The complete guide to AEO in Morocco: where to start
Where should a business in Morocco start with AEO?
Start by understanding what AEO is, then make your website accessible to AI assistants' crawlers and indexed in Google and Bing. Next, publish direct answers to your customers' questions, harmonize your online identity, earn mentions on other websites and measure your citations every month on the same questions.
What is AEO, and what is it for?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the set of methods that let a business be cited in the answers of AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini. In Morocco, the acronym AEO also refers to the Authorized Economic Operator, a customs status: this guide is only about Answer Engine Optimization.
It builds on two neighbouring disciplines. SEO makes your pages findable on Google. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) works on how AI models describe and recommend your brand. See: What is AEO? and What is GEO?
What are the 7 steps to get cited by AI?
- Understand how assistants find their sources. Each assistant uses its own crawlers and index: see Where do ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini get their sources?
- Allow the AI search crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Googlebot, Bingbot) and check that your firewall isn’t blocking them: see How to appear in ChatGPT answers in Morocco
- Get the website indexed in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, with a sitemap.
- Structure the pages: a direct answer first, question-style headings, a visible FAQ, structured data that matches the text. See Which structured data helps AI understand your business?
- Clarify your online identity: an “about” page, the same information on your website, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile and directories. See How to create and optimize a Google Business Profile in Morocco
- Earn mentions on other websites: directories, comparisons, press, partners. According to Ahrefs, “best X” lists make up 43.8% of the pages ChatGPT cites for recommendation questions.
- Measure every month your business’s presence on the same questions, in each language and each assistant, because answers vary from one try to the next.
Which myths should you avoid?
- “llms.txt is enough.” No: according to Ahrefs, reported by PPC Land, 97% of these files received zero requests in May 2026. See Is the llms.txt file really useful?
- “You need special markup for AI.” Google states that no specific structured data is needed for AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- “An agency can guarantee the top spot.” Google reminds us that nobody can guarantee a number one position, and AI assistants’ answers vary even more.
- “Blocking training crawlers makes me invisible.” Not at OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, which separate training from search.
Do you need an AEO agency in Morocco?
You can start alone with the steps above. An agency mainly brings measurement (dozens of questions tested several times, in French, Arabic and English), knowledge of the Moroccan context and working time. To choose, see How to choose an AEO or SEO agency in Morocco and our AEO service.
To find out where you stand today: request a free AI visibility audit.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to see results?
Technical fixes, such as crawler access, are picked up within days. New content and mentions on other websites generally take several weeks to several months. Nobody can guarantee a specific position in an AI assistant's answers.
Should you start with SEO or AEO?
With both at the same time, because they rest on the same foundations: an indexed website, clear pages and an online reputation. AI assistants that search the web rely on pages that search engines already know.
Is AEO suitable for a small business?
Yes. Steps 1 to 5 of this guide mostly take time and rigor, not a large budget. Regular measurement and mentions on other websites are the parts that take the most effort.