answer engine optimization
Associate Discoverability Director at VML, Austin
I run SEO and AI search programs for enterprise sites at VML, a WPP agency in Austin. For 15 years that has meant getting large sites crawled, indexed and found. Since 2022 it has also meant getting them cited in AI answers, and measuring whether that visibility turns into traffic and conversions.
What I work on
cydelavega.com › expertise › aeo
I lead Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) programs that structure pages so AI systems like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews can cite them. On the inventory pages of a national used car retailer, vehicle detail views from AI visitors grew from 254 to 1,070.
See the inventory pages case studycydelavega.com › expertise › technical-seo
I run technical SEO for enterprise sites and work with engineering teams on rendering, indexation and site structure. One post-launch audit of a React site found 1,198 URLs earning Google impressions while telling Google not to index them.
Read the agent readiness guidecydelavega.com › expertise › ai-search-measurement
I built the AI search measurement framework my department uses. It tracks citation share, AI share of voice, referral traffic from AI platforms and conversion from those visitors. Each one ties back to numbers a client already reports.
See the AI search practice case studycydelavega.com › expertise › content-strategy
I decide which topics deserve a page and how each one should be built, and I put that in a brief before writing starts. On the hospital program, I wrote 443 briefs from research on 28,000+ keywords.
See the hospital program case studycydelavega.com › expertise › ai-workflows
I build AI workflows that take the repeatable parts of search work off my team. They run on Vercel, GitHub and n8n and apply SEO, schema, content and brand standards across a portfolio of sites.
Read the AI agent guidecydelavega.com › expertise › local-seo
I’ve done local SEO since my first clients, and today I work on Spanish-language search and international targeting for enterprise sites. At a startup agency in Austin, I handled local and organic search for more than 60 clients in English and Spanish.
Read how I got into search
cydelavega.com › work
Cy De la Vega led the rebuild of 35 used car inventory pages so AI platforms could cite them. AI referral traffic to that section grew 352% year over year.
cydelavega.com › work
Cy De la Vega led a healthcare SEO program for a major New York hospital system across 13 clinical service lines. Unbranded Google traffic grew 206%.
cydelavega.com › work
Cy De la Vega built and runs an AI search practice at VML that serves 8+ enterprise accounts. On one program, AI-referred traffic grew 174% year over year.
I’m Cy De la Vega, an SEO and AI search director. I started as an independent consultant in El Paso, joined Wunderman Thompson in 2018, and stayed when it became part of VML in 2024. I studied marketing and international business at the University of Texas at El Paso.
cydelavega.com › aboutcydelavega.comAbout Cy De la Vega
As Associate Discoverability Director, I lead a team of four to six senior SEO managers across technical SEO and AI search for enterprise accounts. I also do implementation, testing and analysis myself.
cydelavega.com › work › ai-search-practiceworkBuilding an AI search practice for enterprise sites
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) builds on SEO so a page can be quoted and credited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. A page has to be crawled and indexed first, and AEO adds the clear answers and structured data an AI system needs to cite it.
cydelavega.com › blog › answer-engine-optimization-guide › what-is-answer-engine-optimization-aeoguidesAnswer Engine Optimization (AEO) guide
I’ve worked on sites for local businesses and for national and global organizations. The industries include automotive, healthcare, ecommerce, service businesses, government and B2B.
cydelavega.com › workworkCase studies
You can reach me through the contact page on this site or on LinkedIn.
cydelavega.com › contactcydelavega.comContact Cy De la Vega
cydelavega.com › blog › businesses-in-chatgpt
Businesses in ChatGPT is OpenAI's free beta for claiming a business profile in Business Hub, verifying ownership and tracking mentions and clicks.
cydelavega.com › blog › seo-ai-search-news-11-6-2026
OpenAI said ChatGPT's search-like queries are roughly a fifth of Google's volume, and millions of AI-written Facebook pages rank in Google.
cydelavega.com › blog › seo-ai-search-news-10-30-2026
Reddit's CEO said Google's AI Mode does not drive traffic, and Google aims to support a shared robots.txt signal for AI training in 2027.
