What’s Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) & How To Do It

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It is the process of ensuring your digital content maximizes its reach and visibility inside of Generative AI Engines like ChatGPT, Claude, SGE, Gemini, Perplexity, and more when people inquire about:

• Solutions and products you sell
• Stories that you have been in
• Services that you offer
• Ideas you have shared
• Information in which you have deep expertise and experience

The more likely you are to be sourced or included in a response to a query from AI, the more likely you are to become top of mind and have your website visited or brand engaged with offline.

In this guide, we’ll share insights into how to tackle GEO and the strategies smart brands are embracing to stay ahead of the Generative Era of marketing. Here’s what we will cover:

• How GEO & SEO are different
• Why GEO is important
• How GEO works
• Key factors for GEO
• Research surrounding GEO

What Is Generative Engine Optimization?

It’s not just about being found via search engine optimization (SEO) — it’s about dominating the digital landscape through generative AI results to queries and questions. With GEO, you tap into the unparalleled potential of AI by creating tailored, impactful content that resonates deeply with not just your audience but also the machines crawling the web and using it to inform their outputs.

GEO is the act of optimizing content that exists on your site to be better suited to being scanned by a language learning model (LLM) and used as a source. In an example given by an academic study that coined the idea of GEO, they discussed the query: Things to do in NY? and how the standard initial response can be influenced by optimizing the source material.

Here’s a visual outlining how they view the GEO process:

The act of updating and optimizing one website that was already being used by the LLM allowed for a shift in the standard response.

The response leans more favourably toward the brand optimizing the content, and as a result, the user of the LLM solution consumes content that is more aligned with the optimizer’s content.

The Difference Between SEO & GEO

SEO is a widely recognized strategy that concentrates on enhancing websites to achieve higher rankings in traditional search engine results pages (SERPs). This optimization technique encompasses the utilization of targeted keywords, the development of top-notch content, and the establishment of backlinks, among other strategies. SEO primarily revolves around the way search engines like Google and Bing navigate and index websites.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

On the flip side, GEO represents a newer concept that has surfaced in reaction to the ascent of AI-driven search engines, also known as generative engines.

These engines leverage artificial intelligence algorithms to produce responses and solutions to inquiries rather than just cataloging and ranking websites based on keywords. Essentially, GEO is an optimization tactic that concentrates on crafting content that not only captivates human readers but also strikes a chord with AI-driven search engines.

The Advent of GEO and Its Necessity

The GEO study that was conducted by students out of Princeton, Georgia Tech, The Allen Institute of AI, and IIT Delhi  and published in November 2023 by Aggarwal, Murahari, Rajpurohit,  Kalyan, Narasimhan, and Deshpande concluded with an impactful statement:

“Our analysis suggests that website owners should strive towards making domain-specific targeted adjustments to their websites for higher visibility. This statement highlights the importance of GEO in today’s digital landscape.”

The study concluded that through experimentation, the researchers were able to see a significant increase in their ability to influence the content that showed in the LLM:

“We propose several ways to optimize content for generative engines and demonstrate that these methods are capable of boosting source visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses. Among other things, we find that including citations, quotations from relevant sources, and statistics can significantly boost source visibility.”

The most relevant part of this study is that the researchers studied nine key factors to understand what correlated with the likelihood of impacting the AI’s response.

These factors were:

1. Unique Words
2. Keyword Stuffing
3. Easy-to-Understand
4. Authoritative
5. Technical Terms
6. Fluency Optimization
7. Cite Sources
8. Quotation Addition
9. Statistics Addition

The team then ran an analysis across each of these to understand which of these characteristics had the greatest impact on their results. It turned out that simple methods like keyword stuffing didn’t work well, but adding stats and quotations showed a significant performance improvement.

Empirical Evidence Supporting GEO

The team evaluated a variety of different Generative Engine Optimization methods, as outlined below, and compared them against a baseline in which no optimization took place. The results showed that some methods consistently outperform the baseline across all metrics:

The top-performing optimizations for the GEO efforts included:

• Quotation Additions
• Statistic Additions
• Fluency Optimization
• Cited Sources
• Technical Terms
• Authoritative Comms

The research presents a compelling case for GEO through rigorous evaluation.

A benchmark, termed GEO-BENCH, consisting of 10,000 diverse queries across multiple domains, serves as the foundation for the researchers’ systematic analysis.

The findings are striking and worth noting:

• GEO methods like the inclusion of citations, quotations from relevant sources, and statistics notably boosted source visibility by over 40% across various queries. This underscores the importance of content richness and credibility in optimizing for GEs.

All that said…

Sandbox SEO shared a great GEO critique, breaking down how some elements of the original methodology in the paper are not at the highest level of standards of most academic journals. 

Specifically, the critic shares challenges like top five result restrictions, inconsistent prompt direction, low optimization visibility, and more. 

The critique outlined by Sandbox is worth a read, as there are some great points in there. But from my perspective — the essence of what the original GEO paper summarizes as things worth doing are also the things worth doing to establish EEAT best practices.

What are these things that are worth doing? Here’s how it was described in the paper:

Intent-Specific Optimization

• Informational Queries: For queries seeking knowledge or information, adding citations, quotations, and statistics significantly boosts visibility. This approach aligns with the users’ need for credible, detailed answers, enhancing the content’s authority and trustworthiness.
• Navigational Queries: When users are looking to navigate to a specific website or page, the research found that fluency optimization and ensuring the content directly addresses the user’s destination can improve visibility in GE responses.
• Transactional Queries: For queries with a transactional intent, such as purchasing a product or subscribing to a service, including clear calls to action and optimizing content for clarity and persuasiveness were key strategies for increasing visibility.

Domain-Specific Optimization Efficacy

• Science and Technology: Technical term additions and authoritative style adjustments were particularly effective in these domains, likely due to the audience’s preference for precise and credible information.
• Arts and Humanities: In these areas, incorporating quotations and references to well-regarded sources helped increase content visibility, aligning with the audience’s appreciation for depth and cultural context.
• Business and Finance: The inclusion of statistics and data-driven insights significantly improved visibility, reflecting the audience’s need for factual, actionable information in decision-making processes.

How To Do Generative Engine Optimization

The key to successfully implementing GEO is understanding the processes of generative AI and leveraging this knowledge to create content that resonates with both humans and machines. 

Here are some strategies for effectively incorporating GEO into your digital marketing strategy:

• Research topics relevant to your customers: Use keyword research tools to identify what topics your target audience is interested in and the types of questions they are asking. Validate the volume of these questions usually asked in Google, and determine if there’s an intent relationship that would make you feel confident that your audience would ask it to an AI tool.
• Create or optimize tailored content: Develop or improve high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that addresses the identified topics and questions. The optimization or creation efforts should be rooted in some of the ideas shared in the academic journal around GEO. The content should include reputable sources, quotes, and industry language and should be written in an authoritative manner, demonstrating trust and expertise.
• Incorporate structured data: Utilize schema markup to provide context and structure for your content, making it easier for generative AI to understand and index.
• Focus on user intent: Keep in mind the purpose behind a user’s search query, and tailor your content to fulfill their intent. This will also help you stay ahead of the constantly evolving algorithms.
• Distribute your content: The LLMs are training not just on content found in blog posts but also inside of communities like Reddit and Quora. Distribute your content through these channels to maximize your ability to influence the stories sent back to relevant questions.
• Embrace multimedia: Diversify your content by incorporating visual and interactive elements like videos, infographics, and quizzes to engage both human readers and AI-driven search engines.
• Leverage social media: Share your content on social media platforms to increase its reach and engagement. Generative AI also uses signals from social media to rank and index content.
• Optimize your website’s AI readiness: Use HubSpot’s AI Search Grader to evaluate how well your website content is optimized for AI-powered search engines. This free tool analyzes your website’s content quality, structure, and relevance to help identify areas for improvement. The AI Search Grader provides actionable insights on enhancing your content’s visibility and performance in AI-powered search results, ensuring your website stays competitive in the evolving search landscape. Regular assessment and optimization using such tools can help maintain your content’s effectiveness for traditional and AI search engines.

By implementing these strategies, you can effectively optimize your content for both human readers and AI-driven search engines, ensuring maximum reach and impact on the digital landscape.

Here’s my take:

GEO is more than a trend. It’s an evolution of how we think.

Will it forever be called GEO? I don’t know…

The name currently makes me think of Geography.

But much like how corner shops evolved into department stores and then into personalized online storefronts, GEO represents the next step in SEO’s waltz with technology.