The 70/30 content mix
The highest-performing AEO content calendars split production this way:
- 70% evergreen citation pieces — definitional guides, playbooks, comparison content, glossary entries, case studies. These compound over months.
- 30% trending pieces — commentary on news events, new research, platform updates, hot takes with proprietary data. These capture short citation spikes.
Lower the trending share if your team is small. A 90/10 split still works — zero trending coverage means you miss every citation window around news events.
Month 1: Foundation
Month 1 is about plugging the most obvious gaps. Six pieces, all evergreen:
- Week 1: A definitional "What is [your core topic]?" pillar page — 2,000+ words, 8-10 FAQs, comprehensive schema.
- Week 2: A comparison piece — "[Your product] vs [top 3 competitors]" with a detailed table.
- Week 3: An industry guide — "[Your core topic] for [primary industry]" with industry-specific tactics.
- Week 4: A glossary dump — publish 10-15 term definitions as a single /glossary hub.
By the end of month 1, you've built the "trunk" that all future content links to.
Month 2: Authority
Month 2 shifts toward earned authority signals. Content becomes longer-form and more research-heavy:
- Week 5: Publish original data — a survey, a benchmark report, or an analysis of your own usage data. This is the piece you'll pitch to publications later.
- Week 6: A case study with real numbers — before/after metrics, named customer if possible, detailed methodology.
- Week 7: An expert roundup — 10+ industry voices on a relevant question. Earns backlinks and social shares.
- Week 8: A deep technical how-to — step-by-step with code snippets or screenshots. Strong HowTo schema candidate.
Month 3: Distribution
Month 3 is half production, half distribution. You have enough foundational content — now make sure people cite it:
- Week 9: Publish 2-3 short trending takes based on whatever AI-search news broke that month.
- Week 10: Guest post on 2 high-authority industry sites. Link back to your pillar pages.
- Week 11: Refresh 5 of your top-performing older posts. Update dates, stats, and examples.
- Week 12: Publish a "State of [topic]" report synthesizing everything you learned. Pitch aggressively.
Measurement
At the end of each week, log these metrics in a spreadsheet:
- Organic traffic to new pieces
- AI referrals (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini traffic)
- Manual ChatGPT brand query check — does your site appear?
- AEO score (via our scanner) on the newly published pages
Patterns emerge by week 6. Double down on the formats and topics that are generating citations; drop the ones that aren't.
