Introduction
If you're reading this after searching "Haris Altaf SEO," you're likely trying to understand what kind of SEO work I actually do, or you found me through the AEO and agency SEO work I've been focused on recently. I'm an SEO specialist and content writer with 3+ years of experience, and lately a big part of that work has centered on one shift: helping agencies and businesses get found not just on Google's results page but inside AI-generated answers.
This page walks through that focus directly, since it's become one of the most common reasons people reach out.
Who Is Haris Altaf
I work as an SEO specialist and currently lead SEO as a team lead at a job listings platform. Alongside that, I take on freelance and white label SEO work for agencies, with client experience across law firms, healthcare, and marketing agencies. Most of that work blends traditional SEO fundamentals, technical audits, keyword-clustered content, and schema with a growing focus on Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO.
I didn't plan to specialize in AEO specifically. It came from watching client rankings hold steady on Google while AI Overviews and ChatGPT started answering the same questions without ever mentioning the client's site. That gap is where a lot of my current work lives.
Who This Page Is For
This is useful for agency owners and SEO leads trying to figure out how to add AEO into existing service packages without starting from zero. It's also useful for business owners who've noticed they're not showing up in AI-generated answers and want to know what that actually means. And it's useful for anyone checking my background before reaching out about SEO or AEO work.
What People Search This For
Most people landing on a name plus "SEO" search want proof of real experience, a sense of what the person actually specializes in, and a way to get in touch. On the AEO side specifically, people usually want to know whether this is a real, workable service or just a buzzword being tacked onto standard SEO packages. I'll answer that directly: it's real, but it only works when it's built on solid technical SEO, not layered on top of a broken foundation.
What My AEO and Agency SEO Work Looks Like
A lot of my recent work has involved helping white label clients close the gap between strong traditional rankings and weak AI visibility. I ran into this directly with a legal client whose pages ranked well but weren't getting cited in AI Overviews for the exact questions those pages answered. The fix wasn't a separate AEO project bolted on top. It was restructuring existing content so the direct answer appeared in the first few sentences instead of buried under a long introduction, and the difference showed up within weeks.
That experience shaped how I think about AEO generally: it's not a replacement for SEO; it's an extension of it. AI systems like Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity pull specific passages and definitions to build answers, so the unit of optimization shifts slightly toward clarity, directness, and structure, on top of everything traditional SEO already requires.
How I Approach This With Clients and Agencies
A few things guide how I build AEO into existing SEO work:
Lead with the answer. Direct, complete answers in the first sentence or two of a section, expanded with context afterward. AI systems tend to favor content that doesn't make them dig for the point.
Keep definitions extractable. If a concept needs explaining, I phrase it so it could stand alone as a citation, not buried in clever wording that only makes sense in context.
Use a question-style structure. Headings that mirror how people actually ask questions make it easier for AI systems to match content to a query.
Protect the technical foundation. AEO work doesn't help much if crawlability, indexing, or schema are already broken. I check the fundamentals before adding anything AI-search specific.
Report honestly. There's no fully mature tracking system for AI Overview citations the way there is for traditional rankings. I tell clients and agencies that upfront rather than overselling metrics that don't exist yet.
Mistakes I See Agencies Make With AEO
A few patterns come up often when I'm brought in to help agencies with this:
- Treating AEO as a completely separate service instead of folding it into existing content and technical SEO work, which just duplicates effort.
- Chasing AI citations while ignoring crawlability and schema basics that AI systems still depend on.
- Promising specific AI overview placements to clients, when citation behavior can shift with model updates no one controls.
- Writing content that sounds robotic in an attempt to be "extractable," which tends to backfire since AI systems increasingly favor content with real expertise and a genuine voice behind it.
FAQs
What does Haris Altaf specialize in? Technical SEO, keyword-clustered content strategy, white label SEO for agencies, and increasingly, AEO and GEO work focused on AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and other AI-powered search tools.
Does Haris Altaf work with agencies directly? Yes, a significant part of the work is white-label SEO and AEO support delivered through agencies for their clients across industries, including law, healthcare, and marketing.
Is AEO a real, separate service or just a buzzword? It's real, but it only works when it's built on solid technical SEO. Adding AEO to a site with weak crawlability or thin content usually won't produce results.
How does Haris Altaf measure AEO results for clients? Through a combination of manually tracking AI citations for target queries and monitoring branded search and direct traffic trends, since dedicated AI visibility tracking tools are still maturing.
How can I contact Haris Altaf about AEO or SEO work? The best starting points are the LinkedIn profile and the personal portfolio site, where more detail on services and past work is available.