With ChatGPT, Claude, xAI, and Perplexity chipping away at Google’s 25 year monopoly on search, and a consumers shifting from typing 1 or 2 keyword search queries into Google to asking longer specific questions into ChatGPT, it’s critical to focus website content on answers to these questions. Hence, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is important to think about and if you’re not optimizing for how Google classifies and interprets search queries, you won’t maximize Google Zero Rankings.

Understanding how Google or Bing classify questions is important so writing these questions and answers allows search engines to interpret their search intent. Here’s 8 question query type formats:

1️⃣ SHORT_FACT – Direct, factual questions.
Example: “How many calories are in a croissant?”

2️⃣ OTHER – General exploratory queries.
Example: “What do dermatologists think about retinol?”

3️⃣ COMPARISON – Evaluating two options.
Example: “MacBook Air M2 vs. Dell XPS 13?”

4️⃣ CONSEQUENCE – Cause-and-effect searches.
Example: “What happens if you skip breakfast every day?”

5️⃣ REASON – Why something happened.
Example: “Why did Toyota stop making the FJ Cruiser?”

6️⃣ DEFINITION – Meaning of a term.
Example: “What is intermittent fasting?”

7️⃣ INSTRUCTION – How-to queries.
Example: “How do you clean white sneakers?”

8️⃣ BOOL – Yes/no questions.
Example: “Can I travel with an expired passport?”

To rank higher, a good idea is to structure your content around direct, well-formatted answers that align with these query types. Use FAQ sections, structured data, and concise, authoritative responses to increase your visibility in featured snippets and voice search.