Ep 4.1: How Generative Engine Optimisation Will Shape Digital Marketing

We’re baaaack! Hello listeners. So-so sorry for ghosting you for half a year, but 2024 turned out to be hella busy for us, even too busy to take five minutes to check in and give you a status update. So consider this a brand new season, a brand new episode, and a status update all rolled into one. 

So, since we last spoke, the most exciting thing to come out of digital marketing is of course, the emergence of generative engine optimisation or G-E-O. Obviously, there are other things going on in the world right now, some of which is enough to make the aliens take one good look at us and turn their ships right back around, but if we just focus our telescope on the digital marketing horizon, we start to see that not only is GEO actually a pretty interesting topic to follow, but it looks like something that really really will change the way people search the internet. 

But panic not! Because we are going to dissect this digital marketing upstart, draw it under a microscope, and take a closer look at what GEO is and how you can integrate it into your existing SEO strategies. 

So, to start, let’s define our terms.

Generative Engine Optimisation or GEO: What the hell is that? In its simplest form, GEO is a digital marketing strategy that works by optimising web content for generative AI-based searches, such as Google’s AI Overview/Gemini, ChatGPT, Bing AI, Perplexity, Claude, and a slew of others. 

What does that look like? 

Let’s say I want to find out how to entertain my dogs so that they’re not always bored and sleeping away the hours while I’m at my desk. Napping is important of course, but I know that they also sleep because they don’t have anything to do while I’m working. And I also don’t want them to be solely stimulated by food because my lab is already a bit on the chubby side. So what do I do? How do I even word the question? Well, if I’m using Chad, which is what my sister calls ChatGPT, not realising that humanising robots is exactly how we lose the AI war, then I will simply type the question like I’m talking to an expert. So I type in “According to animal behaviourists, what are some non treat-driven ways to keep my dogs entertained while I’m at home working?”

Now, if I were to type that long-winded question into Google what would I get:

A featured snippet, yes, but the advice it’s giving isn’t actually in answer to my question. It’s telling me “how to keep your dog entertained indoors.” Hmmm, that’s not exactly what I said, is it? Moving past the featured snippet, we’ve got that Discussions and Forums section, which I don’t know about you, I tend to skip over because the likelihood that I’m going to find an answer from an animal behaviourist rather than a regular Jo-Shmoe is pretty low. At least that’s how I perceive it. Then moving down SERP, we finally get some hits that look like they’ll give me the answer I’m looking for. So, I click on each one, scan the page, take what I want from each one, and there I have my answer.

You know, this is the type of thing we’ve been doing for over 20 years, so what I just described isn’t actually that weird. Except that maybe, admittedly, it’s not really that efficient. 

So, lemme ask Chad that same long-tail query. Here it is again, “According to animal behaviourists, what are some non treat-driven ways to keep my dogs entertained while I’m at home working?”

By the way, I admit that I could have been more succinct in my question, but I am a human and some of us humans tend to go around the houses rather than shoot in straight lines.

So, how does Chad answer? Well, for starters, it understands my question and doesn’t provide irrelevant answers. It doesn’t send me off on a wild goose chase (I’m probably being a bit harsh, but you know what I mean). It just finds the answer for me based on all the relevant information on the internet and almost instantly spoonfeeds it to me in one easy-to-read list. 

And because I asked it to only give me answers from animal behaviourists, it also gives me a list of sources and links to those sites. That is how GEO works. It’s about optimising your site so that when someone makes a product, service, or expertise-related query into a Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, or whatever, your site appears in AI-generated results. 

To put it another way, the goal of GEO is to increase your site’s visibility and engage with users as their search behaviour evolves with the emergence of this more efficient AI-driven technology.

My question about my dogs was long and contained quite a few elements, all of which Chad took into account: the request for expert advice, the fact that I wanted to avoid treat-based activities as much as possible, and the fact that I work from home. The GEO-optimised sites that Chad used to answer my question had structured content that was relevant, authoritative, and contained conversational queries. 

There’s a lot more to it than that, obviously, which we’ll get to in a minute, but I just want to continue establishing a foundational understanding of GEO, and that brings me to my next question, which is:

How Is GEO Different from SEO?

SEO targets traditional search engine results pages (SERPs) where users are presented with a list of links to websites. You know, the typical way we’ve been searching for things. Its purpose is to rank on page one, result one using relevant keywords to drive organic traffic to a website.

GEO, on the other hand, is all about making sure website content is featured in AI-generated answers or summaries rather than just a list of links.

The three pillars of SEO are keyword research, technical SEO, and off-page SEO. That is to say, that when it comes to SEO, keyword-rich content is just as essential to your visibility as, for example, your on-page layout, your backlinks, your meta data, and your page speed. 

Although technical optimisation is also important for GEO, its practice is more focused on context-rich content that’s both conversational and structured for AI. For example, semantic relevance is more important to AI search engines than keyword stuffing, not that you should be keyword stuffing anyway. 

There’s a very big difference in search behaviour. SEO is set up for short or long-tail keywords, such as “best SEO tools of 2025” or “1954 Academy Award Winners” with the understanding that users will quickly judge the link relevance based on the meta title and click on each page until they find what they’re looking for. This, as we know, is usually accomplished on the first page.

GEO is designed to do the heavy lifting for people by directly delivering synthesised answers or actionable insights. These answers are pulled from various high-authority sources across the internet that’s easy for AI to summarize.

The ranking signals I mentioned earlier are to SEO what authority, context, and structure are to GEO: that could mean, schema markup, FAQs, the relationships between entities and topics, and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). 

So, even as I explained the differences, I also sort of illustrated how similar these two digital marketing practices are:

They’re both trying to increase your brand visibility.
• They’re both invested in understand and satisfying the end user
• They both have an insatiable hunger for high-quality, authoritative content
• They both rely on keyword research, though in slightly different ways
• They both use structured data
• They both favour sites that are fast and crawlable and technically optimised.

So, if they’re so similar, does that mean that SEO is dead? 

Not exactly. In fact, not even close. For starters, traditional search engines still represent the vast majority of internet searches, and that number isn’t descending fast enough for anyone paying attention to really panic. Second of all, Generative AI isn’t the most appropriate search engine for every query, and third of all, and this is how I see it, GEO is really only made possible thanks to SEO.

So, lemme set the record straight, straight, straight. SEO is certainly not dead. It’s not dying; it is, like all industries in the wake of AI, evolving right alongside it. 

Up next, we’re going to look at the types of queries where GEO really shines.

I just mentioned that AI search engines aren’t always the appropriate venue for user queries. For example, when someone needs to navigate through an entire website or explore a topic at a deeper level. But what kind of queries do make the most sense for GEO?

AI is really good at answering complex or multi-faceted questions, much like my dog example. For these types of questions, AI pulls information from multiple sources and synthesizes them into a single response, which is really all we’re looking for most of the time.

AI is also really great at conversational and intent-based searches that mimic natural language questions, because it’s really good at understanding context and intent. 

If you’re looking for AI to basically do research or compare options for you, it’ll quickly give you a summary of your options and outline the key differences, something I personally find very helpful in my daily life. 

Although AI can be really good at answering industry-specific or niche questions, I’ve also seen it make silly mistakes or deliver really only surface level answers, so depending on the nature of your technical question and how niche it is, you may be better off searching on Google for that one.

AI can walk you through how-tos and step-by-step guides very easily.

So, how can we shift our marketing strategies to incorporate GEO practices?

Because there’s so much overlap between SEO and GEO, the most effective foot forward is to broaden your existing practices to increase your visibility in both strategies.

Now we’ve reached the chunky, juicy, meaty bit of the sandwich. If you want to take notes, now’s the best time to whip out your quills and vellum.

How do you boost your website for GEO?

#1: Start writing 24-karat-gold content. No matter what the subject of the podcast episode is, this bit of advice always seems to make its way in, so let that sink in for you. Quality content is the undefeated, undisputed, un-usurped king of SEO and GEO. AI search engines are looking for content that demonstrates E-E-A-T. Don’t half-ass your content and don’t write about something just for the keyword grab. Show that you are the masters of your own domain by churning out content that’s comprehensive, provides clear and direct answers to questions, and includes well-researched and cited references. But guess what compadres, if you care this much about boosting your GEO, you’re probably already producing the cat’s pyjamas of content, just keep going! Well, that is to say, keep writing great content, but also…

#2: Target long-tail and conversational queries in your content (that’s number two, by the way).  For GEO, you want to focus on natural language and conversational queries and prompts. For example, my dog question from earlier, but also something like, “What are the best marketing strategies for B2B SaaS startups in 2025?” or “How do I increase the dexterity of my non-dominant hand so I can become ambidextrous?” The point is to incorporate long-tail and natural-sounding questions and phrases into your copy. You might also want to start adding in an FAQ section, as this is by far the clearest way to both ask and answer a series of related questions on the same page. But since you already are conducting keyword research for your SEO efforts, you should already have the skills and tools to do it.

#3: In your content, focus on optimising for entities. Since GEO is like that neurotic cop with the red string linking maps and pictures and evidence bags all together to build a story of the case that’s about to go cold, you want your content to give AI systems all the blatant clues they need to understand what exactly they’re looking at. That means adding related words to your main topic that disambiguate meaning. For example, if you’re talking about Labradors, the other entities within your page should make it abundantly clear that you’re talking either about the Canadian maritime province or about Labrador retrievers. It’ll understand which one you’re referring to thanks to these other entities. Entities like “Canada” “Atlantic” “Land of the Fish” or “local dialect” will tell AI one thing, and “Labrador Retriever” “hip dysplasia” “family dog” and “chocolate lab” will tell it another. 

#4: Use structured data to make your page’s content and context easy to understand.

#5: Consider how your content is laid out on the page. AI tends to favour short, clear, and concise paragraphs that are couched between appropriate headers and copy that doesn’t go overboard on the industry jargon unless you’re writing for a technical audience. If that sounds like on-page SEO, you nailed it.

#6: Sow your wild oats. The great conquerors of our time didn’t sit at home all day shouting up and down their stone halls talking about how big and scary and super awesome they were at pillaging neighbouring towns. No! They went out there and showed their skills at pillaging and plundering by doing it and showing lesser would-be conquerors how it was done. All that to say, backlinking and off-page optimisation are incredibly important for GEO. Think about it. AI is kind of like the Eye of Sauron? It sees all. It knows all. It looks everywhere for what it wants, so the more often it finds you on various platforms, the more valuable your content will be.

#7: Create a diversity of engagement opportunities by adding explainer videos, quizzes, and infographics alongside your content. And don’t forget to, of course, use descriptive file names as well as alt text. 

And lastly, #8: Don’t settle for what you already know because GEO as a discipline is still a moving target, so we don’t know what the best practices will be in six months or year. That is to say, my dearest friends, stay informed and don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from your findings. 

That is my take on generative engine optimization, folks. It is not the swan song of SEO as many marketers fear, but to avoid it would be to ignore a pretty big opportunity to increase your visibility and embrace a new wave of digital marketing.

That’s all for today. Thanks for joining me after such a long hiatus. We are all pretty excited about GEO at Geeky Tech, so expect to hear a lot more from us on this topic in the coming months. 

Head over to our website geekytech.co.uk for show notes and transcripts and follow us on social media @ geekytechgeeks.