1. Ask
We write the 20 to 40 questions your buyers ask, from sales calls, your inbox and search suggestions, and ask each one in ChatGPT and Google. The result is a baseline of who is named today and which sources are cited.
Our method
The Answer Ladder: five steps for AEO and GEO work
This is the order we follow on every AI visibility project, so you can see what happens before it happens.
Short answer: The Answer Ladder is Passieon's five-step method for answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO): ask the questions, audit the pages, write answer-first pages, add matching markup, and re-ask every month. It makes pages easier to quote and does not guarantee a mention.
Tell us the site and the services
The five steps
2. Audit
We read each page that should answer a question as plain text, the way a crawler does, and mark where the answer is buried, missing or contradicted by another page.
3. Answer
Pages get a direct opening answer of about 40 to 60 words that names the business, the service and the place. Detail and sources sit underneath.
4. Mark up
Service, FAQ, Article and breadcrumb markup go on only where the page shows the same content. We validate it and check that crawlers can reach the page.
5. Re-ask
Every month the same questions are asked again. The report lists what changed and which edit we think caused it, with the misses left in.
Where the discipline comes from
Matching each page to a real question is how we run ordinary SEO too. A physical therapy practice we worked with went from a standing start to 52,993 Google clicks in a year, measured in Search Console from March 2023 to March 2024. That result is SEO and it does not carry over to AI answers. The Answer Ladder is newer, and its reports show movement for a fixed question list as it happens.
What it cannot do
Neither OpenAI nor Google promises that a page will be quoted, and answers change with the phrasing and the day. The ladder gives your pages a fair chance and shows you the result each month. Agencies can read the white-label version. The services are described on our answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization pages, the levels are on the packages page, and a sample report shows the monthly output.
Questions about the method
Why a ladder?
Each step depends on the one before it. Pages cannot be answer-first until you know the questions, and markup is wasted on a page that has no clear answer.
Do you guarantee a mention in ChatGPT?
No. Nobody can. We report how often the business appears for a fixed set of questions and what we changed.
How often do you re-ask the questions?
Every month, with the same wording, so the results can be compared.
Is the Answer Ladder an OpenAI or Google product?
No. It is our own working method. Passieon is not affiliated with OpenAI or Google.
Can an agency use it under its own name?
Yes. The white-label AEO and GEO page explains how documents are delivered without our branding.