Department of Health — Google Search & AI Search (AEO) Training

The Department of Health publishes health information for the public on its Website 4.0, but having information on the web does not guarantee that Google or AI will understand it. Article headings tend to be written in the department’s own language while people search in theirs, and where Google ranks pages, AI search tends to summarise an answer from several sources. The brief: a one-day course for website administrators, content officers, PR staff and back-office administrators that needs no prior SEO, AEO or AI background, and ends with at least one sample article made SEO + AEO + AI Ready and a checklist the team can keep using together.

We split the day so the morning builds understanding and the afternoon applies it to the department’s own articles — every principle taught before lunch is used again in the workshops after it.

1. 1. Start from how people actually search

   The day opens with Google Search versus AI search, using real health queries in Google, ChatGPT or Gemini, then moves to search intent — separating informational, question and service queries — with practice turning official headings into the words people search.

2. 2. Article structure and an AEO framework

   We cover page titles, H1–H3, opening paragraphs, internal links and readable file names, then AEO: answer-first writing and a Question → Answer → Detail → Conditions → Related Information → Source structure, with an updated date, data owner and sources. The morning closes with the trainer taking a sample article apart to show where search or AI would struggle.

3. 3. Three workshop rounds in the back office

   Round one audits an article against the Search & AI Ready checklist; round two rewrites the title and headings, sets the main question, writes the direct answer and adds a summary, FAQ, links and sources; round three completes it and compares before with after. All of it runs in the Website 4.0 back office or a test site, so no live content is changed by accident.

4. 4. A 13-part audit of a live news page

   The SEO & AI Search Audit worksheet walks participants through a live Department of Health news page — keywords, title, headings, search intent, content, links, images and ALT text, URL and meta description — then has them ask an AI at least three questions about it, rank the three fixes that matter most, and rewrite the title, H1, meta description and introduction.

5. 5. Check the result after publishing

   Participants check pages on desktop and mobile, search on Google to see the title and snippet, and learn why results may not change right after publishing — with Search Console for indexing where access is granted, and the Rich Results Test where the site supports schema.

The course ran onsite from 09:30 to 16:00, and was built so the Department of Health’s teams leave with tools they can apply to their own units’ articles.

• A pre-publish checklist

  An SEO + AEO + AI Ready content checklist, so everyone reviews articles against the same standard before publishing.

• A before-and-after article

  An article reworked for title, headings, direct answer, FAQ, links and sources, kept as a model for real work.

• An AEO framework for every unit

  An AEO content framework and structuring guide each unit can apply to its own articles.

• Checking results on Google

  A way to check pages after publishing and to follow how Google discovers them.