A question set built with your team
We interview sales or front-desk staff to capture how customers really phrase their questions, in both official languages.
You getYour 50-question tracking set
Answer Engine Optimization · Canada
Hiring an answer engine optimization firm without the guesswork
AEO is new enough that every vendor describes it differently. Here is what the work should include, what to ask before you sign and how we run it for Canadian businesses.
- 6 AI platforms
- 50 questions, EN + FR
- No obligation
One buyer question, six answer engines
Which Ottawa employment lawyer handles wrongful dismissal for federal public servants?
ChatGPTNamed
AI OverviewsNamed
AI ModeNot named
GeminiWrong hours
PerplexityNamed
CopilotNot named
In short
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of making your business the source AI tools quote when buyers ask questions. Hiring an AEO firm should get you a measured baseline across the main AI platforms, technical fixes, rewritten answer pages, corrected business facts and monthly reporting. A credible firm will tell you AEO builds on SEO, and it will never promise you a citation.
- Question set
- 50 per business, EN and FR
- Platforms
- Six AI answer engines
- Home market
- Ontario, serving all of Canada
- Starting point
- Free AI visibility check
Why it matters
What you are really paying an AEO firm for
ChatGPTAI OverviewsAI ModeGeminiPerplexityCopilot
If you want the definition first, our What is AEO explainer covers it. This page is about the buying decision. When you hire an answer engine optimization firm, you are paying for a repeatable method: a fixed set of buyer questions, asked the same way on each platform, read by someone who can trace why a competitor got named and you didn't. Without that discipline, AEO turns into screenshots and opinions.
Watch for a few warning signs in proposals. Promised top spots in ChatGPT. Secret prompts or private access to the platforms. Plans to publish hundreds of AI-written pages. Silence about Google and Bing indexing, which most answer engines rely on. A firm worth hiring says plainly that AEO extends SEO, then shows you exactly which parts of your site and reputation it will change.
How it works
How to evaluate an answer engine optimization company
Four questions sort serious AEO providers from people who renamed an old SEO package.
- 01
Can I see the questions you'll track?
The question set should come from your sales calls and customer emails, not a keyword tool. Ask whether it includes French and the cities you actually serve.
- 02
How will you measure change?
Look for a repeatable method across named platforms, with mentions and citations recorded separately, instead of a single visibility score nobody can explain.
- 03
What will you change on my site?
A real answer names pages, crawler settings, listings and content. A vague answer about authority usually means nothing specific is planned.
- 04
What won't you promise?
Anyone who swears you will be cited, or names a date it will happen, is telling you what you want to hear. The platforms change their answers too often for that.
What we do
What our answer engine optimization service includes
The scope flexes with your size, but these six pieces are in every engagement.
Six-platform baseline
Each question is run on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot.
You getBaseline report by platform and language
Crawler and indexing review
We confirm Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot can reach the pages that matter, and that those pages are indexed.
You getAccess and indexing fix list
Answer pages
Service, location and FAQ pages rewritten so the first lines answer the question a buyer actually asked.
You getPublish-ready page drafts
Entity and listing cleanup
Business facts made consistent across your site, Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Canadian directories.
You getCorrection log you can audit
Scorecard and quarterly reset
Monthly reporting, plus a quarterly review of the question set as your services and markets change.
You getMonthly AEO scorecard
Side by side
Doing AEO in-house or hiring a firm
| In-house | With Answer Engine Canada | |
|---|---|---|
| Question tracking | Ad hoc checks when someone remembers | Same 50 questions, same method, every month |
| French coverage | Depends on who is on staff | Separate French question set and native French pages |
| Technical fixes | Competes with other web priorities | Scoped, ranked and handed to whoever builds your site |
| Listing cleanup | Rarely finished | Tracked until each correction is live |
| Outside view | Hard to judge your own pages | Compared directly with the competitors AI names |
| Your team's time | Significant | Interviews, approvals and access |
Some clients start in-house and bring us in for the audit and French work only.
Working with us
What happens after you sign
No lock-in surprises. You see the plan, the work and the results.
Get an AEO quote- Phase 1
Kickoff interview
An hour with the people who talk to customers, so the questions we track sound like your buyers and not like marketing copy.
- Phase 2
Baseline report
You see every question, every platform and every answer we recorded, with the competitors and sources that came up most.
- Phase 3
First round of fixes
Access problems and wrong facts go first, because they can undermine everything else. Content work starts in parallel.
- Phase 4
Monthly cycle
Rerun, report, adjust. Each month you get the scorecard and a short list of what we plan next and why.
What does an answer engine optimization company actually do?
It finds out how AI tools answer your customers' questions, works out why you are or aren't included, then fixes the causes: access, content, facts and mentions. Good firms report on the same questions every month so you can see what moved.
How do I know if an AEO agency is legit?
Ask to see a sample question set and report, and ask what they will not promise. Be wary of promised placements, claims of special platform access or plans built around mass-produced AI content. A legitimate firm will happily explain its method.
Is answer engine optimization just SEO with a new name?
Partly, and we think it's healthier to say so. AI answer engines depend on pages being crawlable and indexed, which is SEO. AEO adds the question-level tracking, the attention to how your business is described and the work on third-party sources that classic SEO often skips.
How long does AEO take to show results?
We won't quote a timeline, because each platform recrawls and refreshes on its own schedule. Fixes to access and wrong facts can show up sooner than content and reputation work. The monthly scorecard shows you what has changed as it happens.
Do you work with businesses outside Ontario?
Our focus is Ontario, and we work with Canadian businesses in other provinces too. Quebec companies and Ontario firms with francophone customers are a natural fit, because we track and write in French as standard.
What do you need from us to get started?
A short call, access to your website analytics and Search Console if you have them, and an hour with someone who talks to customers. We handle the rest and check in before anything goes live on your site.
Ask us the hard questions first
Book a short call and we'll walk you through our method, our question set and what we would change for your business.