FAQ: AEO, AI Search, and Local SEO Pricing | Space & Story

Q: What is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and how does it differ from traditional SEO?

AEO is the work of making your website something an AI engine will cite by name, instead of something a search engine ranks on page two. Traditional SEO is keyword density, backlinks, and a blue-link result that the user has to click; AEO is structured data, clean HTML, entity-grounded copy, and answer-shaped paragraphs the model can lift directly into a response. The same audit that gets you ranking in Google AI Overviews tends to lift your ChatGPT and Perplexity citations at the same time, so we audit all three together. If you want a concrete look at what we do for clients, the solutions overview walks through it, and the work page shows a few sites where it has paid off. We also offer a free AEO audit if you want yours scored before talking pricing.

Q: Why is my website losing organic traffic despite an ongoing SEO retainer?

Most retainers are still running a 2018 playbook: a couple of blog posts a month, some links, a quarterly report with a green up-arrow next to a metric that does not matter anymore. The problem is that ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews now answer roughly half the queries you used to rank for, so the click never reaches you even when the ranking does. If your site is on WordPress with a handful of plugins, the crawlers are also working harder than they should to read it, which is its own quiet penalty. The fix is not a louder version of the same playbook; it is rebuilding the site so AI engines can read and cite it, which is most of what we do at every tier. The solutions page lays out which retainer replaces which slice of your current one, and the free audit will tell you specifically why your traffic is leaking.

Q: Why do legacy CMS platforms like WordPress fail at AEO?

A typical WordPress site ships somewhere between 30 and 80 plugins, a render-blocking theme, and HTML that an AI crawler has to wade through before it finds the paragraph worth citing. The schema is usually half-broken, the llms.txt does not exist, and the Core Web Vitals are red on mobile, where two-thirds of your traffic now lives. AI engines do crawl WordPress sites, but they cite the cleaner alternative when one exists, and right now there is almost always a cleaner alternative. We rebuild on a static, citation-first stack hosted on cite-met.com infrastructure, which is the same hosting we run our own site on; about 32% of our traffic comes from AI engines, so we are testing the thesis live. The work page has a few before-and-after examples, and the audit will score your current site against the new bar.

Q: How does the website rebuild and AEO migration process work?

The first week is a free audit and a scoping call, where we map your current pages, your top organic queries, the citations you are already getting (or losing), and the gap to where you want to be. The next two to four weeks are the rebuild: original copy on every page, schema and llms.txt baked in, programmatic templates if the tier calls for them, and a staging URL we share daily. We migrate redirects carefully so you do not lose the rankings you do have, and we keep your domain and analytics intact. Most Site and Story builds ship in three to four weeks; Engine and Studio run longer because there is more to scope. Once we are live, the retainer tier (if you take one) handles ongoing posts, schema upkeep, and AI-traffic tracking. The solutions page has the per-tier breakdown, and the work page shows what shipped sites look like.

Q: What does a Space & Story website actually cost?

Four build tiers, with 100% original copywriting bundled at every level: Site ($2,500, up to 8 pages), Story ($5,000, up to 15 pages plus audio/video content pipelines), Engine ($9,000, up to 200+ programmatic pages), Studio ($15,000+ for custom apps). 32% of our own traffic is from AI engines; over 11,618 visits in a single week came directly from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, the bar we are building everyone else against. Monthly retainers: Care $60/mo (hosting + AEO upkeep), Local $300/mo (1 post/mo + local SEO), Growth $700/mo (4 posts/mo + off-page links + competitor tracking + a strategist), Authority $2,000+/mo (AEO citation-building, Reddit and Wikipedia seeding, digital PR, original research). AEO setup and monthly AI-traffic tracking are included at every retainer tier, never an add-on. Floor is $60/mo, and we always quote below whatever you are paying your current SEO agency. All prices exclude applicable taxes. View all investment tiers .

Mahmoud Halat

S&S.CoSpaceAndStory.Co

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Modern websites, ranked in AI search✦Cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity & Google AI Overviews✦32% of our own traffic comes from AI search✦Modern websites, ranked in AI search✦Cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity & Google AI Overviews✦32% of our own traffic comes from AI search✦Modern websites, ranked in AI search✦Cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity & Google AI Overviews✦32% of our own traffic comes from AI search✦Modern websites, ranked in AI search✦Cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity & Google AI Overviews✦32% of our own traffic comes from AI search✦

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