The brave new world of GEO
So that’s Generative Engine Optimisation vs Search Engine Optimisation.
It feels like we’ve been tuning to SEO forever, but now there’s a new kid in town. While it would be great to just be friends with the new kid, turns out we still have to be friends with our old mate SEO.
What is the difference between GEO and SEO?
For the moment, consider SEO as the foundation and GEO as the extra layer you now need for visibility in AI generated responses.
To put it simply, your SEO works makes sure you appear in search results pages - still super important.
Your GEO work helps you appear, for example, in the AI generated summary at the top of a Google search, or any generated response is, say, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity AI, Microsoft Copilot etc.
The goal is for your brand to appear and be cited in the AI generative conversation.
What are the AI generative models looking for?
They are looking for shortcuts, just like humans.
Where SEO is all about keywords and search terms, GEO is all about questions and answers. AI generative solutions are searching the interwebs for answers to your question, if they find a website that has posed and answered that question, there’s a good chance it will throw it into the answer.
Too simple? Yeah, probably. AI is not just a trawler or searcher, we already had that. AI is a connector.
Remember the last time you needed to connect two things - physically, emotionally, psychologically. Things are always easier to connect when they're discrete and identifiable on their own.
Let’s go with physical things. Picking up your charge cord and plugging it into your laptop is easy because it’s super easy to identify the two separate things and what their relationship is to each other.
Writing GEO content
Writing GEO content is more than questions and answers. It also involves making sure you don’t fuzzy up your concepts.
One single question. One single answer to that question. One simple infographic about that question. One thought bubble at a time.
Sure, AI has moved past the importance of single keywords, but it still needs singular concepts - people, places, ideas, solutions - to identify and connect.
