Generative engine optimization is SEO, which is actually a revitalized, reprioritized discipline in the Age of A.I.
SEO is not dead. In fact, it is silly to even think that SEO is becoming less relevant. However, if you look at marketing chatter, SEO posts on LinkedIn, and probably just about any news headline about search engine optimization, you would be led to believe that we are living through the “SEO End Times.”
The following three main points illustrate why I think SEO is more important than ever.
1. You have to SEO for good GEO, honestly
Whenever anyone discounts the value of search engine optimization these days, they are missing one super crucial, unavoidable, “oh, duh!” fact: In order to perform well in generative search results, you need to perform well in traditional organic search results. To put it more clearly, you need to follow search engine optimization best practices—and to keep optimizing your website over time—as your first level of generative engine optimization. That’s right, you gotta SEO as your primary GEO strategy.
Is "AI-powered search optimization" called GEO, GSO, A.I. SEO, or what?
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Why is that? It’s because SEO best practices, when actually practiced, send clear signals to internet bots about the content, products, services, and brand of each particular website. SEO optimizes the content and the code base of your website. The end result is that each page on your website—or at least the most important, highest trafficked, most unique, and biggest converting pages, I hope—becomes better for generative engine bots to access, crawl, and render at the same time that they become so for good, old Googlebot too.
2. Your SEO expert also brings GEO results
Given #1 above, it only makes sense that we SEO professionals are the most natural fit to GEO too. Whether you have an in-house SEO manager, are engaged with a marketing agency that is overseeing your Organic Search Roadmap, or are currently seeking the best SEO-GEO staffing solution for your particular business model, it really is imperative that you connect the optimizing of your website for traditional organic search rankings to its best opportunity to also perform in those new-fangled generative search results.
Your SEO expert knows your website, or will quickly gain that knowledge if you still need to fill that position, whether as a full-time hire or a temporary consultant. Your SEO manager will use their awareness of your particular site’s needs in combination with their expertise in leveraging available resources in order to make the enhancements and fixes that will bring the biggest organic-search bang for your buck. Your resulting return will be in both traditional Google search results as well as in generative search results. In other words, tasking your SEO consultant or staffer with normal SEO priorities also pays GEO dividends. That means you essentially get bonus foundational payoffs regarding “A.I. search optimization” while improving your still-crucial visits from organic traffic.
Another bonus: As your SEO expert helps your website to gain content authority for highly searched keyword phrases with search intent appropriate for your brand, products, and services, this benefits other marketing channels too, like SEM, brand, and social media.
3. Your organic visits still beat GEO clicks
If your current organic search traffic vanished today—poof!—you would lament not making SEO more of a business priority. If you look right now at Google Analytics, you would likely see vast throngs of users coming to your website via traditional organic search results compared to clicks from A.I. overviews.
Go ahead and check. I’ll sit tight. ; )
All levity aside, organic search has always been the traffic source that gets fewer resources, less staffing, and reduced attention. That’s in normal times. However, when there’s a shiny, new object in marketing or tech to squawk about, SEO has traditionally been (intentionally or mistakenly) the traffic source to be demoted, at least regarding discussions in C Suites, Marketing conference rooms, and Engineering coffee klatches. It is normal to get excited about new technology that might disrupt the status quo, or might even erupt in traffic and conversions.
That being said, organic search is the tried-and-true foundation for most of our businesses. It’s the one that delivers free (and/or low-ROI) traffic, bringing you users that generally engage and convert better too. This traffic has been harder to get in the recent couple of years as Google has redesigned its search results and pushed organic rankings farther down its page in order to surface in higher, more prominent SERP real estate even more paid placements, images, Knowledge Graph content, et al. Google’s AI Overview was the latest blow to organic search results, since it is increasingly shown at the top of SERPs and results in searchers both seeing fewer search results but also engaging more with the AI content.
But have all of your organic visits vanished? No, definitely not. We are in a new world where we need to reset expectations for organic traffic, but that does not mean abandoning or killing off SEO. We all still want (and need) organic visits. In fact, now SEO is more important than ever—because you need to rank at the top of organic search results more than ever in order to grab the clicks that are still available there, but also because your AI-related mentions and clicks will also benefit from implementing search engine optimizations.
SEO is the first, not the only, priority for GEO
SEO is to GEO as PR is to branding. That’s an over-simplification. But I want to illustrate that SEO is foundational to generative engine optimization. Your GEO would really suffer if you didn’t do SEO—if SEO were actually dead, in other words.
However, there are additional tactics to address in your GEO Roadmap. You want to focus on building your brand awareness, gaining press and content coverage on well-regarded websites (instead of your competitors gaining them), and using AI tools to focus the power of AI on particular gaps that your human staff cannot detect (or are unlikely to, at least).
The main point is that doing SEO is doing GEO. It is where to start. So let’s get started, eh? Click that button below and get a free audit of your website’s SEO—even if you have a current SEO manager in your product or marketing trenches. I will bring fresh eyes and GEO expertise to benefit your overall strategy and coming successes.
