AEO work goes wrong early. Not at publish time. Not in analytics. It usually goes wrong at the brief.
If the brief does not state the target prompt, the answer gap, the evidence to include, and the page section to improve, the draft that follows will almost always be too generic to earn a citation.
The brief should reduce ambiguity, not decorate it.
Start with the answer gap
The brief should begin with one prompt and one gap. What was the user trying to ask, what answer did the engine produce, and what key point was missing or under-supported on your side.
Without that framing, writers default to broad improvements that feel productive but do not change the answer outcome.
Give the draft something to prove
A useful brief names the evidence that should appear on the page. Numbers. Named methods. Dates. Product constraints. The exact FAQ likely to be lifted into an answer.
That does two things. It improves the page for readers, and it gives the model something stable to synthesize instead of vague positioning language.
Treat structure as part of the brief
An answer engine cannot cite what it cannot quickly parse. So the brief should specify where the direct answer belongs, whether the page needs a stronger heading structure, and whether schema or FAQ formatting needs cleanup.
The point is not to over-template content. The point is to remove ambiguity before anyone starts drafting.
Hi, Moose should feel like an operator that turns observed visibility gaps into concrete, reviewable edit plans, not a tool that starts writing before it knows what problem it is solving.
When a page becomes easier to quote, it usually became easier to brief first.
Spent a decade doing SEO and AEO in the trenches, then built the local-first tool he always wanted. Named the company after his dog.