What it is.
Manoj Palanikumar, who runs SEO and content at TripleDart, published this as the process behind our AEO work. Seven stages run from question research and intent mapping through to citation measurement, with an entity-mapped brief and answer-first drafting in the middle.
Each stage names its tools. Research runs on Perplexity, AlsoAsked, and Semrush, entity work on the Google Cloud Natural Language API, schema through RankMath or Yoast, and citation tracking on Otterly.ai.
This is TripleDart's own guide and TripleDart sells the AEO service it describes. The measurement stage points at our own tooling, so read stage seven as a shape and pick your own tracker.
What you get.
- A seven-stage sequence you run per article, in order.
- The brief structure, with an entity map alongside the keyword list.
- Answer-first drafting patterns, meaning the direct answer sits above the elaboration.
- A named tool per stage, so you can price the stack before you commit.
- A retrofit stage for pages you already published.
How to set it up.
Pull the questions your buyers ask from Perplexity, AlsoAsked, and the People Also Ask box, then group them into entity clusters instead of keyword lists.
Write the brief with an entity map: the people, products, and concepts the page has to name for a model to place it.
Draft each section answer-first, with the direct answer in the opening sentence or two and the elaboration under it.
Add JSON-LD schema for the page type, whether that is FAQ, HowTo, or Article.
Run the same checklist over existing pages, starting with the ones already appearing in AI Overviews.
Track citations and AI Overview appearances monthly, and treat traffic as a lagging number.
Use cases
Run one article end to end
Work the seven stages in order and stop guessing which step comes next.
Brief with an entity map
Hand the writer the entities alongside the keywords so the draft covers the topic.
Retrofit a published page
Take an existing article through the same sequence instead of rewriting from scratch.
Best for
Rebuilding a content process
Your brief template predates AI answers and has no stage in it for entities or schema.
Retrofitting a live library
The sixth stage is written for pages already published, which is cheaper than new production.
Briefing freelancers
The stage list is concrete enough to hand over as a spec.