GEO isn’t the death of SEO. It’s what happens when search becomes multi-platform, multi-modal, and powered by AI.
GEO isn’t the end of SEO; it’s what happens when search works across different platforms, formats, and uses AI.
SEO won’t disappear, but it’s changing to include optimizing for AI-powered search engines.
We need to see SEO as optimizing for all types of search, with GEO as a key part of the plan.
SEO with GEO: Same mission, expanding medium
SEO means making content work well for search engines like Google or Bing.
GEO is about optimizing for AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Even though the tools are different, the aim is the same: answering users’ questions clearly.
SEO with GEO: Same mission, expanding mediumPeople want quick, accurate answers with as little effort as possible.
AI tools can make finding answers faster and improve the user’s experience.
As Will Scott shared in his SMX talk on GEO tactics, it all begins with understanding the user’s question.
A new engine appears
SEO isn’t just about Google, even though Google is the most popular search engine. Search experts need to learn how to optimize for other search tools like Bing or DuckDuckGo too.
The key difference between GEO (Google-specific optimization) and SEO (general search engine optimization) is how each search engine’s algorithm prioritizes factors and whether your content shows up in their results.GEO is not a new shift.
A new engine appearsGEO is not a new shift
Search engines have been changing for years, moving beyond just showing 10 blue links. Now, they include features like snippets, tools, and calculators. Generative AI is the next step in this evolution, blending into search engines like Google and Bing.
GEO is not a new shift There’s no longer a clear line between traditional search and AI search—it’s all AI search now. As AI language models get stronger, they’ll become even more integrated into search, until there’s no difference between AI and traditional search.
For more details: SEO Trends
Overlap of GEO and SEO
The goal of SEO and GEO is the same, but some skills have changed. To succeed, you should:
- Know what users need.
- Answer their questions clearly and fast.
- Make your content easy for search engines to find and use.
- Create useful, relevant content.
- Build pages that work well for users and search engines.
- Offer a quick and helpful website experience.
- Boost your site’s reputation to get more brand mentions.
What’s still relevant – and what’s not – in traditional SEO?
Some old SEO tactics aren’t as important anymore. For example, focusing only on keywords doesn’t work as well because search engines now penalize sites for overusing keywords.
But researching keywords is still useful. It shows you what words people use when searching and helps you understand what information they want on your site. It also lets you measure how much interest there is in a topic, so you can decide which ones to focus on.
Today, the most effective SEO strategies focus on understanding what users want and meeting their needs.
Social and forum searches influence GEO
Looking beyond Google means thinking about other places where people search, like:
Social media platforms such as TikTok and Pinterest.
Online forums like Reddit and Quora.
People are already searching on these platforms, and now these sites also provide information to AI-powered search engines. Sharing your content across these platforms helps AI notice and mention your brand.
To optimize for this new “search everywhere” approach, you need to include all these platforms in your strategy.
SEO experts should check how your website and brand appear across all these platforms to plan effectively.
Social and forum searches influence GEOActionable GEO strategies you can start today
Mastering GEO: Simplified Best Practices
Getting good at Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is now a must. While AI-driven search engines are a small part of the search market, they’re growing fast and could drive 10% of website traffic by next year. Start adding GEO strategies to your SEO work now.
Content
Monitor key metrics and create reports to track how often your website or brand is mentioned or visible in AI language models.
- Build detailed pages with conversational content that focus on topics, not just keywords.
- Use anchor links with clear headings to make content easy to navigate and provide structured answers.
- Include trustworthy sources and references to back up your information and boost credibility.
- Regularly remove low-performing pages and update content to keep it fresh.
- Add unique data or interactive tools to encourage users to visit and return to your site.
Links
- Use tools like Screaming Frog to check how relevant your keywords, link profiles, and page content clusters are.
- Review vector embeddings and cosine similarity to measure how relevant your backlinks are.
- Create internal links to important and timeless pages.
Technical
- Ensure your site can be crawled and indexed by using llms.txt and robots.txt files.
- Add RSS feeds for news and blog posts to improve crawlability, indexing, and freshness signals.
- Improve page speed and rendering for faster content delivery.
- Use markup for FAQs, detailed definitions, stats tables, and embedded insights to influence search snippets and summaries.
- Optimize multimedia metadata for AI models, like image alt tags and video transcripts.
- Regularly check how your content is being crawled, indexed, and retrieved.
How to start integrating GEO into your SEO program
Here’s a simpler version of the text:
Including GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) in SEO makes sense because we need to work more closely with other digital marketing efforts, not keep them separate.
If you haven’t talked to your marketing team or leaders yet, here are some easy steps to start:
- Make generative AI a part of your SEO strategy.
- Learn how to optimize for large language models (LLMs) and train your team on Jon these new methods.
- Start tracking traffic from generative AI sources and create reports to monitor it.
- Get your team’s support to test new generative AI ideas.
- Share successes and lessons from using generative AI in your SEO strategy.
Want to learn more? Check out: How to write content for SEO and GEO
Future Predictions for SEO
What might the future hold for optimizing searches everywhere?
New Words and Phrases
“Google” as a verb was picked as the word of the decade from 2000 to 2009.
For this decade, I think we’ll hear more phrases trying to become as popular as “Google it,” but things like “Ask ChatGPT” or “Perplex it” don’t sound as smooth.
There’s a chance for a fun, easy name to become the new go-to verb for searching.
(Maybe Ask Jeeves could return with a fresh AI twist?)
New Technology
Look at your site’s traffic sources by device in Google Analytics, and you might spot a few visits from smart TVs.
People are already asking questions to AI voice helpers in their TVs, cars, and smartwatches – basically any gadget that connects to the internet.
How would you optimize for a Subaru car?
You’d add the right info to your website so your local business shows up first when a driver asks their car for directions to the nearest dog-friendly restaurant.
New Formats
Agentic AI systems are the next step in generative AI. These are smart virtual helpers that can handle tasks, processes, and chats on their own to some extent.
SEO experts will need to optimize for these systems too – by improving your site’s content and teaming up with developers to create your own agents.
And before anyone suggests a new term like AEO (agentic engine optimization), let’s all agree to keep agentic AI under the umbrella of search everywhere optimization.
Want to learn more? Check out: Generative AI in Search: Let Google do the searching for you
The definition of SEO needs to evolve as search behavior and tech evolve
Search engines have been working toward generative search engines for a long time.
SEO experts already have the skills to handle new generative AI systems.
Now, we just need to adjust those skills for a new type of search engine.
The great news is that we’re already good at learning new algorithms and models regularly.
Generative AI could be the biggest opportunity in our field right now, if you’re curious and bold enough to dive in and master it.
Want to learn more? Check out:
What Is GEO Optimization?
How Search Engine Works
SEO Basics: Effective SEO Strategies