With the rise of AI taking over primary search engines and now mobile phones, after the announcement of Apple Intelligence, where does this lead the world of SEO? Generative engine optimisation has revealed how important AI has become to our daily lives – instead of manually searching through links to find the answer you need, you can use an AI-driven search engine and receive a direct answer.
For starters, everything we know about keyword and backlinking strategies will not go to waste. This knowledge will be used to master generative engine optimisation (GEO), a strategy that aims to push your content to become the source of a generative engine’s answer, prompting users to find your website through citation.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation?
GEO is a strategy that optimises content for visibility in responses generated by AI-driven search engines. This method includes optimising digital content to improve a website’s reach and visibility on AI engines such as Google SGE, BingChat and ChatGPT. Website content is scanned by a large language model (LLM) and used as a source of information to formulate responses to queries.
Why is This Important?
Search capabilities as we know them, are going to change. Users are becoming more accustomed to the conversational inquiries and tailored answers that AI offers, which is becoming a newfound standard.
While generative engines need content, businesses need exposure. Increasing your visibility in AI-generated results is key for accommodating a larger volume of users, no matter where they start their search journey. Interaction with Google is not going to end, but how we do so will change overtime. As a result, businesses should engage with marketing strategies that account for generative engines.
What are the Differences Between SEO And GEO?
Both SEO and GEO have become core methods for boosting visibility. Understanding the main similarities and differences between these will help you optimise your website content for both search and generative AI engines, ensuring your brand does not go unnoticed.
| SEO | GEO | |
| Key objective | Increase search ranking of a website to generate traffic and visibility on traditional search engines. | Boost exposure of a website by ensuring content is correctly implemented into generated responses and cited by generative engines. |
| Search engines | Designed for traditional search engines that list website links on a SERP. | Intended for generative engines that formulate responses using a number of sources. |
| Measuring success | Conversions, bounce rate and click-through rate are examples of metrics used to evaluate the success of SEO | Impression metrics that measure the visibility of citations to your website and their relevance to user query |
| Focus of optimisation | Targets keyword density, backlinks and meta information to improve rankings on traditional search engines like Google | Concentrates on content quality, relevance and the ability to directly answer queries, optimising for AI-driven generative search engines. |
| Technology | Uses analytics and SEO tools to track rankings, backlinks and keyword performance | Employs AI and machine learning algorithms to predict user intent and generate contextually relevant content |
How to Optimise Content for GEO
It’s crucial to understand the processes of generative AI so you can create content that is ideal for both humans and machines.
The model below references a query-output model that depicts the processes generative engines use to formulate a response to a user query. Other processes in this model may include extracting personal data the engine has accumulated from the user, such as their selection and conversion history.
A few fundamental aspects of optimising your content for GEO are:
- Relevancy – LLM’s pick up on relevant content which includes credible sources, quotes, statistics and industry language. Ensure your content is written in an authoritative tone that suggests industry experience.
- Diversity – Engage both humans and machines with your content by including photos, videos, forms, etc.
- Distribution – Sharing your content on platforms other than your website, such as LinkedIn and Quora, will increase your visibility. Ensure you link your content back to your business.
- Structure – LLM’s look for clear, concise content to pick up from websites that can be easily used to generate a response to a user’s query. Ensure your content is easy to read and understand by using headings, short paragraphs and lists where appropriate.
How Can We Help?
Site Clicks is a digital marketing agency with a passion for developing the online presence of businesses by boosting results. We are driven by a personalised approach by taking business objectives into account before creating a strategy that is guaranteed to show results. Our SEO and copywriting expertise allows us to optimise website content for success.
