If you’re evaluating AEO partners, you need two things: a credible shortlist and a concrete way to prove impact fast. I’ve spent months researching the best AEO agencies to deliver both, an operator-grade top 10 and a pragmatic selection method you can use immediately.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is no longer optional. AI answers, featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and Knowledge Panels now redirect attention away from traditional blue links. The game has shifted to winning citations and coverage across these surfaces to protect demand capture.
Use this guide as a comparison map, then plug your shortlist into a 90-day pilot to prove AEO value with real metrics.
AEO now determines whether prospects see your brand at all when search engines answer questions directly.
AEO is the discipline of earning visibility across answer engines and rich search result surfaces. These include AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, People Also Ask boxes, featured snippets, and Knowledge Panels, surfaces that sit beyond traditional listings. Eligibility depends on clear entities, robust structured data, high content quality, and trusted sources.
Zero-click behavior has become the norm. In 2024, an estimated 58.5% of U.S. searches ended without a click. If your brand is not cited in AI Overviews or similar answers that now reach over 1.5 billion monthly users, prospects form preferences without ever visiting your site.
Think about the last complex purchase you researched. You likely skimmed AI summaries, People Also Ask questions, and reviews before you ever clicked a vendor page.
How I Evaluated These Agencies
I evaluated each AEO agency against the levers that actually move answer visibility and business outcomes today.
I weighted six criteria to reflect current AEO realities. Surface coverage and specialization plus entity and schema depth received 20 points each. Content operations, experimentation and measurement capabilities, and proof of results with vertical fit each earned 15 points.
Each agency below demonstrates strength across multiple criteria. I prioritized those with documented methodologies, verifiable case studies, and clear specializations that match specific buyer needs. I also favored teams already working with complex organizations, not only early-stage startups.
When you speak with potential partners, ask how they instrument AI Overview citations, People Also Ask coverage, and snippet performance. Their answers quickly reveal whether AEO is a core competency or just a marketing slogan.
The 10 Best AEO Agencies
Use these strengths and tradeoffs to match each AEO agency to your tech stack, risk profile, and internal resources.
These agencies represent leading options for organizations serious about winning in zero-click search environments. I organized them by primary strength to help you find the right fit fast.
If you need heavy engineering support, prioritize the technical and enterprise partners. If your constraint is content production or expert validation, favor agencies built around editorial operations and schema governance.
1. Minuttia – Best for B2B SaaS and Research-Led AEO
Minuttia delivers research-driven briefs and comparison systems that consistently target People Also Ask and featured snippet opportunities. For a broader view of the AEO landscape, particularly if you are still mapping which partners specialize in technical, content, or enterprise programs for your organization right now, Minuttia also maintains an independent AEO agency roundup to compare positioning and methodologies across providers. Their ongoing monitoring of AI Overviews and People Also Ask boxes sets them apart in the B2B space.
They specialize in product-led or sales-assisted B2B SaaS companies that need content tied directly to pipeline. Core offerings include entity inventory development, schema roadmaps, answer-first content briefs, and structured ‘alternatives’ and ‘versus’ playbooks. Choose Minuttia if you want to own competitive comparison queries and AI answers on technical topics, and you have development and editorial bandwidth to implement quickly.
They are particularly effective for SaaS companies shaping new categories or competing in crowded markets where nuanced comparisons drive deals.
2. Kalicube – Best for Knowledge Panels and Brand Entity Optimization
Kalicube pioneered Brand SERP and entity clarity programs that improve Knowledge Panel accuracy and brand understanding. They excel at entity disambiguation, consistent ‘entity home’ architecture, and consolidating trust signals across profiles.
Core offerings include the Kalicube Pro platform, Brand SERP audits, entity architecture consulting, and sameAs strategy development. If you have a confusing or missing Knowledge Panel, brand name collisions, or inconsistent third-party profiles, Kalicube is a strong fit. Note that they focus on entity clarity rather than net-new content production.
Engage Kalicube when you need to clean up entity confusion before scaling broader content, PR, or digital campaigns.
3. WordLift – Best for Knowledge Graph and Schema Services
WordLift offers established tooling and services to build on-site knowledge graphs and apply schema at scale with content enrichment. They serve publishers and ecommerce teams that want managed structured data programs.
Core offerings include graph creation, schema strategy, content enrichment widgets, and governance training. Organizations with large content catalogs and weak entity linking benefit most. Expect to integrate their recommendations into your content operations for maximum impact.
They fit teams that want sophisticated schema and knowledge graphs without building internal tooling or semantic engineering expertise.
4. Merkle – Best for Enterprise AEO at Scale
Merkle brings deep structured data programs, experimentation frameworks, and content engineering for complex catalogs and markets. They serve enterprises with multi-locale sites, regulated categories, and strict governance requirements.
Expect sitewide schema rollout plans, testing matrices, executive dashboards, and governance service-level agreements. Enterprise scopes have longer ramps and pricing that reflects complexity. Align on owners and change management early in your engagement.
Merkle suits enterprises that require global coordination, complex approval paths, and tight integration with analytics and marketing technology stacks.
5. Onely – Best for Technical and JS-Heavy Sites
Onely provides advanced diagnostics for rendering, crawlability, and indexation that unlock eligibility for rich results on single-page apps and JavaScript frameworks. Sites with heavy JavaScript, complex faceted navigation, or crawl budget issues that impact SERP features need their expertise.
Core offerings include rendering audits, architecture recommendations, template-level schema planning, and log analysis. They are technical specialists, so pair them with content and brand teams for complete AEO coverage.
Bring Onely in before or during major redesigns so rendering and crawl efficiency issues do not cap your AEO upside.
6. Builtvisible – Best for Data-Driven Content Integration
Builtvisible blends analytics, information architecture, and schema-informed content design to win SERP features. Organizations that want measurable content impact tied to business outcomes find strong alignment here.
Deliverables include SERP-feature opportunity models, schema rollout plans, and answer-first content packages. They favor retainer continuity over one-off projects, so plan for ongoing engagement.
Choose Builtvisible if you want content, analytics, and UX teams working from a single roadmap that reflects SERP feature potential.
7. iPullRank – Best for Experimentation-Led SEO
iPullRank brings rigorous testing culture and engineering capability to operationalize retrieval-focused, evidence-backed content. Teams ready to run controlled experiments and adopt advanced measurement beyond rank tracking thrive with them.
Expect hypothesis libraries, test plans with decision thresholds, and research-driven briefs. Their experimentation cadence requires stakeholder buy-in and development bandwidth, so ensure organizational readiness.
They work best with organizations that value experiment design and are ready to change strategy based on statistically sound test outcomes.
8. Amsive Digital – Best for E-E-A-T-Sensitive Content
Amsive Digital builds editorial and review workflows for sensitive categories like medical and finance, emphasizing source transparency and expert validation. Brands operating in ‘Your Money or Your Life’ (YMYL) spaces, where trust and compliance drive eligibility, find the right partner here.
Core offerings include E-E-A-T frameworks, subject matter expert review networks, content operations, and structured data aligned to authorship. Deeper review steps extend timelines, so build buffers into your roadmap.
Engage Amsive when search visibility must align with regulatory, brand safety, and medical or financial review standards.
9. Schema App Services – Best for Managed Structured Data
Schema App delivers schema strategy, deployment, and quality assurance with governance layers that sustain eligibility as templates change. Organizations needing hands-on schema management and monitoring find reliable support.
Deliverables include schema libraries mapped to templates, validation logs, and eligibility tracking. They focus primarily on schema, so pair them with content strategy for complete AEO coverage.
They are a strong fit if you want managed schema deployment without routing every change ticket through engineering.
10. Re:signal – Best for Commerce and Publishing AEO
Re:signal excels at category and topic architectures, internal linking, and snippet capture tuned for commercial intent. Ecommerce and publishers seeking measurable wins in lists and comparisons benefit most.
Expect content architecture consulting, answer-first templates, and People Also Ask coverage plans. They operate predominantly in UK and EU time zones, so align on communication cadence for global teams.
Re:signal pairs well with in-house merchandising or editorial teams that can quickly ship recommended templates and content blocks.
How to Run a 90-Day AEO Pilot
A focused 90-day pilot lets you validate an AEO agency, prove value, and de-risk a longer engagement.
A structured pilot validates any partner before long-term commitment. This approach delivers baselines, foundations, and a clear go or no-go decision.
- Weeks 0-2: Inventory current AI Overview citations, People Also Ask coverage, snippet wins, and Knowledge Panel accuracy. Set up dashboards, define segments, and annotate releases.
- Weeks 3-6: Implement entity and schema essentials. Ship 3-5 answer-first updates to high-potential pages, and establish biweekly standups with clear owners.
- Weeks 7-10: Ship 3-5 net-new pages targeting People Also Ask and snippets. Track AI Overview mentions and run controlled tests against a holdout group where feasible.
- Weeks 11-12: Evaluate leading indicators and produce a decision memo with scale-up recommendations. Align that memo with budget cycles and upcoming product or campaign launches.
Keep the pilot narrow enough that you can ship quickly but meaningful enough that leadership can see impact on real opportunities.
Essential KPIs for AEO Programs
Effective AEO reporting separates early visibility signals from the business metrics that justify continued investment.
Measure what matters by separating leading from lagging indicators. Leading indicators include AI Overview citations, People Also Ask wins, snippet coverage, and Knowledge Panel accuracy. Lagging indicators cover qualified organic sessions, assisted conversions, and influenced pipeline.
Maintain a feature-level scorecard with weekly changes. Set decision thresholds, for example by promoting patterns that yield 20% People Also Ask coverage improvement on a 50-query set for three consecutive weeks.
Where possible, tag answer-focused templates, schema types, and experiments so you can attribute impact without relying only on rank tracking.
Red Flags to Avoid When Selecting an Agency
A few patterns reliably predict disappointing AEO engagements, no matter how polished the pitch deck looks.
Promises of guaranteed featured snippets or AI Overview inclusion signal trouble. Eligibility can be engineered, but display can never be guaranteed. Reject mass-produced, unvetted AI text and demand evidence standards with subject matter expert review.
Watch for agencies without documented governance for schema quality assurance or change management. Avoid those who cannot explain test outcomes or lack AI Overview and People Also Ask monitoring capabilities. If they treat schema and experiments as one-off tasks, long-term performance will decay.
Your Next Steps This Week
Turn this research into momentum by shortlisting, running calls, and locking in a concrete pilot plan.
Pick your top two ‘best for’ fits from this list and schedule discovery calls. Tailor the 90-day pilot plan to your roadmap and stand up AI Overview, People Also Ask, and snippet monitoring so you can baseline before changes ship. Teams that operationalize entity clarity, schema governance, and evidence-backed content will keep earning citations as search result surfaces evolve.
Share a simple one-page brief internally that lists goals, target surfaces, and decision criteria so stakeholders stay aligned throughout the pilot.