Included in the free scan
AEO readiness
Answer engines quote. This category checks whether your pages contain answers clean enough to be lifted without distortion.
What we check
- Whether real customer questions are answered directly on the page
- Extractability: self-contained answers, clear headings, structured blocks
- FAQ and how-to structured data accuracy
- Answer accuracy against the rest of the site
- Freshness and dating of factual content
Why it matters commercially
When an answer engine can't extract a clean answer from you, it extracts one from a competitor or an aggregator — and your brand is absent from the moment of decision.
Example findings
- Pricing question answered only inside a PDF, so no answer engine can quote it.
- FAQ schema present but its answers contradict the visible page copy.
The checklist we run
7 fixed checks. Each one is graded pass, needs attention, failed or not applicable, with the fact we observed printed beside the verdict. The category score is the weighted pass rate of these checks — nothing is invented.
Pages answer real questions
Content is framed around questions buyers actually ask.
high impact · medium effort
FAQ content exists
A FAQ section or page addresses common objections.
medium impact · low effort
FAQ or QA schema present
Question content is marked up so it can be extracted.
medium impact · low effort
Answers lead the section
The answer appears in the first sentence, not after preamble.
high impact · low effort
Extractable formatting
Short paragraphs, lists and tables make answers quotable.
medium impact · low effort
Key terms are defined
The site defines its own terminology in plain language.
medium impact · low effort
Content carries dates
Pages show publication or review dates.
low impact · low effort
Where the evidence comes from
Your live site, fetched directly
robots.txt directives per AI and search crawler, sitemap presence and size, llms.txt, structured data types, page titles, descriptions, headings and image alt text. No key required, so this source is always available.
Google PageSpeed Insights
Measured performance, accessibility, technical SEO and best-practice scores on mobile, plus Largest Contentful Paint, layout shift and blocking time.
If a source is unreachable we mark it unavailable and exclude it. A blocked source lowers data coverage, never your score.
What the deep dive adds
On any paid plan you can run this category on its own. The deep dive re-reads the pages we retrieved with only these 7 checks in front of it, returns a verdict page by page, prints the measured data behind each finding, and orders the fixes by impact and effort. It uses one audit from your monthly allowance.
What you need to provide
Nothing beyond your website address. This category is scored from public data we can retrieve ourselves.
Industry brand audits
See how this section is scored for your sector: accounting & bookkeeping firms brand audit, architecture & design studios brand audit, automotive brand audit, biotech & life sciences brand audit. Browse all industries.
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Brand Strategy Is Now Your AEO and GEO Strategy
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Free vs Paid Brand Health Audit: What Each Tier Examines
Compare the free Brand Health Audit scan against paid tiers. Learn what each level evaluates across messaging, UX, technical SEO, AEO, and remediation outputs.
The other scored categories
Brand foundation
Reputation & social
Website experience
Paid media
Local presence
Editorial policy
Questions
AEO readiness: common questions
What is answer engine optimisation?
Whether your pages answer real questions in a form an answer engine can extract and quote — clear question-shaped headings, direct answers near the top, and structured data that machines can parse.
How do you measure it?
Deterministically where possible: structured data types found on the page, heading structure, whether answers exist in the raw HTML rather than only after JavaScript, and measured page checks from Google's tooling.
Is AEO different from SEO?
Yes. SEO is about ranking a link. AEO is about being the source an engine quotes when it answers instead of linking.
Which plan includes this category?
It is scored on the free public-data scan, and again in every paid audit with the added detail your intake unlocks.
What does the deep dive add over the overview report?
The overview scores this category in one pass over your site. The deep dive re-reads the same pages against all 7 checks on their own, returns a page-by-page verdict, prints the measured data behind each finding, and orders the fixes by impact and effort. It uses one audit from your monthly allowance.
Want it done for you?
The audit tells you what to fix. If you'd rather not do the fixing, The Branded Agency can take it from here.
Audit-holder rate
Copywriting rewrite
We take the findings from your audit and rewrite the messaging across your site: one clear promise, consistent supporting messages, and copy that search and answer systems can quote correctly.
Start the rewrite
Work with us directly
Strategic brand engagement
A strategist-led engagement that fixes the brand underneath the copy: positioning, story, personality and the message architecture every channel runs on.
Book your strategy call
The report identifies the signals. We find the causes.
Diagnosis is free. Fixing the cause is what our brand strategy and marketing services are for — see the results across our client work.