Why GEO matters

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have propelled us into an era where we have a new and easy way of getting information, even for the simplest daily tasks. Whether you’re looking for a simple way to cook chicken or researching in-depth on quantum computing, you’ll have everything you need in no time, way faster and more accurately. 

YES, you might have the best-performing digital marketing strategy today, but as AI dominates in reshaping how people find information, there’s an even greater opportunity ahead. 

With GEO, you unleash the unrivaled potential of AI with targeted, highly relevant content, gaining more visibility in generative AI results, not just in traditional search engines (SEO). 

Basically, GEO is a method that helps your website show up more often in answers from AI tools like ChatGPT. It’s a strategic practice of optimizing your content to be effectively scanned and utilized by language learning models (LLMs). 

If your content made it to an AI response using GEO, you're more likely to stay top-of-mind for your target customers and drive more traffic to your website. 

Now, the ultimate goal of GEO is to have your expertise and brand featured in AI-generate responses. Optimizing for these platforms is crucial to future-proof your content and stay relevant.

Here are some valuable reasons why you should get started with optimizing content for GEO:

• Site Discoverability. Well-structured content appears more in AI-driven generative search results.
• Intent-Driven Experience. GEO values user intent. If your content has what the user truly seeks, generative AI engines position you as a top resource.
• Company Credibility. Since generative engines AI only give credible content, being cited by AI means your brand or company is reliable and trustworthy for users.

Let’s dig deeper into how GEO differs from SEO.

How Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) differs from Traditional SEO

Along with extensive research to back its effectiveness, search engine optimization (SEO) is a common practice of improving your website visibility and prominence in search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google, Bing, and Yahoo through organic content. The concept of SEO emerged primarily by understanding complex algorithms of how search engines crawl and index websites. 

To optimize your content for SEO, your website must be powered by the strategic utilization of targeted keywords, the acquisition of backlinks from credible websites, and the development of high-value content. Once a person asks something, the search engine provides a list of results from different sources.

On the flip side, a group of students from top institutions like Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI, and IIT Delhi published a GEO study stating that “generative AI engines provide rich, structured responses and embed websites as inline citations in the response.” 

Meaning, compared to SEO, GEO has different custom visibility metrics for generative AI engines, which evaluate how often and how meaningful sources are cited based on factors like relevance and influence on the query.

While it’s true that traditional SEO and GEO share the ultimate goal of increasing the visibility of your website and content, their approaches and processes differ significantly

To give you a better view, this is how GEO’s AI landscape looks compared to the traditional search engine optimization (SEO

Analyzing user intent vs keyword frequency

GEO runs deep analysis and understanding of the user intent and context of the inquiry or question, rather than relying on keyword frequency. On the other hand, traditional SEO uses a pattern of keyword repetitions, link relevance, and technical optimization to boost one’s content ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

To succeed in GEO, you’re required to move beyond keyword stuffing and focus instead on providing the most relevant answers to user prompts and queries.

Focusing on content quality and structure

I’ve managed several websites through the years and some of the most common key indicators of their success are top-notch domain authority and high-quality backlinks. Although they’re extremely essential in SEO, they’re not criteria for how AI tags you as a good resource.

AI engines focus on easily readable content, with great context and structured hierarchy. This implies that for your content to be optimized for generative AI tools, your content should be clear and written with the utmost expertise.

Semantics as a ranking factor in GEO

Compared to traditional SEO that uses individual keywords, AI-driven search makes use of algorithms that look at the semantic meaning of phrases within your content. This is a big shift in how your digital marketing team creates content. 

Instead of optimizing your content based on traditional ranking factors, prioritize clarity and engagement. Once content is properly optimized for generative engines, groundbreaking research suggests that you can experience up to a 40% boost in visibility.

Putting GEO into Action

As digital creators, we have little to no control over the advent of generative models, let alone how we can influence generative AI engines. 

Thanks to this pioneering research that gives tangible insights at how we can improve AI visibility in generative engine responses through “a flexible black-box optimization framework for optimizing and defining visibility metrics.” 

The said 2024 study tested several generative engine optimization (GEO) methods and factors that could correlate to the likelihood of being cited by AI. You can see the list in the table below. The test involved a rigorous analysis of up to 10,000 different prompts and queries in diverse domains, a benchmarking effort they coined Geo-Bench. 

High Performing GEO methods: Proven

The researchers classified the best-performing ones and obviously, the traditional keyword stuffing used in SEO didn’t cut. This implies that for your content to have the best likelihood of getting cited by AI engines, your content should be optimized for GEO by adding the following:

• Quotations
• Statistics
• Fluency optimization
• Citations
• Technical terms
• Authoritative comms

These content characteristics can significantly impact how AI views your content.

With these in mind, here are the top GEO strategies to implement this 2025.

8 GEO Strategies for Success: Based on Research

1. Invest in authority and content richness

You may notice that AI responses speak as though they’re always in a position of truth and expertise. That’s because the only resources AI picks demonstrate high credibility, experience, and trustworthiness.

Authority tactics to optimize content for GEO:

• Add citations and references from credible sources
• Incorporate compelling quotations
• Integrate statistics whenever possible
• Demonstrate rich expertise in your topics

2. Be mindful of your content structure

Organize the flow of your information as smoothly and as easy-to-understand as possible. Write with clear headings and clear comprehension to help AI understand you more.

Content structure tactics to optimize content for GEO:

• Create logical flow by using clear headings
• Ensure your content is scannable and skimmable
• Add FAQ sections
• Write highly important information at the beginning of each section

3. Use technical terminologies appropriately

Linguistic factors matter in generative AI engines. Master content fluency and clarity when writing content, and ensure you use technical terms with utmost accuracy.

Language tactics to optimize content for geo:

• Use a conversational approach in writing content
• Use accurate technical terminologies
• Have a good balance of expertise and readability
  

4. Speak directly to user queries

As you now know, generative AI engines like perplexity.ai focus on user intent rather than keywords. If your content directly speaks to what the user asks for, your AI-optimized content has higher visibility in generative responses. 

Moreover, building context matters highly in building your brand marketing initiatives. 

SaaS Marketing Agency Co-Founder Robbie Richards suggests that to build context effectively, “make it as easy as possible for language learning models (LLMs) to understand the What, Who, When, How, and Why of your brand or content.” 

Keep this crucial tip in mind as you combine and align your SEO and GEO strategies

5. Diversify search intent

AI engines position themselves as a dynamic, creative resource for getting information. 

Semrush released a massive study on ChatGPT Search, and it says that the intent “go beyond the conventional search intent categories—transactional, informational, commercial, and navigational—that SEOs typically consider. Rather, ChatGPT introduces novel intents focused on creation, conversation, and critical thinking facilitated by AI.”

This shift in how users interact may push SEOs and marketers like you to update your strategies and factor in these new types of generative search intent.

Apart from these GEO strategies, we’ve gathered actionable insights from credible sources who have implemented meticulous research and testing of LLMs and AI engines.

6. Monitor your Bing rankings and search results

You’re probably using Google for the majority of your SEO and GEO efforts. That’s granted, given that Google’s daily search volume grew by 20%+ last year. However, you should note that OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, has a partnership with Microsoft. There’s been a ton of speculation about how Bing influences generative SearchGPT results. 

True enough, a recent investigation by SeerInteractive found that “87% of SearchGPT citations match Bing’s top organic results.”

Therefore, if your content strategy is centrally focused on Google optimization, it’s time to rethink and diversify your platforms.

7. Create comparison pages for your brand

According to Virayo Co-Founder Robbie Richards, “Several on-page efforts correlate with increased brand mentions and citations in LLMs and AIOs.” 

With this, one factor to consider is creating specific content for generative engine optimization like [Your Brand] vs. [Competitor(s)], [Competitor] alternatives, product-centric FAQs, and more.

8. Understand embeddings to build a semantic relationship

This term might be new to you. While traditional search engine optimization (SEO) focuses on exact keywords, “word embeddings prioritize semantic relevance.”

According to Web Generalist and Digital Consultant Warren Laine-Naida, word embeddings are “mathematical representations of words, phrases, and entities that capture their meaning and relationships.”

Language learning models (LLMs) use these to dissect the context and true meaning of your content while tackling any form of ambiguity.

Word embedding tactics to optimize for GEO:

• Use specific and meaningful terms.
• Connect related topics using internal and external links.
• Aim to match search intent, not just keywords.

Wrapping Up

Understanding GEO can be overwhelming at first., but remember how SEO seemed like a total mystery in its early days. Look how far we've come with it, and I know learning GEO will be just as worth it.

We hope this post has helped you get a better understanding of what is GEO and how to use it to boost your website traffic and brand exposure.

Proactively learning generative engine optimization (GEO) can revolutionize your content strategy. Since this is still an emerging concept, optimizing early can give you a competitive advantage, although this doesn’t mean we forget everything and never look back. 

In essence, GEO is just a massive wake-up call, a reminder to all of us marketers and businesses that better things are always ahead of us.

I’m thrilled to see that the thing that we once viewed as futuristic now has finally caught up with us, and with it comes endless opportunities for growth, learning, and innovation.

If you want to learn more about how you can leverage AI and other digital marketing platforms to boost your business, our marketing experts can help. Contact us today!

FAQs

What is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization, a new and emerging digital concept aimed at improving your visibility, and relevance, and being cited by generative engines AI like Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, and more.

Moreover, being referenced and cited by AI-driven results can increase your credibility, as AI systems typically source answers from authoritative and trustworthy content.

What types of content would work best for GEO?

Generative search engines prioritize content that is:

• Informatn-rich content (includes statistics, quotations, technical terms, etc.)
• Well-structured formatting
• High relevance to the query (considering intent, semantics, etc.)
• FAQs, guides, advice, and actionable insights are believed to be performing better

How to measure the success of your GEO strategy?

You can check if you’ve succeeded by consistently checking these metrics:

• Top citations in AI-generated responses
• Generative engines like SearchGPT mention you in the summaries
• Boost in page views and engagement in pages that are optimized for GEO

Continuously track your progress to refine your efforts until you get the results you need.

What challenges shall I face with GEO?

Since GEO is a new player in the digital landscape, you always have to keep up with evolving AI algorithms. There still isn't much concrete research and case studies on GEO, so it's likely there are still a lot of untapped opportunities with AI.

Moreover, since SEO and GEO have different factors for optimization, it’s a challenge to balance them out. You have to ensure your content is both authoritative and conversational.

Is GEO replacing traditional SEO for good?

Definitely not. GEO may have different processes for generating answers, but it still complements SEO. You can still use both to diversify the platforms where people discover your content, which can ultimately amplify your digital marketing strategy.. You have SEO for traditional search engines, while you have generative engine optimization (GEO) for AI-generated responses.