Fractional AEO: Senior AI Search Leadership Without a Full-Time Hire
Fractional AEO means one senior answer engine optimization lead owns how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews describe and recommend your brand, part-time and without a full-time hire. Austin Heaton (12+ years in search) runs it fully hands-off, with guaranteed AI recommendations and first results within 2-3 weeks that compound every month.
Your buyers ask AI which vendor to shortlist. If you are not in that answer, review sites and a competitor's comparison page already won the committee before sales gets a shot. See how engagements work (3-month minimum), the case studies, or fractional SEO consulting if Google is your first priority.
Lumanu, Riseworks, iSpeedToLead
Review sites own the citations your category already lost
Comparison and alternatives pages you do not own get recommended instead
PLG blogs and what-is-category posts say nothing a buyer can cite
SaaS committees now shortlist in ChatGPT first
Fractional AEO is senior AI search leadership without a full-time hire.
Buyers shortlist SaaS in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews before sales gets a shot.
Money pages and entity signals drive citation share more than TOFU blogs.
Austin Heaton's take: treat AEO as an ownership seat, not a content calendar add-on.
Book a Call to start, or see how engagements work first.
Fractional AEO works when you need one senior owner across Google and AI search this quarter, not another org chart. The seat ships money pages and citations. It does not manage a bench you do not have.
Featured In & Published On
Want your product-led B2B brand in those answers?
What I Do for product-led B2B AEO
Commercial, not educationalI do not write another what-is-AEO page. I build the money pages, entity signals, and technical foundation that get CRM, PLG, and vertical SaaS brands cited when buyers compare vendors.
Comparisons, alternatives, and use cases your category already loses to review sites
Mentions, schema, and knowledge-graph signals so models can name you correctly
Crawl access, structured data, and page architecture AI systems can retrieve
Commercial content for buyers already comparing vendors, not another TOFU blog
Citation work across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews
AEO consultant or fractional SEO: one senior owner, no junior relay
Four Documented B2B Cases.
Documented on this siteThese are B2B companies that sell to other businesses. Riseworks is product-led B2B. Lumanu, iSpeedToLead, and Pactvera are the adjacent B2B proof on this site. The numbers below are from the live case studies.
656 AI-sourced clicks and 101 conversions in 60 days
Read the Lumanu case study →288% organic growth and 575% AI search expansion
Read the Rise case study →310.8% AI search growth and #1 citation share at 7.79%
Read the iSpeedToLead case study →6,000%+ impression growth, featured next to DocuSign in 11 days
Read the Pactvera case study →Free AEO Report Card
We review where your product-led B2B site loses visibility across technical, on-site, and off-site, then send the exact fixes.
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From The People Who Have Worked With Austin
ReferencesAustin always focuses on winning, brings radical ideas, and executes with speed, one of the best content specialists I have worked with.
Austin stands out for his creative, strategic approach to growth: intentional, outcome-focused, and exactly why his projects succeed.
Austin is just one of those people you want on your team. He genuinely cares about helping his clients win.
FAQ
11 answersWhat is fractional AEO?
Fractional AEO is a senior answer engine optimization lead who owns how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews describe and recommend your brand, part-time and without a full-time hire. Austin Heaton runs it fully hands-off: money pages, entity signals, technical SEO and citations.
Do you do AEO for fractional CFO and fractional executive firms?
Yes. Fractional CFO, CMO and other fractional executive firms sell to businesses, and their buyers now ask ChatGPT and Perplexity who to hire. The same AEO work applies: pages that answer buyer questions, entity signals and citations, so AI names your firm when prospects ask.
How fast does fractional AEO show results?
First results show within 2-3 weeks and compound every month. Engagements have a 3-month minimum, and AI recommendations are guaranteed.
Fractional AEO lead, agency or full-time hire?
A fractional lead gives you one senior owner now, with no recruiting or ramp time and no junior account team. A full-time hire makes sense when you need someone in-house every day. Compare AEO consultant vs agency, AEO consultant vs in-house and how to hire an AEO consultant.
Who is Austin Heaton?
Austin Heaton is an independent AEO and SEO consultant with 12+ years in search. He grew Rise's AI search traffic 575% and organic traffic 288% in 12 months. White-label AEO is available for agencies.
What is Fractional AEO, in commercial terms?
It is the work of getting your SaaS brand cited when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI Overviews which vendor to shortlist.
That means comparison pages, alternatives pages, use-case pages, entity signals, and technical SEO, not another definition post. See how the AEO consultant engagement is scoped.
Why do product-led B2B brands lose AI citations?
Four patterns show up every time:
- Review sites (G2, Capterra, analyst lists) get named instead of you
- Comparison and alternatives pages owned by publishers, not you
- PLG and TOFU blogs that say nothing a buyer can cite
- Sales-assisted buyers who now shortlist in ChatGPT first
AI models then cite the review site, the glossary farm, or a competitor who published the use-case page first. Adjacent work: AEO for B2B and AEO for FinTech.
What proof do you have in product-led B2B?
Documented B2B case studies on this site: Riseworks (product-led B2B): 288% organic growth and 575% AI search growth in 12 months. iSpeedToLead: 310.8% AI search growth and the #1 citation share at 7.79%. Pactvera: 6,000%+ impression growth and placement next to DocuSign in 11 days.
Do you replace an in-house Head of SEO?
For many product-led B2B teams, yes, as fractional SEO and AI visibility leadership. You get one senior owner across Google and AI search without a full-time hire.
If you already have a team, I set the money-page and citation system they execute against.
Who is this for?
Marketing and growth leads at product-led B2B companies (CRM, PLG, and vertical SaaS) who need to show up in AI answers, not just rank blog posts.
This page is AEO-first. If you want the Google-first SaaS SEO engagement instead, that lives on product-led B2B SEO. Related work: AEO consultant, how engagements work, and AEO agency vs AEO consultant.
How do we start?
Book a call. We look at where you are missing from AI answers and which commercial pages you need to own. If the fit is there, we scope the engagement on the call, and pricing is discussed there too. Engagements have a 3-month minimum and are fully hands-off for your team. See how engagements work.
Book a Call or use the contact page.
Ready to Own product-led B2B AI Visibility?
If buyers are asking AI which SaaS to shortlist and you are not in the answer, you are already paying for it.
Need a senior AEO lead without a full-time hire? Book a free 30-minute call with Austin.
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