AIO/GEO Is Pretty Much Just SEO, But with a Few Key Differences

Artificial intelligence optimization (AIO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) are going to be very important for the foreseeable future — but they’re also not that complicated. 

Or, rather, they’re not as complicated as marketers want you to think. The goal of every search engine is to deliver content that satisfies the end user’s needs; the goal of every generative text engine is to — you guessed it — deliver content that satisfies the end user’s needs.

The main difference? If possible, AI would love to keep you from clicking. Tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini will provide footnotes and external links, but their answers are structured in a way that keeps you on the page.

That’s why we’ve seen a 30% drop in organic traffic for most websites over the past two years. Note that I said “most” — we’ll come back to that shortly.

But zero-click search only goes so far.

If an end user wants something highly specific — if they’re ready to make a purchase, for example — they can’t do that entirely on ChatGPT (at least, not yet). Most people will skip past the AI when they’re at this point in the buyer journey; they’ll use traditional methods to search for exactly what they need.

But a growing number of people will ask AI for a recommendation. To get in front of those people, you really need to build a website that works well with AI. 

And ideally, you want to be referenced by AI at the earlier stages of the conversation, too — AI tools are essentially taking over the top levels of the sales funnel, so you want your brand to be prominently positioned for those users.

Here’s the good news: Technical SEO tactics still work.

Technical SEO is about configuring your content so that it’s machine readable. That also helps with accessibility, by the way; if a search engine can easily read your content, so can a person who uses a screen reader (which converts text to audio) or another type of assistive technology. 

That’s why the best practices of technical SEO are essentially identical to the best practices of GEO. Generative engines are, after all, machines. They want to be able to scan your content easily — bypassing JavaScript, for the most part — so that they’re able to cite it authoritatively.

If you look at any list of “GEO tips,” you’re going to find some of the same techniques that good SEO agencies have been screaming about for years:

• Use appropriate schema markup to help the AI understand the structure of your page.
• Make sure that you’re not overusing JavaScript, particularly if you’re using it to deliver your main marketing copy.
• Have an accurate site map.
• Use plenty of relevant internal and external links. 
• Have appropriate alt text for images, along with transcripts and captions for videos.

While marketers are trying to pretend that this is world-shaking stuff, none of this is new.

The main difference between GEO and SEO is in the structure of the content itself.

And honestly, this is just another set of best practices that have been around since the early days of the internet.

It’s just that generative engines are more attuned to the needs and attention spans of real users than search engine spiders: They want to quickly find authoritative answers. You can’t trick them by writing walls of text with keywords thrown in randomly. 

Generative engines are more semantic. They’re more capable of understanding context and presenting information than search engines (though in our opinion, they’re not that great with context, either, they’re just better than traitional search engines). 

To appear in AI citations, you simply need to write authoritative content that appeals to your target audience. You need to present real facts that AI will find compelling — you need to get specific, particularly if you’re talking about your business’s accomplishments or products.

But here’s the bad news: You can’t really use AI to write for AI. 

Because if you could do that, the generative engines would just…do that.

They wouldn’t take the time to consult your website; they’d just present the AI-written answer that seemed the most appropriate to the query.

With that in mind, your AI strategy should involve quite a bit of content planning. You should be delivering messages about what makes your business work, and what sets your products apart from the competition. Frame that content in a way that answers questions — ideally, a question that a real user would ask — and you’re in great shape. 

We’ve seen this work; one of our clients saw a 20% increase in traffic year-over-year, despite the new “zero-click” search economy. Here’s how they did it:

• They published weekly content, focusing on success stories, case studies, and original research. 
• They didn’t publish too much. Every blog and LinkedIn post had a purpose that supported their brand — they didn’t simply push out dozens of AI-written articles.
• They reached out to partners and included them in the content strategy where relevant. Success stories featured longtime clients, who then shared the posts on social media.
• They utilized the content in sales presentations. Remember, every piece of content is a potential sales tool — it’s not just for the generative engines to mulch through.

Content writers should also be aware of the minor signals that influence AI citations; it’s best to provide an answer in the first sentence, for example, and to write conversationally wherever possible.

But overall, SEO and GEO have quite a bit in common. In fact, they’re essentially the same, apart from some minor adjustments in emphasis — good content is more important than ever, it just needs to be more focused for those bottom-of-funnel conversions. 

If you’re interested in setting up a content strategy, we’re here to help. Send us a message.