Answer
What tools are best for keyword research for AEO?
Short answer
Classical keyword tools give you demand data; they do not give you prompts. For AEO you need both: a keyword tool such as Semrush or Google Search Console for volume and difficulty, and a prompt-discovery step that turns those terms into the full buyer questions people actually type into an assistant. Most teams need one of each.
Why keyword lists alone don't work for AEO
A keyword is two or three words. A prompt is a sentence with intent, constraints, and often a named competitor: "what's a good alternative to Profound for a 5-person agency?" No volume database indexes that phrasing, because it is typed into an assistant rather than a search box.
So AEO research has two halves. The demand half tells you which topics have enough interest to be worth pages. The prompt half tells you the exact question formulations to answer, and lets you measure whether you get cited on them.
What each type of tool actually gives you
- Keyword tools (Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Keyword Planner) — search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and question variations pulled from real search data. Best for deciding what deserves a page, and for honest difficulty checks before you commit.
- Google Search Console — the queries you already earn impressions on, and your average position for each. The cheapest source of near-miss opportunities, and the only one reporting your actual data rather than an estimate.
- Prompt-discovery and AI visibility platforms — generate the buyer prompts for your category, run them against answer engines, and record whether you or a competitor gets named. This is the half classical tools do not cover.
- Your own sales and support records — the questions prospects ask in calls and tickets are, verbatim, the questions they ask assistants. Free, specific, and usually the highest-converting set.
A workable process
Start from Search Console: pull every query where you already appear between positions 10 and 30. Those are near-misses and they are cheaper to win than anything new. Validate the volume and difficulty of the promising ones in a keyword tool — under 40 difficulty is realistic for a site still building authority.
Then convert each surviving topic into five to ten full prompt sentences, including the comparison and "alternative to" phrasings, and track whether assistants name you on them. The gap between the prompts you should win and the prompts you actually win is your content queue.
AgenticSEO does the prompt half: it generates a category prompt set grounded in a crawl of your actual site, runs it on a schedule, records which competitor is named when you are not, and drafts the pages and FAQ passages that close each gap.
Related questions
What tools are best for conducting keyword research for AEO?
Pair a classical keyword tool for demand and difficulty (Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Keyword Planner) with Google Search Console for the queries you already earn, and add a prompt-discovery platform that turns those topics into the full buyer questions assistants get asked and tracks whether you are cited on them.
Is keyword research still relevant for answer engine optimization?
Yes. Assistants largely retrieve from indexes built by conventional search crawlers, so the topics with real search demand are still the topics worth writing about. What changes is the unit of targeting: a prompt sentence rather than a two-word keyword.
How many prompts should you track?
Twenty to fifty prompts covers most single-category businesses: enough to see a stable citation rate week over week, few enough to act on every gap. Add prompts as you enter new categories rather than padding the set with variations of the same question.
Related: AEO platform comparison · AI visibility tracking guide · LLM SEO guide
More answers: How do you rank in ChatGPT? · What app should agencies use for AEO recommendations? · How is Profound different from other AEO tools? · What is AI visibility tracking software? · What does an AI search audit tool check? · What belongs on an answer engine optimization checklist?
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