At a Glance
- Webflow’s AEO Maturity Model gives you a clear definition of Level 1 (accidental AEO) and Level 3 (systematic AEO) across content, technical, authority, and measurement.
- You can move between those levels in 90 days by focusing on a handful of “answer hubs,” basic technical hygiene, and simple AI visibility tracking — not a giant rebuild.
- The goal isn’t perfection; it’s to come out of the quarter with a repeatable playbook and proof that AEO can drive better-qualified traffic and authority.
Why a 90-Day Sprint Works Better Than Another “Website Project”
Most teams I speak to are stuck at the same point: organic is softening, AI results are crowding the top of the SERP, and someone on the exec team has asked, “What’s our AI Search plan?”
The instinct is to treat this like a classic website project: audit everything, rewrite everything, replatform everything. That’s also how you end up with a nine-month initiative that burns everyone out and still doesn’t move the needle on AI visibility. Meanwhile, AI assistants are already deciding who to mention and who to ignore.
Webflow’s AEO Maturity Model was built for a different approach: use maturity levels as stepping stones. Level 1 is “we rank for some things by accident.” Level 3 is “we have deliberate answer hubs, baseline technical hygiene, and a way to measure AI visibility.” A 90-day sprint is enough to bridge that gap if you ruthlessly limit scope.
What Level 1 vs Level 3 Actually Looks Like
Think of this less as a scoring framework and more as a way to prioritise work.
- At Level 1, you’re discoverable but not deliberate: You have content, some rankings, maybe even snippets — but they’re the byproduct of years of blogging and SEO, not a structured AEO strategy. FAQs are buried, definitions are inconsistent, and AI crawlers may or may not be able to reach your best pages.
- At Level 2, you’ve made key pages answer-friendly: You’ve cleaned up a few product or service pages, added better headings and FAQs, and tightened up messaging. Helpful, but still piecemeal.
- At Level 3, you’ve built a basic AEO system: You have a small set of “answer hubs” (category, product/service, comparisons, pricing) with clear BLUF-style intros, structured sections, and FAQs. Your technical setup doesn’t block AI crawlers. You track at least basic AI visibility (LLM citations, AI search traffic) via tools like Ahrefs Brand Radar and Web Analytics.
Days 1–30: Clarify Questions and Fix the Worst Technical Friction
The first month is about focus and friction removal, not heroics.
- Align on 10–15 “money questions.” Use sales calls, CRM notes, and search data to list the questions that actually create pipeline: “best [category] for [ICP],” “[problem] solution for [industry],” “[your brand] vs [competitor].” Map each question to an existing URL or mark it as a gap.
- Run a quick AEO + technical sanity check. Verify that your key pages are fast, indexable, and accessible to AI crawlers (robots.txt, llms.txt, no weird blocking). Webflow and Ahrefs both emphasise that you can’t win AEO if bots can’t reliably read you.
- Choose 3–4 pages as your first “answer hubs.” Typically: category explainer, flagship product/service page, pricing, and your most important comparison/alternatives page.
Deliverable at Day 30: a short list of money questions, a basic technical status, and 3–4 priority pages agreed with stakeholders.
Days 31–60: Build Answer Hubs and Tighten Content Structure
Month two is where you get visible impact with limited effort.
- Rebuild those 3–4 pages as answer hubs. Each page gets a clear BLUF summary, question-led headings, structured sections (who it’s for, when to use it, benefits, proof), and a concise FAQ. Webflow’s content guidance frames this as the core of Level 3 content maturity.
- Standardise patterns using your CMS. Whether you’re on Webflow already or planning a migration, design components (definition blocks, comparison tables, FAQ sections) that can be reused. This is how you turn one-off fixes into a system.
- Refresh and date-check key proof points. Ahrefs’ citation research shows LLMs prefer fresher, structured, evidence-backed content. Update stats, screenshots, and examples so they’re clearly recent and attributable.
Deliverable at Day 60: 3–4 high-quality answer hubs live, with reusable patterns baked into your CMS or design system.
Days 61–90: Add Authority Signals and Basic AI Visibility Tracking
The final month is about authority and measurement — the other two pillars.
- Create or consolidate one “facts & proof” destination. A single page (or small cluster) that houses your core stats, logos, case studies, and third-party validation in a structured way. This becomes a citable source for both humans and LLMs.
- Instrument AI visibility alongside SEO. Set up reporting for: AI search traffic and LLM citations (via tools like Ahrefs Brand Radar/Web Analytics), plus normal organic KPIs. The goal isn’t vanity graphs; it’s to see which pages are starting to show up in AI answers.
- Log issues and ship one iteration cycle. Spend the last two weeks fixing at least a handful of the biggest gaps you find: missing FAQs, misaligned positioning, weak proof. That closes the loop and proves the system works.
Deliverable at Day 90: a live set of answer hubs, a proof destination, and a standing monthly ritual to monitor and iterate on AI visibility.
AEO as a shared initiative
The good news: you don’t need headcount to make this work. You need focus, guardrails, and the discipline to ignore everything that isn’t in the 90-day plan.
The teams that win treat this as a shared initiative between marketing and one senior stakeholder, with a tight scope and clear end-state: “By the end of the quarter, we’ll be Level 3 for AEO on these journeys, not the entire site.” From there, it’s just another loop: pick the next set of pages, run the same playbook.
If you’d like help reality-checking your level today and shaping a 90-day plan that’s achievable with your bandwidth, that’s exactly what we do in our AEO Strategy Session — we bring your site into Webflow’s maturity model, stress-test the roadmap, and make sure it’s something your team can actually ship.
