each Q→A focused on a single intent. When FAQs live in templates, you create a dependable surface for extraction.
11. Establishing trust: the role of safety and legal pages
Trust demonstrates clear commitments in plain language.
Publish the pages buyers and agents check first: pricing, security/compliance (SOC/ISO), privacy, terms, and your accessibility statement. Link them in the footer, keep them indexable, and write them for humans.
12. Step-by-step operational guardrails (so fixes stick)
Without process, the base layer decays in weeks. Bake checks into authoring, assign named owners, and set simple SLAs. Ship small changes continuously: fix what the dashboards surface this week, and prevent regressions at the template level rather than chasing page-by-page mistakes.
A pragmatic 30-day rollout
This is a practical sequence that ships the base layer without derailing your roadmap. Use it as a checklist for your PM and Eng leads.
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Week 1 — Baselines & guardrails
Run crawls. Stand up 8–12 core Policies (headings, glossary, banned anchors, JSON-LD,
noindexhygiene, image dimensions, trust pages). Enable the CMS plugin. -
Week 2 — LCP strike
Fix the top 25 pages by traffic. Compress/preload LCP assets, inline critical CSS, and defer non-critical JS.
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Week 3 — Accessibility & structure
Close A/AA issues. Repair table semantics. Validate the component library in staging with the browser extension.
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Week 4 — Crawl, link, & provenance
Kill orphans and redirect chains. Add/update FAQs and JSON-LD. Enforce “updated-on” dates. Publish dashboards.
How to measure success
Scoreboard or it didn’t happen. Track these metrics weekly so execs see progress and teams know what to fix next.
- Vitals: ≥ 75% of sessions have “Good” LCP/INP on top templates.
- Accessibility: 50–60% fewer A/AA issues on componentized pages.
- Hygiene: ≤ 2% heading-order errors; ≤ 0.5% broken links.
- Crawl/Link: 0 orphan money pages; < 2% of URLs with > 1 redirect hop.
- Provenance: 100% of docs show an “updated-on” date.
- Business: Higher CVR on priority pages; lower CPA via better Landing Page Experience.
Common objections (and why they’re flawed)
- “We lint in CI.” Do both. CI covers code; Siteimprove covers the rendered page and CMS content.
- “This is just SEO busywork.” This is CRO, UX, and paid media efficiency that also stabilizes your organic channel.
- “Accessibility takes a year.” Full maturity does. Fixing the A/AA basics are 30-day wins.
Takeaway: stop chasing hype and fix the foundation
Do the boring work once and operationalize it. The path to better performance across SEO, AEO, and AIO isn’t a new, secret tactic. It’s the non-negotiable work of building a fast, accessible, and semantically clean site.
With Siteimprove handling detection, governance, and pre-publish checks, your base layer stays clean—and every engine strategy performs better without a full replatform.
