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The first 30 days of an AEO engagement

A practical four-week plan for choosing buyer questions, establishing an AI visibility baseline, prioritising early work, and reporting progress to an AEO client.

By David Garcia · · Updated

The first month of an AEO engagement should give the client a clear answer to three questions: what are we tracking, what should we improve first, and what happens next?

You do not need hundreds of prompts or a full-site audit to get there. Start with a small set of buyer questions, inspect the pages that should answer them, establish a baseline, and turn the strongest findings into a few practical actions.

Here is a simple four-week plan.

Week 1: choose the buyer questions and priority pages

Start with five to ten questions that matter to the client's buyers.

Use questions the client already hears in sales, product, support, or customer conversations. For a B2B software company, they might include:

  • What does this product do?
  • Who is it for?
  • What does it replace?
  • How much does it cost?
  • How does it compare with an alternative?
  • Does it support a specific integration?
  • What makes it different from competitors?

Then choose three to five pages that should help answer those questions.

Typical starting points include:

  • the main product page
  • pricing
  • comparison pages
  • important use-case pages
  • integration pages

Keep the first set small enough that the client can review it with you. A stable group of useful questions is more valuable than a large prompt list nobody understands or maintains.

Week 2: establish the baseline

Run the agreed questions on the AI platforms you plan to track and review the selected pages for obvious readiness issues.

Record enough context to make the baseline useful later:

Record Example
Question “How does Acme compare with ExampleCo?”
Platform ChatGPT
Date 13 August 2026
Brand result Mentioned, cited, absent, or another agreed status
Page reviewed /compare/exampleco
Readiness finding Comparison answer is incomplete
Next investigation Confirm the comparison claims the client is prepared to publish

The purpose of the baseline is to give you something stable to revisit after the client makes changes.

Do not obsess over a single AI answer. Results can vary between platforms and over time. The useful baseline is the combination of the agreed questions, the conditions you tracked, and the client pages that should support those buyer decisions.

Week 3: choose up to three actions

Do not turn every finding into work.

Choose the few changes most likely to improve the client's ability to answer important buyer questions clearly.

A useful first-month list might include:

  1. Fix now: resolve a clear technical or content problem on a priority page.
  2. Investigate: confirm a claim, buyer question, or source before editing.
  3. Improve next: strengthen a page that already exists but does not answer the buyer question clearly enough.

For example:

Fix now

Finding: The pricing explanation is split across several pages.

Action: Choose the canonical pricing page and update related pages to point to it.


Investigate

Finding: The comparison page names competitors but does not answer the question buyers ask most often.

Action: Confirm the question with sales and agree which comparison claims the company is prepared to publish.


Improve next

Finding: The product page explains features but does not clearly state who the product is for.

Action: Rewrite the positioning section around the agreed buyer audience.

Keep the list short enough that the client can actually complete it.

For a reusable way to structure these findings, see how to make a three-item AI readiness brief.

Week 4: report what you found and what happens next

The month-one update should be easy for the client to understand.

Include:

  • the buyer questions you tracked
  • the platforms included in the baseline
  • the priority pages you reviewed
  • the most important findings
  • the actions completed or agreed
  • anything that still needs investigation
  • what you will track or improve during month two

If you repeated a check after a client change, show the before-and-after result plainly.

For example:

Question: How is Acme priced?

Month-one finding: The site explained pricing across three separate pages.

Change: The client made the pricing page the canonical source and updated related links.

Recheck: The published site now gives buyers one clear pricing source.

Next: Continue tracking the buyer question and review the result again in the next reporting cycle.

The client should leave the first month knowing what you learned, what changed, and where the engagement goes next.

What month two should build on

After the first 30 days, expand from the baseline instead of starting over.

You might:

  • add buyer questions for another product or use case
  • expand the page audit
  • recheck completed fixes
  • investigate competitors that appear frequently in tracked answers
  • improve pages tied to weak buyer questions
  • compare changes in visibility over a longer period

Keep the original question set stable enough to make changes visible over time, then add new prompts when they represent a real client priority.

Maverank for agencies supports tracked prompts, readiness findings, client reporting, and separate client projects for this recurring workflow.

Frequently asked questions

How many prompts should an AEO baseline include?

Start with five to ten buyer questions the client recognises and can review. Add more when they represent distinct products, use cases, competitors, or buyer decisions worth tracking.

How many pages should we review in the first month?

Three to five priority pages are usually enough to start. Choose pages that should answer the buyer questions in your initial prompt set.

What should an agency deliver at the end of the first 30 days?

Give the client the agreed prompt scope, a dated baseline, the main page findings, a small set of actions, and the plan for the next review.

Should we promise improved AI visibility after 30 days?

No. The first month should establish the baseline, improve clear readiness problems, and create a repeatable process. Visibility changes can then be tracked over subsequent reporting periods.

Give the client a clear month two

The first 30 days should leave the client with a baseline they understand, a few improvements they can act on, and a clear plan for what comes next.

Start with important buyer questions, review the pages that should answer them, fix the strongest issues, and revisit the same questions after the changes.

Maverank for agencies gives each client project its own tracked prompts, readiness findings, and reporting workspace.

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