Matthew Widdop
Matty is a Junior SEO Executive at Intelligency, helping our clients to improve their digital performance. Matty is currently studying for his Level 3 Multi-Channel Marketer apprenticeship and has completed a Sport Journalism Degree at the University of Huddersfield.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the latest development in the digital marketing space that will inform the way businesses navigate an increasingly congested online world to stand out from the competition.
In this blog, we will be discussing all things GEO, including its similarities with SEO, why it’s important and how to put GEO into action.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the process of optimising your content so that it appears in Generative AI Engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. As Generative AI Engines continue to grow in popularity, making sure that content appears is crucial for businesses to continue improving their online reach and search visibility.
Similarities between SEO + GEO
GEO, while independent of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), shares some similarities and both strategies can be used in combination with each other to improve overall search visibility. These similarities include:
- User Experience Both GEO + SEO focus on a seamless user experience. Google and Generative AI Engines want end users to have the best possible results when answering their queries, therefore having a quality UX will help your content land in both search engines and AI engines
- High-Quality Content Google wants to show insightful and engaging content to the end user, so content that is relevant, unique and authoritative will be ranked higher. GEO also follows the same principles, LLMs crawl the web for the highest quality content to show to the end user so that their search needs are met. By creating high-quality, dynamic content businesses can expect to appear more frequently in both Google search and Generative AI engines.
- Keyword Strategy One of the main staples of a good SEO strategy is using the right keywords in your content, and avoiding keyword stuffing. By using your keywords correctly, Google is able to easily understand what your content is about and show it to the right audience. Generative AI Engines also follow the same methodology as correct keyword placement helping these LLMs (Large Language Models to understand content and what queries are answered, therefore showing the best possible results to the user.
Differences between SEO + GEO
While GEO and SEO share many similarities and a holistic approach can be used to combat both strategies at once there are also key differences between the two approaches. These include:
- SEO Strategies SEO is a strategy designed to help businesses gain increased traffic from search engine visibility, this means that SEOs follow Google’s best practices, which include optimising the technical aspects of a website including site speed, redirects, title tags, status codes and more. GEO does not rely on these aspects as AI Engines are looking to pull high-quality content from websites to directly answer users’ queries, without sending them to the sites.
- Content Built for AI Engines GEO is built for making content that is useful for human readers, much like SEO, but also for content that is specifically useful for AI Engines. AI Engines can be used for informational queries, therefore these engines tend to boost content that includes citations, quotations and statistics more than search engines typically would.
How to do GEO?
Knowing how to implement Generative Engine Optimization is crucial for businesses who want to improve their search visibility. The steps for implementing a successful GEO approach are:
- Keyword Research Keywords are just as important for GEO as SEO. Users will be asking AI similar questions to Google, therefore keyword research will give you a good indication of what keywords to optimise your content for to attain the largest presence.
- Competitor Research Using the AI Engines to see which of your competitors’ contents are appearing and seeing what principles, tactics and types of content they are using to appear will help you to make a more informed approach to GEO.
- Generative AI Analysis Use the generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and see which content is showing, how is it displayed, have they used quotes, and statistics, learn the different tactics that the AI engines appreciate and adopt them into your own work.
- Optimised Content Once you have chosen your keywords and understood the different tactics that are working for your competitors, as well as being valued by the search engines, start crafting your content to adopt these strategies while making sure your content remains original, insightful and authoritative.
- Further Research Continue to study LLMs to see what types of content are being displayed and if there are any changes in the types of content being appreciated, adapt your content based on the results of your research and analysis.
Importance of GEO?
The importance of GEO will continue to play a pivotal role for businesses in the future of digital marketing. The popularity of Generative AI Engines is now on the rise and is becoming more trustworthy, with users finding ways to use them in order to improve workflow and increase productivity. Businesses that start to incorporate GEO into their content now will find themselves in a great position in the future when GEO becomes a dominant strategy in the digital marketing industry.
