The Key Elements of a Successful Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Marketing Strategy

What Is Generative Engine Optimization?

GEO, AEO, LLMO, AIO—those are some buzzwords you’ve likely been hearing in the marketing world. While the marketing community hasn’t settled on which of these words will live on as the official term for this strategy, they essentially mean the same thing.

Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing your business’s content and digital presence for LLMs and other AI search engines like Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other similar tools. Unlike traditional search engine optimization (SEO), which relies solely on traditional keyword rankings, GEO focuses on ensuring content is discoverable, citeable, and trusted in synthesized answers generated by AI.

GEO recognizes that search engines are no longer just returning links. They’re generating answers using trained language models that scan multiple sources, synthesize key points, and serve those insights directly to users, often without them needing to click.

In this AI-first, zero-click landscape, your brand must be a part of the language model’s training and inference ecosystem, meaning:

• Your content structure matters
• Your brand authority matters 
• Your presence across the broader web matters 

That’s where GEO comes in. It’s the strategic evolution of SEO, focused on building content and brand visibility across AI interfaces. When done right, it ensures your business doesn’t just show up in search results—it gets referenced, cited, and trusted by generative engines themselves. 

In short, if SEO is about ranking links, GEO is about being the answer.

What Is the Difference Between SEO & GEO?

While SEO and GEO both aim to increase your brand’s visibility in search, they differ significantly in how and where that visibility is achieved.

SEO: Optimizing for Traditional Search Results

SEO is focused on helping your content rank in traditional search engine results pages (SERPs). It relies on a mix of:

• Keyword targeting
• Backlink building
• Technical optimization
• User experience
• E-E-A-T principles

SEO is designed around indexing and ranking, ensuring your content appears high on the page when users search specific queries.

GEO: Optimizing for AI-Generated Results

GEO, on the other hand, is about getting your brand and content referenced in AI-generated answers produced by language models like Google’s AI Overview, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. These tools synthesize content from multiple sources into a single, human-like response.

To show up in generative engines, you need to optimize for:

• Clear, structured, semantically rich content
• Brand authority and entity recognition
• Answerability and context, not just keyword density
• Presence across the broader web, including unlinked mentions

Why This Difference Matters

SEO alone is no longer enough to guarantee visibility, especially as AI-driven search grows more dominant. If your brand isn't optimized for generative engines, you risk becoming invisible in zero-click, answer-first search experiences.

That’s why leading marketers are now layering GEO on top of their SEO strategies, ensuring their content performs in both traditional and generative environments.

TL;DR: SEO helps you rank. GEO helps you get referenced. You need both to thrive in the future of search.

Is GEO Replacing SEO?

All this has people wondering if GEO is replacing SEO, but don’t you worry. GEO isn’t replacing SEO, it’s expanding it. While the rise of generative engines may feel like a seismic shift, the reality is that SEO and GEO work best together. GEO doesn’t make SEO obsolete; it builds on it to meet the evolving demands of AI-driven search.

But traditional SEO remains foundational. Optimizing for search intent, technical health, page speed, structured data, and E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) still plays a crucial role in how both humans and machines find and evaluate your content. 

What’s changing is where and how that content is surfaced. 

The Shift: From Ranking to Referencing

Search engines like Google still serve up standard SERPs, but now, they’re also:

• Synthesizing answers in AI Overviews
• Pulling citations from trusted sources
• Summarizing content across multiple domains
• Using LLMs to provide context without needing a click

GEO helps you optimize for these new surfaces, ensuring your content is not only indexable but also useful, citeable, and structured in a way that AI engines can understand and include.

SEO + GEO = Complete Visibility

Think of GEO as your strategy for visibility in AI-generated experiences, while SEO remains your strategy for visibility in traditional SERPs. Together, they form a more holistic approach to search—one that ensures your brand shows up whether someone is typing into Google, asking ChatGPT, or skimming an AI answer carousel.

Bottom line: SEO isn’t going away, but brands that invest in GEO now are building a competitive edge in the next generation of search.

Metrics That Matter for GEO

One of the biggest challenges in adopting GEO is knowing how to measure success.

Traditional SEO metrics like keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks are still useful, but they don’t tell the whole story when it comes to AI search visibility.

GEO requires a new set of performance indicators that reflect how your content and brand are being cited, synthesized, and surfaced by large language models (LLMs).

Here are the key GEO metrics marketers should be tracking:

1. AI Overview Inclusion Rate

Are your pages or brand being referenced in Google’s AI Overviews? This is one of the most visible new surfaces in search, and a major indicator of how well your content performs in generative formats.

• How to track: Manual audits, Goodie’s AI Visibility tools, or third-party SGE monitoring tools
• Why it matters: Inclusion often drives brand awareness, zero-click visibility, and influence over the synthesized narrative

2. Brand Citation Frequency in LLMs

Are tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity referencing your brand when answering user questions? These unlinked mentions carry huge weight in GEO, similar to backlinks in traditional SEO.

• How to track: Test prompts, audit outputs, and monitor through tools like Goodie
• Why it matters: LLMs prefer brands they "know" and frequent citation builds familiarity and trust in the model’s outputs

3. Answer Coverage Across Key Topics

How often does your content get surfaced as part of answers, not just as a link? This includes being quoted, paraphrased, or summarized in AI-generated responses.

• How to track: Run topic-based prompt testing in LLMs and look for semantic matches
• Why it matters: GEO is about visibility within the answer, not just showing up in a list

4. Entity Recognition and Clarity

Is your brand treated as a clear, distinct entity in LLMs and AI systems? If your content is vague, inconsistent, or fragmented across the web, generative engines are less likely to include it.

• How to track: Use tools like Google’s Knowledge Panel, schema validators, and entity audit tools
• Why it matters: Strong entity recognition boosts trust, reduces ambiguity, and increases inclusion in AI summaries

5. AI Search Visibility Score

This is a composite metric offered by platforms like Goodie and HubSpot’s AI Search Grader. It looks at how well your brand performs across various generative engines—a high-level snapshot of your GEO health.

• How to track: Through Goodie’s AI Search Assessment
• Why it matters: Provides benchmarks, identifies gaps, and helps justify investment to stakeholders

Don’t Forget: Traditional SEO Metrics Still Matter

Your technical SEO, site performance, and content depth still feed into how LLMs evaluate your pages, especially Google’s AI Overview, which blends generative responses with crawl-based data. GEO doesn’t replace SEO metrics—it extends them.

Pro tip: Think of GEO metrics as “visibility after the click disappears.” Even if users never leave the AI interface, your brand can still make an impression if you’re showing up in the answer.

Core Elements of a Winning GEO Marketing Strategy

GEO isn’t about guessing what AI tools want; it’s about strategically designing content that LLMs can parse, trust, and include in their responses. Unlike traditional SEO, GEO success doesn’t hinge on rankings; it hinges on being the source that generative engines pull from.

Below are the core elements every marketer needs to build a GEO-ready content strategy:

Structure Content for AI Consumption

Generative engines don’t “read” like humans—they parse patterns, structure, and clarity. If your content is disorganized, buried in long paragraphs, or lacks semantic signals, it’s less likely to be cited or surfaced by an LLM.

Best practices:

• Use clear H1-H3 hierarchies and semantic HTML
• Write in short, scannable blocks
• Use bullet points, lists, and bolded key takeaways
• Apply schema markup (especially FAQ, How-To, and Article)
• Define entities clearly (e.g., your brand, product, or terminology)

Tip: Think of your content as a dataset. The cleaner and more structured it is, the easier it is for LLMs to use.

Prioritize Answerability Over Rankings

GEO isn’t about ranking, it’s about answering. Generative engines prioritize content that directly and clearly responds to user questions, especially when phrased in natural language.

How to improve answerability:

• Use question-based subheadings (e.g., “How does X work?”)
• Lead with concise answers, then elaborate
• Mirror “People Also Ask” and “Things to Know” formats
• Include definitions, stats, and context within the first few lines

Reminder: If your content can’t quickly answer a query, an LLM will grab it from someone else who can.

Build Brand Authority and Mentions

AI engines value trust and familiarity, not just from backlinks, but from how often your brand is mentioned, cited, and referenced across the web.

Ways to strengthen brand authority in GEO:

• Maintain a consistent brand name, tone, and positioning across all platforms
• Earn brand mentions in relevant third-party content (even unlinked)
• Invest in long-form, expert-led content that builds E-E-A-T
• Include author bios, citations, and trust signals in your posts

Bonus: Generative engines often use brand mentions as a proxy for reputation. If you’re not being talked about, you’re not getting pulled into the answer.

Fill Content Gaps Using AI Search Insights

One of the most powerful advantages of GEO is the ability to uncover new content opportunities that traditional SEO tools might miss, especially in the context of generative queries.

How to uncover and fill GEO-specific gaps:

• Test prompts in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini to see what types of answers surface
• Identify which questions your brand should be answering, but isn’t
• Use tools like Goodie’s AI Visibility reports or AI Search Grader to find missed opportunities
• Focus on emerging or nuanced queries that are popular in LLM interfaces, but not highly competitive in Google

TL;DR: If you’re only using SEO tools to plan content, you’re missing half the picture.

Optimize for Multi-Modal and Conversational Queries

Search behavior is evolving. Users now speak to their devices, type conversationally, or engage with visual formats. GEO must account for how users phrase queries, and how AI interprets them.

Optimization tips:

• Write in a natural, human tone (but keep structure intact)
• Include visual content like explainer videos, images, or charts that support multi-modal results
• Use headings that reflect spoken language (e.g., “What’s the best way to…” or “How do I…”)
• Repurpose long-form content into bite-sized, answer-ready modules

Think like the user (and the assistant). If someone asks their phone a question, can your brand be the voice behind the answer?

Tools to Support Your GEO Strategy

A successful GEO strategy doesn’t rely on guesswork; it’s powered by tools that help you analyze AI visibility, identify gaps, structure content, and track performance across traditional and generative search experiences. 

Here are some of the most effective tools marketers are using to build and scale GEO strategies:

1. Goodie

Goodie is purpose-built for the AI search era. It helps you understand where your brand appears in generative results like Google’s AI Overview (AIO), ChatGPT, and Perplexity; and where you’re missing opportunities.

What Goodie helps with:

• Tracks your AI visibility across LLMs and generative search engines
• Surfaces citation opportunities and brand mentions in synthesized answers
• Recommends optimizations based on real-time AI search behavior
• Audits content structure and GEO-readiness

If SEO tools helped you rank, Goodie helps you get referenced.

2. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity (as Testing Grounds)

These aren’t just search tools; they’re research environments. Prompt these engines with your target queries to see:

• Which sources get cited
• What language patterns LLMs prefer
• Where your brand or competitors show up (or don’t)

Use them to:

• Reverse-engineer how LLMs answer your target queries
• Spot phrasing, structure, or intent patterns in their responses
• Discover competitor visibility in AI responses

3. Structured Data Testing Tools

Google’s Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator help ensure your content is machine-readable and properly structured for generative engines to parse and use.

These tools help with:

• Validating schema types like FAQ, HowTo, and Article
• Troubleshooting visibility issues in AI and traditional SERPs
• Supporting entity clarity for brand and product references

4. Traditional SEO Tools (Still Essential!)

GEO builds on SEO, not independently of it. Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Clearscope, and Surfer SEO still provide essential insights into: 

• Topic relevancy
• Semantic keyword mapping
• Technical health and crawlability 

Just remember: traditional SEO tools won’t show your AI search footprint, but they remain critical inputs to GEO success.

Pro Tip: Use a blend of SEO + GEO tools to future-proof your strategy. Rank in the links and show up in the answers.

GEO for Different Funnel Stages

One of the most common misconceptions about Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is that it only supports top-of-funnel discovery. And while it does play a huge role in building brand awareness, a smart GEO strategy can also drive impact across the entire marketing funnel—from interest and consideration to purchase and loyalty.

Here’s how GEO shows up at every stage of the customer journey:

Top of Funnel: Awareness & Visibility

At this stage, the goal is to get discovered when users are asking broad, early-stage questions. Generative engines like Google’s SGE or Perplexity surface synthesized answers, and being part of those responses builds instant trust and visibility.

Examples of top-of-funnel GEO visibility:

• Getting cited in “Things to Know” or “People also ask” modules
• Being included in explainer-style AI Overviews (e.g., “What is X?”)
• Showing up in generative summaries of trending industry topics

Content types to prioritize:

• Educational blog posts
• AI-snippet-friendly FAQs
• Glossary-style pages
• Conversational content that mimics user phrasing

Mid-Funnel: Consideration & Comparison

This is where GEO can influence brand preference, especially when users are comparing tools, services, or solutions. If your brand is consistently referenced or summarized in generative responses, you stay top-of-mind as users narrow their choices.

Examples of mid-funnel GEO visibility:

• Appearing in side-by-side comparisons (e.g., “best project management tools for startups”)
• Being cited as a source in product listicles or roundup-style AI outputs
• Having your feature pages paraphrased in AI assistants’ answers

Content types to prioritize:

• Comparison guides
• Use-case or persona-based landing pages
• Case studies and expert-led articles
• Versus pages (e.g., “Tool A vs Tool B”)

Bottom of Funnel: Purchase Intent & Decision-Making

GEO can even impact the decision stage, especially in zero-click journeys where users rely on AI engines to synthesize product details or reviews. The goal here is to ensure your branded assets and key selling points are part of the conversation before users ever visit your site.

Examples of bottom-funnel GEO visibility:

• Your product specs being summarized in ChatGPT or SGE
• Branded content cited in AI-generated “best of” roundups
• Reviews, pricing, or trust signals pulled into purchase-related queries

Content types to prioritize:

• Product pages with rich, structured data
• Customer testimonial blocks and reviews
• Pricing comparison tables
• Authoritative blog content supporting the final decision

Pro Tip: AI-generated answers don’t care where users are in the funnel; they surface the content that’s most useful. That’s your opportunity to show up early and stay present throughout the journey.

Pitfalls to Avoid When Integrating GEO Into Your SEO Strategy

The most successful brands don’t abandon traditional SEO fundamentals; they layer GEO on top to extend their visibility into AI-powered search experiences.

But as teams adapt to this evolving landscape, a few common missteps can hold back performance across both traditional and generative engines. Here’s what to watch out for:

Mistake 1: Optimizing for Rankings Instead of Answers

Many teams still focus entirely on ranking #1 in SERPs, even when AI engines are pulling answers from content ranked much lower. GEO requires a shift in mindset: it’s not just about being visible, but about being useful and synthesizable.

Avoid it by:

• Leading with concise, structured answers
• Formatting for clarity (think bullet points, FAQs, TL;DRs)
• Including context-rich language that mirrors user queries

Mistake 2: Treating GEO as a One-Channel Tactic

GEO isn’t just about Google’s SGE. Brands should also consider visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other LLM-based tools. If your strategy is too Google-centric, you’ll miss out on where real user behavior is heading.

Avoid it by:

• Testing prompts across multiple AI search engines
• Auditing where and how your brand appears in generative responses
• Creating content that travels across platforms and modalities

Mistake 3: Focusing Only on Linked Mentions

Traditional SEO puts heavy emphasis on backlinks, but LLMs often pull from unlinked brand mentions when generating answers. If your brand is absent from broader online conversations, you’re invisible to the engine.

Avoid it by:

• Earning citations in third-party articles, forums, and reviews
• Maintaining consistent brand language and entity signals
• Distributing content beyond your own site to increase semantic coverage

Mistake 4: Ignoring Technical Structure and Schema

Even the best content won’t get surfaced if it’s difficult for AI to parse. Without proper structure, LLMs can’t easily understand or extract value from your content.

Avoid it by:

• Using semantic HTML (headers, lists, emphasis)
• Applying structured data like FAQ, HowTo, Article, and Product schema
• Regularly auditing your site for crawlability and indexability

Mistake 5: Failing to Align GEO with KPIs

GEO success isn’t always measured in clicks, which means teams often struggle to track performance. If you’re only reporting on traffic and rankings, you may miss meaningful AI visibility wins.

Avoid it by:

• Using GEO-specific tools (like Goodie) to track AI Overview inclusion, citation frequency, and entity recognition
• Establishing GEO benchmarks tied to brand visibility, not just sessions
• Educating stakeholders on the new value of zero-click exposure

Bottom line: GEO and SEO work best when integrated. Avoid these pitfalls, and you’ll build a strategy that thrives across both traditional search and the AI-driven future.

GEO Readiness Checklist

Before you dive headfirst into optimizing for AI-driven search, make sure your team is set up for success. Use this checklist to assess how ready your brand is to thrive in a generative engine landscape, and where you might have gaps to fill.