We Scored Our Own Site 87 to 96: A Real SEO & AEO Audit Case Study

Most agencies show you client results. We're showing you ours — because if we can't rank our own site, why would you trust us with yours?

We ran a full technical SEO + AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) audit on ayhanpk.com, fixed what it found, and re-ran it twice to track real, verifiable progress. No cherry-picked wins. Here's exactly what we found, what we changed, and what happened to the score.

The starting point: 87/100

Our first audit came back strong but not perfect:

Two categories stood out as weak: AEO (69) and GEO (67). Everything else was already solid. That told us exactly where to focus — not a full rebuild, just targeted fixes.

What AEO actually measures

AEO — Answer Engine Optimization — is how ready your site is to be pulled into AI-generated answers on tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. It's a newer discipline than traditional SEO, and most sites (including ours, at first) aren't built for it. The audit flagged specific gaps:

• No table of contents with anchor links
• No comparison tables (these get lifted into AI answers constantly)
• Only 1 question-style subheading, when AI engines favor natural-language "how" and "what" questions
• No HowTo schema or accordion markup

What we fixed

1. Meta description. Trimmed from 167 characters (getting truncated in search results) down to a clean 144 characters that leads with our actual keyword targets: Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, AEO, and SEO.

2. H1 keyword placement. Our homepage H1 didn't contain "SEO" or "AEO" in its fixed line — only in a rotating animated line, which search engines weight less reliably. We rewrote it to lead with the keyword while keeping our brand tagline intact.

3. LocalBusiness schema. We added structured data declaring our service regions (Pakistan, UAE, UK, worldwide) alongside our existing ProfessionalService and FAQPage schema — without pretending to have a walk-in office we don't have.

4. A real table of contents. Twenty anchor links now let both users and AI crawlers jump straight to the section they care about — services, process, results, FAQ, and more.

5. A comparison table. We built an honest AYHAN vs. Generic Freelancers vs. DIY SEO Tools comparison. Comparison tables are exactly the kind of structured, scannable content that AI answer engines pull directly into their responses.

6. Question-style subheadings. We rewrote two section headers as natural questions — "What does AYHAN actually do for your store?" and "How does a free audit turn into real growth?" — matching how people actually phrase queries to AI search tools.

7. A Google Maps link. Since we're a remote-first agency without a physical storefront, we added a simple link — "Serving Pakistan, UAE & UK worldwide" — rather than forcing a fake address into an iframe just to check a box.

The result: 96/100

Everything that was already strong — on-page structure, technical SEO, social tags — stayed strong. Nothing broke while we improved the weak spots.

What we didn't chase

A handful of items are still flagged, all marked "low priority" by the audit itself: HowTo schema, accordion markup, speakable voice markup, opening hours, and hreflang region tags. We're leaving these alone deliberately. Opening hours and single-region hreflang tags don't make sense for an agency serving clients across four continents — forcing them in would look artificial rather than helpful. Chasing the last 4 points on a third-party scoring tool isn't the same as chasing real rankings, and we know the difference.

What this means if you're evaluating an SEO or AEO agency

Anyone can hand you a slide with impressive-sounding numbers. What we're showing you here is the actual process: a real before score, real specific fixes, a real after score, and honesty about where we stopped and why. That's the same process we run for client sites — Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, or custom stacks.

If your site hasn't been audited for AEO readiness yet — not just traditional SEO — there's a good chance you're sitting on the same gaps we found in our own site. Comparison tables, question-formatted headings, and proper structured data are what determine whether AI search engines surface you at all.

Want the same audit run on your store? Start with a free 48-hour audit →