What is GEO vs SEO? Why GEO is now more important than SEO
What is GEO vs SEO? Search engines aren’t what they used to be. AI-generated overviews are stealing the spotlight and reshaping how to get discovered. If you’re relying on SEO, keywords and backlinks, you’re already behind, because Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is now the key to getting noticed.
What is GEO vs SEO? Why GEO is now more important than SEO
by Bobby Owsinski via Music 3.0
After we get a nice informative website up and running, the next thing we want is for people to find it. For years that was built around the practice of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), where keywords, backlinks, and site speed played a big role in your search engine ranking. With online discovery now based around AI chatbots, the marketing focus is now changing from search engine optimization to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which requires a different approach and mindset.
You’ve no doubt noticed that every time you do a Google search now, the first thing that comes up is an AI-generated answer to your query rather than a set of blue site links. As a result, it’s been estimated that web traffic in general is down from 15 to as much as 70%, and it will probably go down even further as we go along.
So if the traditional SEO tweaks are no long as effective in getting traffic to your site, what works?
Here’s some of what GEO is all about:
Content Quality – Although it’s always been important, Google is especially looking for quality content on your site to put in its AI Overviews.
This includes what it calls “citable chunks” that already answer common questions. Understand that you’re more likely to get traction if you have “domain authority,” meaning that your site has been around for awhile and had a reasonably good ranking in the previous SEO era.
Google also likes lists for its overviews, but that’s always been the case so really no change there.
Form And Layout – Using simple, direct language AI can easily interpret, but organizing it with headings and lists provide concise points for easy extraction.
Keywords – SEO mavens used to spend hours searching for the best keywords for a site, and then determining just how to work them in, but this is no longer required. The AI Overviews use natural language processing to understand the meaning and intent of your content, so if keywords are getting in the way of the content quality, that will be held against you.
Analytics – This used to be so important when trying to optimize your site SEO, but key performance indicators like targeting, backlinks, and even site traffic don’t mean nearly as much. Just like on social media, learning how the algorithm works will be much more important.
The Goal – In SEO, our aim was not only to be listed, but listed as high in the results as possible. With GEO, the aim is to be cited in the AI Overview in the hopes that a reader might want more information and decide to click through.
Some say that SEO, and even the web as we know it, is doomed as a result of the Google AI Overviews, but that seems somewhat extreme. It’s true that everything we knew about search is changing right before our eyes, but there are now also strategies to roll with those punches.
The importance of a website will not diminish, as it’s still an online home for your information that you solely control. How people find it will be another matter.
Bobby Owsinski is a producer/engineer, author, blogger, podcaster, and coach. He has authored 24 books on music production, music, the music business, music AI, and social media.
