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If you push past the Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is emerging as a new discipline for digital marketing consultants and all digital marketing professionals. It focuses on optimizing content so that AI / LLMs (ChatGPT, Bing AI, Google’s SGE etc.) will cite your brand or include you in the “answers” they generate. A closely related term is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) — the idea that instead of worrying about ranking in a list of search results, you aim to have your content appear in the answer in AI‐driven interactions. This shift changes not just tactics (keywords, links) but the structure and voice of content: more conversational, more structured (Q&A, schema markup, directness).
The notion that ChatGPT is replacing Google has been put to bed recently when Rand Fishkin, amongst others produced data that showed that while ChatGPT has approx. 66m daily “searches”, Google search has 14 billion. The gap is enormous. It’s probably wider again if you look at your own Google Analytics data lately and therein lies a significant opportunity.
As Will Critchlow from SearchPilot put it, search is evolving and digital marketers now must optimise not just for ranking in a list of SERPs but more deeply, to be understood and cited in AI generated summaries or answer paths. This is supported by research with this paper stating that generative engines (which build answers via LLMs from multiple sources) change how content is surfaced, and GEO is a proposed optimization paradigm to improve visibility inside those generative systems.
In practical terms, this means means structuring content in a way that makes it machine‐readable, trustworthy and fine-grained enough for AI to quote, summarise or rely on it when synthesising answers. So GEO is not a distinct or competing discipline from SEO; rather, it is a shift in mindset: from “rank well in SERPs” to “be credible and citable in AI responses.”
To adapt your content strategy, you’ll want to lean on a few core principles. Some derive from classic SEO, others are more specific to how LLMs / AI systems ingest and cite content. The table below outlines the basic principles, why it matters from a GEO perspective and how to practically implement as part of your content marketing strategy.
| Principle | Why it matters for GEO | Implications / tactics |
|---|---|---|
| Explicit, structured clarity | AI systems prefer content that is well-segmented into discrete units they can parse, rather than long unstructured prose. | Use clear headings, question-style subheaders, bullet lists, definition boxes. Segregate answers (the “direct answer” part) at the top of a section. |
| Short, direct answers + elaboration | If an AI is building an “answer snippet,” it often wants a succinct direct answer first, then elaboration. | Start each H2/H3 section with a 1–2 sentence direct answer. Follow with supporting paragraphs or examples. |
| Original data, insights, citations | Generative engines will more readily trust content that can be verified or is unique. | Use your internal data, survey results, case studies. Cite credible external sources. Link to high authority references. |
| Passage-level optimisation | Rather than optimising entire pages, you want “chunks” of text that answer specific queries. | Think in terms of micro-topics, focused subquestions, modular content blocks. Each block can potentially be excerpted. |
| Semantic / entity clarity | AI models use semantic understanding; disambiguating topics, defining terms and using canonical entity names helps. | Use schema / structured markup, definitions, synonyms, clarifying context (e.g. “by ‘X’ I mean …”). |
| Up-to-date freshness & signals | AI systems may prefer recent or trending content for dynamic queries, stale pages lose relevance. | Refresh content, log modification dates, include new statistics or commentary, maintain topical currency. |
| Testing & measurement | generative systems are opaque, only experiments will reveal what works in your niche. | Use A/B tests on content variants (e.g. different headings, answer styles) to see which get more visibility. |
Take the following steps to adjust your content strategy for GEO.
Step 1 – Audit your existing content
Catalogue your content by topic, conversions, freshness, depth etc. if you haven’t already done so. Whether you use SEMRush, SparkToro or another tool, review which pages are already ranking well for keywords and audiences you are targeting. This audit should give you an up-to-date read on what pages are high-value vs. lower value (e.g. thin on content) and should also identify gaps that your content strategy hasn’t yet covered. You can also tag content that you think LLM’s are likely to feature in their query responses e.g. FAQs, how-to-guides, cornerstone content.
Step 2 – Define your goals
There’s an element of unknown here because we can’t see what your content is cited for (if at all) but your goals at this stage should include increased organic CTR from organic search and AI-driven sources which should spur knock-on engagement and conversions later in the customer journey. As a productivity goal, aim to ensure that you have as much well-structured content as possible mapped to directly answering real user queries.
Step 3 – Revise Templates
If you use templates for your content you’ll need to review these template to match how people interact with LLMs e.g. included questions in your H2 / H3 headings and answer summaries as the intro to a new long-form block answering a question. Using lists, bullets and tables to segment content and structured mark-up (e.g. schemas) will make your content accessible to machines while referencing your own data also lends credibility to your content.
Step 4 – Put it to the test
This is a whole new world for digital marketing and nobody has all the answers. So, if your resources allow, test different changes and assess their impact e.g. split test two versions of a page and test questions in headings, then test chunking your content into smaller articles aimed at answering niche questions, test the mark-up, test where in your content you put specific answers. Be prepared to test regularly going forward as what works today may not work next week or six months from now.
Step 5 – Scale what works
When you hit the sweet spot of identifying which variations perform best, then the goal is to extend them across your content base and refresh older pages. Figuring out what performs best can give you a competitive advantage, which may mean you outsource the task of scaling this work across all of your content to seize on the early mover opportunity. Continuous monitoring of data in analytics (e.g. referral traffic for LLMs) and building on your content over time should ensure that your brand remains visible as LLMs become more integrated into daily life.
SEO isn’t going away, it’s just changing. Remember Google still outperforms the likes of ChatGPT by more than 200:1 in search volume terms, so maintaining your SEO content strategy still has to be the priority. Very often, under-resourced SMEs that don’t have the head count to excel at content marketing defer this kind of audit and future-proofing work. Doing this would be a missed opportunity but the hype around GEO somehow being a replacement or more important than SEO is not a data-driven claim. Even making small steps towards GEO-readiness, without sacrificing the human reader, will help your business to stay visible in the changing world of internet search.
Get in touch if you would like help creating a nimble, effective GEO and SEO-ready content marketing strategy for your business.
