GEO SEO: 7 Generative Engine Optimization Content Strategies Your Brand Should Know

SEO and AI are now fully intertwined, giving way to a new era of Organic Search optimization.

While keywords and backlinks used to be the primary tools for success (and still are in many ways), brands hoping to drive new revenue through Organic Search need to optimize for more than just rankings; you need to integrate generative engine optimization into your overarching digital strategy.

What is GEO, and how does it compare to SEO?

What are some generative engine optimization strategies brands can implement to generate momentum as we move further into AI-dominated Search?

Here’s what you need to know.

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization and includes the process of optimizing content so it appears in AI applications.

If you’ve Googled anything in the past year, you’ve likely noticed a new feature called AI Overviews.

They started appearing for a few select searches at first, but now appear for roughly 13% of all searches, typically for informational queries, although they do appear for commercial searches.

AI Overviews are a user-facing example of AI-powered search at work, and generative engine optimization is the process of optimizing content to appear in these features. This applies to more than just Google, as many are starting to use generative AI tools like ChatGPT as a Search alternative.

These AI search engines go beyond keywords as they are well-equipped to understand the context and intent behind each query. Then, they utilize large language models to generate answers to user questions.

The genie’s out of the bottle for AI search, and although long-standing SEO best practices are still valuable, marketers can’t afford to ignore GEO any longer.

The bottom line: If you want to future-proof your Organic Search strategy, GEO must be a core component.

Some marketers have predicted the death of SEO for years, and the rising integration of AI in Search has only accelerated those calls. But if anything, GEO is just the next evolution of Organic Search optimization rather than a complete departure. Still, there are some distinct differences to know.

While GEO means you need to rethink your approach to Organic Search optimization, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. In fact, many of the same content optimization best practices.

Even with AI playing a larger role in Search, content is still crucial to getting your brand in front of searchers. In fact, it’s more important than ever, which is why many brands are scaling their Organic Search investment to maintain their rankings and improve their odds of being featured in AI Overviews and other generative features.

Here are some of our tips and best practices to help your brand integrate GEO into its overall marketing strategy.

Successfully optimizing for AI search results requires a ton of high-quality content.

Since the primary goal of this type of content is to provide helpful advice, answer questions, and educate readers, you need to cast a wide net while still exemplifying EEAT.

For many brands, generative AI helps create high-quality content at scale. With AI writing tools, you can increase your overall output, allowing you to target multiple keywords and topics effectively.

However, there’s more to it than entering a prompt into ChatGPT and letting your content creation process run on autopilot.

Instead, use these tools to help you create initial outlines or drafts for product descriptions, blogs, and other content. After this initial draft, you can then refine and optimize it to ensure it’s accurate, helpful, and matches your brand’s unique voice.

Search trends are constantly evolving, and what people search for today might not be what they search for tomorrow.

This can be discouraging for SEOs, especially after spending so much time and effort climbing the rankings for a keyword that might not have staying power.

Generative AI can help you better understand how search trends evolve and help predict what’s on the rise and what’s around the corner.

Using AI tools, you can analyze patterns in user behavior and predict upcoming search trends. Then, you can create content at scale to capitalize on the emerging trend before demand peaks.

It’s all about being timely, anticipating user questions, problems, and interests before they arise, and developing content that comprehensively addresses each.

One of the primary objectives of generative search and features like Google’s AI Overviews is to provide a personalized experience for every user.

While classic Google Search results were just a list of 10 blue links, these new SERP features are more tailored to the user’s specific query and the intent behind it. With tools like ChatGPT, that personalization is taken even further.

This means you need to accurately create content to target all different types of user segments. With content hyper-personalized to them, you can achieve better engagement and conversion rates.

While this takes a ton of work, generative AI can be especially useful for personalization at scale.

You likely have a breakdown of your audience demographics and an understanding of their basic preferences and behavior, and you can easily input this data into your generative tool and tailor the content to match.

Focus on personalizing your landing pages, product descriptions, and blog posts to high-value segments.

Since generative AI tools were widely introduced a couple of years ago, the internet has been overrun with all kinds of AI-generated content.

Although generative AI is great for producing large amounts of content, quality still matters. Nobody wants to read regurgitated, poorly-written generic content, not even the AI tools that crawl the web to source content for users.

Most importantly, each piece of content should be unique. You must maintain authenticity and originality to avoid duplicate content penalties.

This has always been true in the SEO world, and is even more critical in AI SEO optimization, since it’s all too easy for your writing tool to churn out the same content repeatedly when working at scale.

This is why human oversight is vital in generative content creation.

Even if you let a tool do much of the legwork, you still need to carefully review each piece, checking for quality and uniqueness. It’s well worth the effort, as this oversight ensures your content is accurate, original, and represents your brand well.

People consume content everywhere, so your content should be optimized for every touchpoint and surface.

From search engines to social media to the blog section of your site, people are discovering and learning about your brand across different platforms and devices. Additionally, AI is integrated across these various platforms.

You can’t just post or share the same content on each platform. It must be optimized for the specific user, their intent, and the platform itself.

As you create your GEO content, ensure it works well across these platforms, specifically engineered for maximum engagement based on each platform’s unique format and the type of user.

AI can be useful for creating content variations designed for different algorithms, so you can fine-tune and ensure you’re serving the right content in the right place.

As any content marketer knows, creating and publishing content is just one step. To fine-tune your strategy and avoid wasting time on ineffective content, you need to stay on top of your analytics.

AI excels at analyzing large data sets and generating insights a human may miss. It can help you track key performance metrics like views and clicks and track rankings for your most valuable keywords.

With these AI analytics tools, you’ll be able to make better-informed decisions much faster, so you can adjust or pivot your GEO strategy to focus on areas most likely to drive organic growth.

The introduction of generative AI writing tools has brought a lot of good to the digital ecosystem, but it also raises ethical concerns. Can you trust what an AI tool writes? Hallucinations are still widespread, so human oversight is absolutely critical.

AI tools aren’t replacing content departments anytime soon, and the companies and news organizations that have tried have learned this fact the hard way. Use AI tools all you want, but use them ethically.

Every piece of content needs to be edited, proofread, and fact-checked by an expert. This ensures you avoid plagiarizing other people or accidentally misleading or manipulating users.

Just as we’ve long taken a stand against black hat SEO practices, unethical AI use should be guarded against as well.

You’ve worked hard to build trust with your customers and differentiate your brand in a crowded market; don’t tarnish your reputation by cutting corners when using AI tools.

We’re entering a new and exciting time in Organic Search, and it pays to have a trusted partner by your side.

VELOX has worked with hundreds of clients through all of Search’s ups and downs, helping them navigate changing systems and come out on top. We’re a Google Partner, and are recognized as one of the top agencies worldwide for our results and quality of service.

If your company needs help implementing these GEO best practices and wants to capitalize on this revolutionary moment, contact us today.