It doesn’t matter where you look - Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has entered virtually every industry. Leveraging AI tools and services has now become a way of life for many people, adding a new level of automation and efficiency to literally everything we do.
Generative AI, specifically, has become incredibly valuable for individuals when getting quick answers to their questions, writing code, creating content, and brainstorming new ideas. The surrounding principle of this technology is to help everyone complete their tasks faster, more accurately, and with little manual effort. This has also extended into how they search for information online.
Today, Google and other search-enabled tools are leveraging AI to create a more unique search experience for their users. Instead of having to comb through multiple website links on search engine results pages (SERPs), features like Google’s AI Overviews are providing direct, AI-generated summaries and answers to users, letting them skip extended searches altogether.
With this, completely shifting how businesses gain visibility (and associated click-through-rates) on Google’s SERPs, a new form of search engine optimization is now gaining steam - Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
Understanding Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Generative Engine Optimization, or “GEO,” is the process of recognizing the nuances of AI tools and answer engines and structuring content so that it's easily recognized and referenced by these solutions. Instead of just optimizing websites to appear on the top pages of Google’s SERPS, GEO focuses more on making content more authoritative so it can be considered a primary data source used to train AI learning models.
GEO is becoming a critical component of modern digital marketing strategies. While it’s not designed to replace traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies, it is becoming an active response to the large number of individuals now relying on AI tools as their preferred method of finding information online.
This has created a new concept known as Search Everywhere Optimization (SEvO). SEvO recognizes that brands need to tailor their web content so that it's easily servable across a wider range of search tools, such as search engines, personal chatbots, voice assistants, and other AI-enabled platforms. Taking this approach makes a website’s organic traffic volume less dependent on one type of search and diversifies its reach.
GEO vs. SEO: Key Differences and Overlaps
While GEO and SEO are both designed to improve a business’s ability to improve its visibility and overall user engagement, they also have specific key differences.
Similarities Between GEO and Traditional SEO
Both GEO and SEO processes are designed to support how modern search algorithms function. This includes structuring high-quality content that provides value to users and is both credible and accurate.
Google and AI search tools want to create a path of least resistance for their users, and ensuring content meets strict standards for inclusion in search results is a key way of achieving this.
Key Differences in Objectives and Execution
The primary goal of SEO efforts has been and will continue to be to gain a higher ranking on Google’s SERPs. This helps to increase the likelihood of natural click-through rate increases and more search traffic.
GEO, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily focus on SERP positioning. Rather, the goal is to have the website’s content referenced and linked by Google’s AI Overviews and other generative AI search results.
Integrating GEO with SEO for Maximum Impact
Having a hybrid GEO/SEO approach is critical for businesses that want to maximize their search impact as they scale. Since both initiatives focus on creating compliant E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) content, they can and should both be part of an organization’s overall search engine marketing strategy.
By intersecting the goals of each of these optimization formats, organizations can help to future-proof their web content and create more opportunities to be indexed and referenced by a wider range of search tools.
How Generative AI and Answer Engines Work
Before you can optimize your website and content for generative AI tools and answer engines, you first need to know exactly how these solutions operate.
How AI Processes and Generates Responses
Many people have misconceptions about how AI search tools work. While some traditional models were designed to simply retrieve existing information and serve it to users, most generative AI tools apply much more intelligence when generating responses.
When you type a search query or command into an AI search tool, it leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) to not only reference the keywords or phrasing you use but also try to understand the intent or meaning behind the statements made. AI algorithms then reference these variables when searching through their training data sources, looking for information that matches this intent.
After locating multiple relevant data sources, a coherent and accurate response will be constructed that addresses the intent of the query.
Role of Large Language Models (LLMs)
A core element of most modern AI systems is a large language model (LLM). LLMs are the training models that AI tools rely on to train their responses and are generally made up of significant amounts of information sourced from various credible locations.
LLMs function by turning individual text elements into smaller units known as “tokens.” Tokens then use a numerical identifier, which is referenced as AI tools start to assign various meanings to words and phrases.
Another key component of an LLM is a “transformer architecture.” This allows an AI tool to weigh the importance of certain words when they’re sequenced together. This is what helps it understand more important words than others and use this information to generate more accurate responses. For example, if you asked an AI tool what the capital of France is, its transformer architecture would isolate words like “capital” and “France” to search for the right answers.
Common LLM Platforms
While LLMs may use similar constructs, their platforms can have varying structures and be different when applying certain rules to how they gather and process information. Below are some of the most common LLM platforms used today:
- ChatGPT (OpenAI) - This is one of the most well-known and commonly used AI tools today. Its LLM uses Bing’s search index and leverages social signals and positive reviews to locate credible data sources.
- Google Gemini - This is Google’s proprietary LLM that leverages its own Search information when indexing and referencing information. It also uses its own “Knowledge Graph,” which helps to place more emphasis on companies with proven credibility in other referenceable sources such as Google Business Profile and Google Reviews.
- Perplexity AI - This is a conversational AI answer engine that provides specific citations of its responses and references real-time data sourced from all over the Internet.
- Calude (Anthropic) - This is a next-generation AI assistant that leverages publicly accessible information along with proprietary datasets to provide accurate, generated responses focused on ethical best practices. It uses clearly established expertise signals to ensure all the information provided is thoroughly vetted.
How GEO Works: A Deep Dive
Conducting Semantic and Competitor Research
Conducting research for GEO initiatives isn’t the same process as traditional keyword research, which focuses on a primary keyword or phrase. Instead, more importance is placed on semantic research, which helps to identify a variety of related questions or topics surrounding a key idea.
This type of research also applies to businesses trying to maintain local AI search visibility. It includes “geospatial semantics,” which refers to the places, locations, and events commonly used in local searches.
When it comes to competitor research, GEO doesn’t just look at which businesses appear on the first few pages of SERPs - it also looks to see what type of source information is being used in AI answer engine results and where that information is coming from.
Understanding User Intent and Context
Understanding user search intent is critical to optimizing web content so it’s easier to source and reference by AI tools. When users enter new prompts into their search tools, the way they phrase commands or ask questions can be different from one person to the next. To avoid inaccurate responses, AI tools reference intent as a much more accurate representation of context instead of being too focused on the way something is phrased.
User intent is typically categorized in one of four ways - informational, commercial, transactional, or navigational. GEO initiatives are designed to help optimize each content page based on this intent. By focusing on intent instead of keyword choices, businesses address the actual need of a user, which is what AI tools prioritize the most.
Structuring Content for AI Readability and Clarity
Much like search engines, AI answer engines rely on web crawlers to source new information from their learning models. However, since content is presented differently from one website to the next, some sites are much easier to crawl than others.
Businesses should structure their content to make it easier for AI search tools to find and reference site information. This includes using header tags (H1-H6) for written paragraphs, incorporating bulleted lists, providing FAQs, and adding a table of contents.
Each of these elements makes content much easier to scan and allows crawlers to follow a logical order when trying to capture supporting details of a central topic.
Optimizing for Entity Recognition and Relevance
AI search tools use “entities” to help identify specific references, such as celebrities, companies, organizations, branded products, or different concepts. Categorizing these identities helps them develop important connections when generating content for users.
When conducting GEO, clearly identifying these types of entities using definitive content in webpages helps AI tools classify these entities accurately for users. Consistency is also critical to helping enforce the credibility and accuracy of each defined entity. This means ensuring that entities on your website, social media accounts, or other platforms have the same supporting information.
Another effective way to help classify topic relevance in web content is to use schema markup. This is a line of code that identifies content as a specific type, such as a step-by-step guide, product instructions, product details, or business addresses. AI tools cross-reference the information they’re providing to users to ensure it’s coming from accurate sources.
Using Multimedia, Metadata, and Structured Data
Search engines and AI search tools don’t just rely on text when building out their training models. They can also use various multimedia formats, including images and videos. Because of this, another essential element of GEO is to optimize each of these elements so they’re easier to discover.
Alt tags are a common strategy businesses can use to add additional context to each of the multimedia elements on their website. Another helpful strategy is providing written transcripts when uploading videos to web pages. This not only helps with traditional SEO efforts by making a site more accessible but also gives AI tools referenceable materials they can link back to.
Another important element of GEO is ensuring all website metadata is completed. All webpages should have completed meta titles and descriptions while also incorporating structured data. These elements come together to make a site more crawlable and help simplify indexing with AI tools.
Distributing and Promoting Content Across Channels
Social signals play an important role in training new AI LLMs. The more mentions a brand has across different channels, the more trust it develops. This is another important factor in getting a site referenced more often in AI answer engines.
As a business, this means spending time to create an active presence on social media platforms, contributing to industry forums, and establishing business listings such as Google Business Profile. It’s also important to make sure all of these profiles have accurate NAP (Name, Address, and Phone) information. The more consistent these elements are across multiple channels, the more likely Google will reference them in rich snippets or AI Overviews.
Benefits and Drawbacks of GEO
Like with different SEO strategies, there are certain benefits and drawbacks of focusing heavily on GEO initiatives as your brand develops.
Key Benefits of GEO Optimization
- Enhanced Content Visibility - GEO initiatives help businesses significantly increase the chances of having their brand’s content referenced in AI-generated search results. This can greatly increase visibility and help counteract the general decline in organic search traffic that can occur with “zero-click” searches.
- Improved User Experience - By responding to users’ needs to get fast, accurate answers to their questions, GEO helps to ensure that the content you provide is clear and easy to understand when used to respond to AI search queries. This often means writing content to directly answer user intent, which minimizes a user’s need to visit multiple sites to find the information they’re looking for.
- Competitive Differentiation - AI tools and their supporting technology are continuing to develop over time. GEO initiatives help businesses position their brands early as reputable sources worth referencing. This early adoption can increase the likelihood of getting their site information included as a source in AI learning models, allowing them to maintain continuous visibility across different AI assistants and chatbots.
- Brand Authority and Trust - GEO and SEO strategies blend well together, and both support following Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Following these guidelines helps ensure that all the content brands create is viewed as coming from a high-authority source and written by experts in their field. Building this level of credibility can be a critical element for establishing a strong digital marketing foundation.
Common Drawbacks and Limitations
- Large Variety of LLMs to Track and Optimize For - As AI technology continues to evolve and improve, new LLMs are being developed with even more sophistication. Because there are so many different LLMs to consider, it can be difficult for businesses to focus their GEO efforts in the right areas. The worst-case scenario is to put too many eggs into one basket, only to find that the LLM becomes obsolete and no longer relevant for the business.
- GEO is still a New Concept - It’s important to remember that GEO is still a very new concept. While there are certain fundamental principles involved, GEO methods and their effectiveness are still being evaluated in the long term. Businesses wanting to prioritize GEO in their digital marketing strategies should be prepared to adapt their strategies regularly as new information becomes available.
Tactical Implementation of GEO
Before you begin any GEO initiative, it’s important to have the right plan in place for both implementing and improving new optimization efforts over time. Below are some helpful resources you can use to achieve this:
5 Practical Tips to Improve GEO
Write Like You Talk
When writing content on your website, so that it’s easier to reference by AI tools, consider how individuals typically interact with AI solutions. In most cases, they use conversational formats that are similar to how humans talk to one another.
Cater to this by writing your content in an easy-to-understand format and providing real, definitive answers to questions. Make your headings full sentences, similar to how FAQs are formatted and keep your content easy to read.
Prove You Know Your Stuff
To make sure your content meets all of Google’s E-E-A-T standards and improves your GEO efforts, focus on only publishing well-researched, highly authoritative content. Make sure any points you address are well-sourced, contain relevant statistics, and are trustworthy.
If you have highly experienced authors writing your content, it’s also important to showcase detailed author profiles that can add even more credibility to the statements you provide. You can also publish your own research as white papers or detailed case studies that make them easier to reference and share across other high-authority websites.
Keep It Easy to Scan
The faster that AI tools can get through your content, the more likely it is that they’ll use it to provide answers to users. To keep your content scannable, make sure it’s structured with header tags. Use H1 tags for blog and article titles and H2 tags for subsections. This helps to break up key ideas and helps to group different content blocks.
Another good idea is to make use of bullet points and numbered sections. This makes it more likely that content will make it into rich snippet results, which display directly on Google’s SERPs or AI Overviews.
Cut to the Chase
AI tools are constantly looking for ways to improve a user’s experience. A bit of this is limiting the amount of secondary searches or additional dialogue necessary to get the information they need. By ensuring the content you create provides clear, simple answers to questions, it’s less information AI tools need to sift through in order to provide helpful responses.
Before and after the content you create, adding key takeaway sections or helpful blog conclusions can give you the opportunity to outline key ideas that are easy to define and extract by AI tools.
Technical SEO Considerations
Page Speed & Mobile Friendliness
AI crawlers have limited processing time when searching for new information. Slower sites can significantly hinder their ability to ingest content, and they’ll often abandon these types of sources altogether.
To prevent this from happening to your site, it’s important to optimize your site images, use caching solutions, or increase your hosting performance. You should also leverage tools like Core Web Vitals to help evaluate your website’s mobile friendliness and make the suggested changes provided in Google’s Search Console tools to keep your site quick and accessible.
Internal Linking & Clear URLs
Having a clean linking structure is also important when executing GEO initiatives. AI search tools try to understand any apparent relationships shared between the content you create and the links that point back to it. This is why you should also make sure that the links and anchor text you use when pointing to other webpages are relevant to the content they contain.
Semantic URLs can also help create a hierarchy with your content. This not only helps your GEO efforts but is also a foundational element of traditional SEO.
Security & Crawlability
Your website’s security can also be an important trust signal that search engines and AI-powered answer engines look for before listing your content. Ensuring your site is secured with HTTPS/SSL encryption can help prove that you're a reputable business and that your site users don’t have any malicious intent.
You can also leverage tools like GPTBot to ensure that your site does not contain potential errors or roadblocks that could make it harder for AI crawlers to reach it.
Tools for GEO Optimization and Measurement
Even though GEO is still a relatively new concept, certain tools are designed to help businesses optimize and measure their content, specifically targeting AI-powered search results. Some of these include:
- ZipTie - ZipTie tracks the performance of AI-generated mentions on platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and in Google’s AI Overviews. It can track these mentions in multiple countries and offers features like AI success scoring.
- Peec AI - Peec AI is a platform that makes it easier for businesses to analyze, track, and improve their AI rankings. It provides helpful data visualization tools that show businesses where and how their visibility is improving over time, including which sources have the highest impact and how they’re stacking against their competitors.
- Profound - Profound is another AI search monitoring platform that provides helpful answer engine insights and analytics tools that help brands improve their visibility across search engines and AI platforms like ChatGPT
Common Mistakes to Avoid in GEO
Abandoning SEO Fundamentals Too Early
A common mistake is to assume that GEO initiatives are designed to replace traditional SEO. It’s important to remember that SEO tactics are still an important foundational element of GEO. Abandoning core SEO practices can harm not only your organic web rankings but also the additional GEO efforts you’re making.
Rather than directly replacing SEO practices, GEO should be a complementary form of search engine marketing that helps you take the efforts you’ve already made to improve your brand visibility and apply them to AI answer engines.
Keyword Stuffing or Lack of Contextual Depth
Over the years, exact keyword matching has become less relevant when trying to rank a site around certain search topics. This absolutely applies to GEO initiatives as well.
Keyword stuffing can actually harm your efforts and be detrimental to getting content referenced by AI tools and platforms. Human-like responses and dialogues are much more important, and brands should try to focus on being more authentic in the content they provide rather than trying to overoptimize it.
Ignoring Brand and Authority Signals
While content is important for effective GEO, it shouldn’t be considered the only important thing. Where and how that content is distributed is also important. Al models will often evaluate how well a brand is mentioned across social media platforms, industry news sites, or other relevant sources.
It’s important not to ignore the importance of gaining high authority signals for the brand. Even if a website has an abundance of great content, without the right backlinks pointing back to that content, brands may not get the results they’re hoping for.
Failing to Iterate or Track Performance
Just like when establishing a new SEO campaign, regular performance tracking is essential to making GEO initiatives successful. Because AI models are constantly changing, there is a good chance that GEO campaigns will need to adapt regularly as newer LLMs become available.
By monitoring key performance metrics and A/B testing scenarios, businesses can see firsthand whether their efforts to gain more visibility across AI search tools are working or if they need adjustments.
The Future of GEO and Search
The introduction of AI into search engines has completely changed how users look for the information they need, and how new platforms are helping to address their changing preferences. Some of the things that are worth businesses taking note of as we move forward include:
Memory Features on ChatGPT and AI
AI tools are built on highly scalable cloud-based infrastructure, and many platforms are now capable of increasing memory capabilities. This allows for significantly more detailed dialogues and allows AI tools to personalize their users.
Next-generation AI will be able to remember various user preferences, learn from their past interactions, and make use of personal attributes to create even more accurate responses or recommendations.
Predictive, Multimodal, and Real-Time Search
Because of the computing power that most AI search tools have, traditional search methods are now starting to shift from strictly reactive to predictive. Predictive AI is now capable of measuring historical search patterns to better anticipate user needs before they have a chance to ask follow-up questions.
With multimodal search now becoming more relevant - allowing users to search by voice, images, or even video - it’s now becoming even more important for businesses to use description metadata and leverage structured data to keep their content properly classified and optimized for these real-time search capabilities.
Staying Competitive in an AI-Driven Search World
Since the introduction of AI technology, competitive landscapes have become more aggressive as more businesses look for new ways to gain more visibility on Google. Pay-per-click advertising rates are increasing, and it’s becoming harder to get seen on the first page of SERPs.
Businesses that are early adopters of new GEO strategies can maintain a key edge against other organizations when getting listed in AI answer engines, especially when other businesses are late to the game.
Generative Engine Optimization FAQs
Is GEO Replacing Traditional SEO?
No, GEO is not designed to replace traditional. However, it is an alternative form of search optimization that focuses on getting listed in AI-enabled answer engine. It is a complimentary search engine marketing approach.
How Is GEO Different from SGE and AI SEO?
GEO optimizes for AI-generated content across platforms. SGE (Search Generative Experience) is Google's experimental platform on which AI Overviews is built. AI SEO is a broader methodology that involves using AI-powered tools when completing SEO initiatives focused on improving branded mentions in AI answer engines.
How Do I Start with GEO Optimization?
Before you start focusing on GEO, it’s first important to build a strong SEO foundation. This involves prioritizing Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines when creating content, building topical authority, and using more conversational, easy-to-understand language on web pages.
Do I Need Special Tools for GEO?
While traditional SEO tools can help initially, specialized GEO tools are becoming more valuable for tracking AI visibility, citations, sentiment, and competitive performance in AI-generated content.
How Do I Know If GEO Is Working?
Like with traditional SEO, it can take some time before GEO results start to show. To make sure your efforts are paying off, track your brand visibility in AI responses and check the accuracy of generated responses that feature your content. You can also leverage various GEO monitoring tools that can help you measure your GEO performance over time.