You've spent years getting good at SEO. Keywords, backlinks, meta tags, page speed. You know the game inside out.
Then someone drops a new acronym on you: GEO. Generative Engine Optimization.
Your first thought? "Great, another buzzword I need to pretend to care about."
But here's the thing. This one's real. And if you ignore it, you'll wake up one day wondering where half your leads went.
SEO is about winning a spot on a list
Think about how Google works. You create content, Google crawls it, algorithms do their magic, and you end up somewhere on a list of blue links. Position 1 beats position 10. Page 1 beats page 2. Simple.
Your whole strategy revolves around climbing that list. Better keywords, more backlinks, faster page speed. All to move up a few spots and grab more clicks.
You're competing for attention in a crowded room.
GEO is about being the only answer
Now think about how ChatGPT works. Someone asks "What's the best CRM for freelancers?" and the AI just... answers. It doesn't show a list of 10 options. It recommends one or two by name.
There's no position 7. There's no "also consider these alternatives" sidebar. You're either mentioned or you're invisible.
That's the fundamental shift. With SEO, you compete for eyeballs. With GEO, you either exist in the AI's mental model or you don't.
What got you here won't get you there
Some SEO tactics that worked great for Google? They're worthless for AI.
Stuffing keywords into your content doesn't help because AI understands meaning, not keyword density. Having an exact-match domain like best-widget-reviews.com means nothing because AI doesn't care about your URL structure. And those link schemes that boosted your PageRank? AI weighs authority differently.
If your entire strategy was gaming Google's algorithm, you're starting from scratch.
The good news: some things work everywhere
Here's what actually transfers. Creating genuinely helpful content that answers real questions? Both Google and AI reward that. Building real expertise and authority in your space? That matters everywhere. Having a recognizable brand that people actually talk about? Universal currency.
The fundamentals of being useful haven't changed. The tactics for gaming systems have.
What GEO demands that SEO never did
GEO requires you to be known by name. Not just rank for keywords, but be the brand AI thinks of when someone asks about your category.
It requires third-party validation. AI heavily weighs what other people say about you, not just what you say about yourself. Those reviews, mentions in publications, appearances in comparison articles? They matter more than your own marketing copy.
It requires crystal-clear positioning. AI needs to understand exactly what you're for and who you help. Vague value propositions like "we help businesses grow" don't cut it. "We help freelance designers manage client projects" does.
And it requires showing up in conversations, not just searches. People ask AI questions the way they'd ask a friend. "What should I use for X?" is different from typing keywords into a search box.
A concrete example
Let's say you sell CRM software.
The SEO approach: Create a page targeting "best CRM software," optimize it for every related keyword, build backlinks, and pray you crack page 1.
The GEO approach: Make sure your CRM is recognized as the go-to option for a specific audience. Get mentioned in reviews and comparison content. Have a clear story about who you're for and why. Build enough brand recognition that when someone asks ChatGPT about CRMs for their use case, your name comes up naturally.
Different games. Different strategies.
Yes, you need both (for now)
Google still drives massive traffic. AI hasn't replaced search. Abandoning SEO would be stupid.
But the smart play is optimizing for both at the same time. And the good news is that the fundamentals overlap. Great content, real expertise, genuine authority. These work for Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and whatever comes next.
You're just adding a new dimension to your visibility strategy, not throwing out the old one.
How to track your GEO visibility
For SEO, you've got rankings, organic traffic, click-through rates, keyword positions. Straightforward.
For GEO, you need different metrics. How often does AI mention your brand? For which queries? How do you compare to competitors? Is your visibility improving or declining?
You can do manual checks, asking ChatGPT about your category and seeing if you come up. But that doesn't scale. Tools like Mentionable automate this, tracking your AI visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok so you actually know where you stand.
The clock is ticking
How fast is AI eating search traffic? Fast enough that you should care. Not so fast that you can wait until it's obvious to everyone.
Zero-click searches keep increasing. AI Overviews appear for more queries every month. ChatGPT and Perplexity usage grows faster than anyone predicted.
The brands building GEO visibility now will have an advantage when AI becomes the default way people discover products. The brands ignoring it will scramble later, playing catch-up against competitors who started early.
What you can do this week
Ask ChatGPT about your category. Are you mentioned? If not, why not? What does the AI recommend instead of you?
Check who AI thinks your competitors are. You might be surprised. The competitive landscape in AI recommendations isn't always the same as Google rankings.
Look at your positioning with fresh eyes. Is it clear enough that AI can understand what you're for? Or is it generic marketing fluff that sounds good but says nothing?
Set up tracking so you're not flying blind. You track your Google rankings. Track your AI visibility too.
SEO got you where you are. GEO determines whether you stay relevant.
The transition is already happening. The only question is whether you're ahead of it or scrambling to catch up.