AEO vs SEO: Which Should a North Hertfordshire Business Invest In?

Honestly? Both. But the real question is where to start.

I get asked this constantly. Business owners in Hitchin, Letchworth, across North Hertfordshire, they've heard of SEO. They've probably been burned by SEO at some point (haven't we all). Now they're hearing about AEO and they want to know if it's worth the money or just another acronym someone's trying to sell them.

Fair question. Let me give you a straight answer.

What SEO actually does

You probably know the basics. SEO gets your website ranking on Google. You optimise for keywords, build backlinks, keep your Google Business Profile looking sharp, publish content regularly. Do it well and you show up when someone types "plumber near me" into Google.

For a local business in North Hertfordshire, good SEO means appearing in Google Maps, ranking in the local pack, getting clicks from people who are actively searching for what you do. It works. It still matters. Anyone who tells you SEO is dead is either lying or trying to sell you something.

But SEO has a problem. Everyone's doing it. Badly in most cases, but still doing it. The competition for those top three spots is fierce, especially in trades where every man and his van has a website.

What AEO does differently

AEO is Answer Engine Optimisation. Instead of trying to rank in a list of links, you're trying to be the business that ChatGPT actually names when someone asks a question.

Think about how that changes things. Someone asks "Who's the best electrician in Baldock?" and instead of getting ten links to scroll through, they get one name. Maybe two. That's it. Game over for everyone else.

AEO involves structuring your content so AI tools can parse it, understand it, and feel confident recommending you. FAQs that match real questions. Service descriptions that are specific. Location signals that tell AI exactly where you work. Proof content that shows you're credible.

If you want the full picture, we wrote a whole post on what AEO is and why it matters for North Hertfordshire businesses.

Why I'd start with AEO right now

Here's what gets me excited about AEO (and I don't get excited about much in marketing anymore, fifteen years will do that to you).

The competition is almost non-existent.

In Stevenage right now, maybe one or two businesses have any kind of AEO strategy. In Royston? Probably none. In Hitchin, a handful at best. Compare that to SEO where every second business has at least tried to rank for something.

When I started focusing on AEO about three years ago, the results were almost embarrassingly quick for some clients. A bathroom fitter in Letchworth started getting mentioned by ChatGPT within about three weeks of us publishing his AEO content. With SEO in a competitive trade, you'd be waiting months for anything meaningful.

I should say, that speed isn't guaranteed. Some businesses take longer. Some markets are trickier. But the window of opportunity right now is genuinely wide open.

They're better together

The beautiful thing is you don't have to pick just one. Strong AEO content, clear FAQs, specific service descriptions, decent proof pages, all of that also improves your SEO. The same content that helps AI recommend you helps Google rank you.

It's not double the work. It's a smarter version of the same work.

Our packages at Hert Bots include both, built as one system. Because separating them makes about as much sense as separating the front wheels from the back wheels on a car.

If you're on a tight budget

Look, I know not everyone can invest thousands right off the bat. If you can only do one thing this week, here's what I'd suggest.

Add five to ten FAQs to your main service pages. Real questions that real customers actually ask you. Write proper answers. Make sure your site names the North Hertfordshire towns you serve, Hitchin, Letchworth, Baldock, Royston, Stevenage, all of them. And publish one case study or gather a few proper testimonials.

Those three things help both SEO and AEO. They cost almost nothing to do. And they'll put you ahead of most of your local competition because (here's the thing) most of them still haven't done it.

For a deeper dive, have a read of how to get your business recommended by AI. Or if you want the full system built for you, book a call and we'll walk you through it.