GEO compared to SEO

Last Updated on 27/08/2025 by Arabella Brown

GEO compared to SEO

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What is GEO?

Your SEO strategy might be perfect, but is it still relevant? GEO vs SEO isn’t just another marketing buzzword battle – it’s a fundamental shift that’s already affecting your website traffic, whether you realize it or not.

For over a decade, SEO experts have been playing by the same rules: research keywords, craft quality content, build backlinks, and watch the Google traffic roll in. GEO is known as “generative engine optimisation”. Essentially, this means optimising your website’s content to be shown in AI-driven search engines, such as Chat GPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.  While you’re still optimizing for Google’s traditional search results, millions of potential customers are now getting instant answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s SGE – completely bypassing your carefully optimized website. This is where generative engine optimization (GEO) enters the chat. Unlike traditional search engine optimization (SEO), which focuses on ranking in search results, GEO ensures your content gets recognized, referenced, and featured within AI-generated responses. GEO helps your brand to appear in AI-generated results pages when someone searches for a query related to your products and services. The goal of GEO is to increase your visibility, be in front of engaged users and utilise targeted traffic.

What is the difference between GEO and SEO?

Whilst both GEO and SEO share a lot of qualities and tactics, you should consider some key differences. Understanding these will help you when creating content for your site, and ensuring you understand the difference between content creation for traditional search engines and AI-driven models will be crucial moving forward.

What can I do to ensure my content is GEO-friendly?

As SEO and GEO share a lot of the same methodologies and philosophies, you may be surprised that you might not have to change the way you create content drastically.

• Give credit where it is due: To shine within the world of GEO, it is important to support your arguments with quantitative data in your content. You should cite sources with internal links to credible sources, and using quotations from reliable figures will also help you build authority.
• Put an emphasis on flow and consistency: Make sure your content flows and is error-free.
• Semantically related keywords: Keyword research has always been important, but including keywords and semantically related keywords within your content in a natural way is important for GEO. Use keywords that are unique and relevant to your industry and niche with specific vocabulary.
• Make the complex simple: If you are creating content that deals with complex subjects, simplify it for users. This doesn’t mean you should shy away from dealing with nuanced topics, in fact, you should embrace your niche and deliver content that showcases your expertise. You can do this by answering specific queries and using persuasive language to stamp your authority and credibility.

What is similar between GEO and SEO?

• Authority building: Both GEO and SEO help you to build authority in your chosen field.
• User experience: The experience of the user will always be paramount for GEO and SEO.
• High-quality content & E-E-A-T: Both GEO and SEO reward high-quality content that has a focus on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.
• Continuous improvements: Improving and reviewing your content will always be important to stay relevant.

 Differences between GEO and SEO

• AI evolution: SEO focuses on algorithm updates, whereas GEO will focus on the capabilities and development of AI technologies.
• Response generation: You will have noticed a difference in the results generated by Google AI Overviews compared to generic results. They are comprehensive and delivered quickly; here is an example of the differences:
• Content formatting: GEO emphasises content creation that can be easily utilised by AI, including formats that are friendly to natural language processing rather than just optimising for search engine formats.
• User intent understanding: GEO uses advanced AI to interpret and, more importantly, anticipate the intent of the user’s search. This allows GEO to deliver results and content that are more accurate and relevant for that specific user.

What are the benefits of GEO?

The rise of AI and Google’s continued development of the SERPs means that GEO is happening and is here to stay. What are the benefits for users and e-commerce?

• Increased reach
• Data-driven insights
• Brand authority
• Credibility for your brand

How GEO and SEO Work Together

Despite their differences, GEO and SEO aren’t opposing strategies – they’re complementary. Here’s how GEO and SEO work together:

Tactical Considerations

• Entity optimization: Clearly define entities for both Google’s Knowledge Graph and AI context understanding.
• Front-load key information: Place critical facts early in content for both featured snippets and AI extraction.
• Technical foundation: Site speed and indexability remain critical for both discovery methods.

Strategic Content Structure

• FAQ sections: Satisfy featured snippet potential while providing direct answers AI can reference.
• Dual-purpose headers: Clear H2s and H3s help with SEO readability while creating perfect extraction points for AI.

Shared Foundation: Quality Content

• E-E-A-T principles: Expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness benefit both traditional rankings and AI citations.
• Content depth: Comprehensive content serves both strategies – detailed information ranks well in search and provides AI with extraction-worthy material.

Practical Implementation

• Expand keyword research: Include natural language questions AI users ask, not just traditional search queries.
• Audit existing content: Identify high-performing SEO content that can be optimized for GEO with minimal changes.
• Cross-channel measurement: Track both search rankings and AI citations to understand full content performance.

The most effective digital strategy doesn’t choose between GEO and SEO – it leverages both to create a comprehensive presence across all information retrieval channels, ensuring visibility regardless of how users seek answers.