Why Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) Only Works If SEO Is Strong
Generative Engine Optimisation is getting plenty of attention lately. You’ve probably noticed shifts in your analytics: impressions going up, clicks sliding down. That’s AI platforms like Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT Search answering queries directly instead of sending traffic to websites. GEO is designed to help your content be cited in these AI-generated answers.
Sometimes you like sticking to proven strategies, and other times you test new methods when the upside is clear. Both instincts are useful. But here’s the straight talk: GEO without strong SEO is wasted effort. Without crawlability, authority, and content that delivers value, there’s nothing for AI to summarise, cite, or rank.
My Take on GEO: Why I Back SEO First, But Won’t Ignore What AI Search Is Showing Us
I know some SEO experts like to roll their eyes at Generative Engine Optimisation and say it doesn’t really exist. I get it. Google still crawls, indexes, and ranks the web with hundreds of signals. SEO is still the foundation, and if your site isn’t technically sound, it won’t even be in the race. That’s why I’ve built my career on five pillars: SEO, SEM, social, copywriting, and consumer psychology. Those pillars shape everything I do, and they’re always where I start.
But here’s the thing: you can’t ignore what’s right in front of us. ChatGPT Search, Perplexity AI, Google AI Overviews, and even Claude are already reshaping how people discover information. I’ve seen SEO campaigns and PPC projects show up in those answers simply because the content was structured properly for generative models. You might want to dismiss GEO as hype, but the results are there. And if your site isn’t GEO-ready, your competitors are going to take the space you could have owned.
So here’s where I stand: I do SEO because without it you have nothing. And I do GEO, because I want to stay ahead of the game. If you’re serious about being searched and found, whether you’re running ads, building content, or working with an agency, you’re going to need both. SEO gets you discovered. GEO gets you cited. That’s the edge I’m after, and that’s the edge I would recommend you should be after too.
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How Google Search Really Works
Search is not run by one master algorithm. Google crawls the open web, indexes it, and ranks results with hundreds of signals. Different systems handle freshness, reviews, local results, news, and images.
Updates keep coming because Google runs thousands of tests and experiments every year. Some changes are major core updates. Most are small tweaks that adjust how queries are processed. Around 15 percent of searches every day are brand new. That means systems are constantly trying to interpret messy, vague, and unexpected wording.
Why This Matters for GEO
AI systems like ChatGPT Search or Gemini still sit on top of these fundamentals. If content is not discoverable, indexable, and authoritative, it won’t be used in AI answers, no matter how well it’s “GEO-optimised.”
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The Limits of GEO
AI Overviews reduce clicks on many informational queries. Google points out that engagement is often higher when users do click, but fewer clicks overall means fewer revenue opportunities. If your site depends on high-volume traffic for listicles or generic definitions, AI answers skim the surface before a user ever arrives.
Bigger brands with authority and multiple content formats like text, images, and video usually surface more often. Smaller publishers cannot compete by just “doing GEO.” Without distribution, backlinks, and unique assets, they risk invisibility.
The Tilt Toward Entities
Fan-out and diversity sound promising, but in practice, the deck favours established brands. Mentions, schema, and external authority signals are what AI systems trust. GEO only amplifies those signals if they already exist.
Practical Advice From the Ground Up
Google’s official line is still simple: good SEO is good GEO. That means making unique, valuable content for people. Myths to drop:
- There is no magic word count.
- Adding “expert-reviewed” boxes without substance does nothing.
- Chasing every micro-signal wastes time.
What works is clear:
- Improve page experience.
- Use video and images where they add value.
- Measure real business outcomes, not just traffic.
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How To Compete When AI Summarises the Web
Target where AI is weakest: action and decision queries. Create calculators, checklists, and tools that cannot be neatly summarised.
Add unique data and lived expertise: publish benchmarks, case studies, and real-world examples. Screenshots, workflows, and failure modes are difficult for AI to compress.
Build capture layers: email sign-ups, interactive tools, or lightweight quizzes. If clicks are fewer, each one should lead to a deeper relationship.
Diversify discovery: publish Shorts on YouTube, carousels on LinkedIn, guides on Reddit. Repurpose content into video and image formats to show up in surfaces where AI summaries don’t dominate.
Shift your metrics: track assisted revenue, lead quality, and tool completions. Reporting only sessions or CTR misses the bigger picture.
The Bottom Line
Generative Engine Optimisation matters. AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity AI are shaping how people find information. But GEO only works when SEO is strong.
SEO ensures content is crawled, indexed, and trusted. GEO makes that content discoverable inside AI answers. Without SEO, GEO is hype. With SEO, GEO is amplification.
If you want to win, create pages that do something, such as tools, calculators, workflows, benchmarks, and not just pages that say something. Own your audience through email, data, and brand signals. Then GEO can do its job: making sure AI engines cite you, not your competitors.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation or GEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation is the process of preparing content so that it can be discovered, cited, and summarised by AI-driven search engines such as ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity AI. Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking links in the search results page, GEO makes content understandable to large language models and retrieval systems. This means providing structured answers, supporting claims with citations, and making pages clear and accessible for AI crawlers.
The purpose of Generative Engine Optimisation is to increase visibility in zero-click search environments where users may never reach your website unless it is mentioned inside an AI-generated answer. By combining clear structure, schema markup, and data-rich content, GEO ensures that your site is not just indexed but actively used as a source within generative platforms.
SEO is Dying: Google Search Isn’t What It Used to Be
Is GEO replacing SEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation is not replacing SEO; it builds on it. Strong SEO practices such as crawlability, indexing, keyword relevance, backlinks, and site performance are still the foundation of search visibility. GEO adds an extra layer by focusing on how AI models interpret and present information. Without SEO, GEO does not work because generative systems still rely on the same indexing and authority signals used by search engines.
Instead of thinking of GEO as a replacement, it is better to see it as an amplification strategy. When SEO ensures your site is visible to search engines, GEO helps your content become the chosen citation within AI answers. Businesses that combine both approaches will secure visibility in both traditional rankings and AI-driven summaries.
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What is the difference between GEO and SEO?
The difference between SEO and GEO lies in their objectives. SEO is about optimising content to rank higher on search engine results pages. It involves keyword targeting, link building, technical optimisation, and user experience improvements. Generative Engine Optimisation, on the other hand, focuses on making content clear, structured, and data-backed so that AI engines can summarise it accurately and attribute it as a source.
In practice, SEO gets your content discovered, while GEO increases the chances that it becomes part of an AI-generated answer. For example, an SEO-optimised blog might rank first on Google, but without GEO techniques such as answer capsules, schema, and citations, it may not be cited by ChatGPT Search or Google AI Overviews.
What is GEO in regards to SEO?
In relation to SEO, Generative Engine Optimisation is an advanced practice that adapts content for AI-driven search environments. Both strategies share common ground: structured data, high-quality content, and authority signals. But GEO requires extra steps such as concise summaries, factual anchors, and proprietary assets that AI engines can pull into answers.
Think of GEO as the evolution of SEO for 2025 and beyond. SEO ensures your site is visible and trusted, while GEO ensures that visibility translates into citations in generative search. When both are applied together, content has a stronger chance of being both ranked in traditional search results and cited directly by AI platforms.
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How do I do GEO for my website?
To apply Generative Engine Optimisation, start with technical readiness. Allow AI crawlers in your robots.txt file, submit XML sitemaps to both Google and Bing, and make sure important images load without lazy loading. From there, build content that includes answer capsules, structured subheadings, and citation-worthy statistics. AI engines favour content that is concise, factual, and easy to summarise.
Next, enrich your site with schema.org markup to define entities such as your business, services, and authors. Publish case studies and data-rich content to build authority. Create interactive tools like calculators or checklists because AI Overviews often link to assets that satisfy user intent. GEO is not a one-off change but an ongoing process of making content more discoverable and usable by AI search engines.
What are AEO and GEO?
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) are related but distinct practices. AEO focuses on optimising content so that it appears in direct answer boxes, featured snippets, or voice search responses. GEO expands this idea for generative AI, ensuring content is summarised and cited in AI-driven platforms such as ChatGPT Search or Google AI Overviews.
Both AEO and GEO aim to get content into answer-first experiences, but AEO is tied to traditional search engines, while GEO is designed for AI systems that use retrieval-augmented generation. In short, AEO prepares sites for featured snippets; GEO prepares them for AI answers.
How to optimise for GEO?
Optimising for Generative Engine Optimisation involves a mix of technical SEO and AI-specific tactics. Start with strong SEO foundations: crawlability, fast site speed, and authoritative backlinks. Then add GEO layers: answer capsules that summarise key points, schema markup that clarifies entities, and data-rich content that AI can cite directly.
You should also focus on freshness. AI engines often rely on real-time retrieval, so regularly update evergreen content with new statistics and “last updated” tags. Finally, diversify your content into video, images, and interactive tools. These elements are harder to summarise in plain text, making them more likely to drive clicks when cited in AI answers.
What does GEO stand for?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It is a practice that ensures your content is discoverable, understandable, and citable by AI-driven search engines. Instead of competing for rankings on the traditional results page, GEO prepares your site to be used as a source within generative answers.
The term reflects the shift in how people find information in 2025. With more searches answered directly by AI systems, GEO ensures that businesses are not bypassed. By combining the foundations of SEO with the new requirements of AI, GEO helps content remain visible, trusted, and attributed in an evolving search landscape.
About the Author
Crom Salvatera is a strategist with over twenty years of digital marketing experience and $650M in client revenue influenced by his campaigns. Today, he helps businesses cut through the noise by blending SEO fundamentals with Generative Engine Optimisation to stay visible in AI-first search.
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