Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the process of optimizing website content and structure to improve its visibility to AI-powered search engines and other generative AI applications.
Think of it this way: traditional SEO focuses on ranking high in a list of search results provided by search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. GEO, on the other hand, aims to have your brand, content, and information directly included and cited within the AI-generated answers and summaries.
To improve your generative engine optimization (GEO) and increase the likelihood of your content being featured for your customer or potential customers, that use AI-powered search results, focus on these 5 key strategies:
1. Understand AI and Customer/Prospect Intent:
- Analyze how users ask questions in English and tailor your content to match.
- Think beyond keywords and focus on user experience and intent.
- Research the queries that trigger AI overviews in your specific niche.
- Use AI tools to help you understand content priorities.
- Focus on concise and clear information sharing.
2. Create Comprehensive Content:
- Produce content that thoroughly answers user questions.
- Ensure contextual accuracy by thinking through the user’s query and intent.
- Update information often, to ensure accuracy and relevance as things change in your business.
- Make your content simple and easy to understandable for both humans and AI.
- Incorporate text, images, and videos, as generative engines can synthesize multimodal information.
3. Structure Content for AI Consumption:
- Organize content with clear headings and subheadings.
- Use lists and bullet points to break down information.
- Start with a clear and concise introductory sentence that highlights the main topic.
- Design your website with the HTML that align with your service/product.
- Implement schema markup (structured data) using JSON-LD to explicitly define your content’s type and context for search engines and AI.
- Focus on relevant schemas like FAQs, How To Articles, Service/Product improvements, and GEO Targeting.
- Ensure your website is crawlable and indexable by AI.
- Check your robots.txt files and firewall protective rules to ensure they allow GPTBot, Google-Extended to crawl your website.
4. Enhance Credibility and Authority:
- Cite your sources to back up claims and enhance trustworthiness.
- Include statistics and data where applicable to strengthen arguments.
- Add quotations from credible subject matter experts to provide depth and authority
- Become a credible expert which will allow you to drive backlinks to your website to showcase expertise and trustworthiness.
5. Refine Your Keyword Strategy for AI:
- Focus on long-tail keywords and natural language queries that reflect how people speak to AI.
- Prioritize search intent over exact keyword matches. Understand the “why” behind user questions.
- Incorporate semantically related terms and key entities to provide comprehensive context.
By implementing these strategies, you can optimize your online authority to become a valuable and citable source for generative AI engines.
Key Takeaways:
- Track how AI platforms refer to your brand within analytics tools, by running quarterly reports.
- Assess your website engagement and keyword rankings in the context of AI-driven search.
- Continuously test and iterate your strategies based on AI developments and performance data.
- Strategically leverage your website content across social media and email marketing to amplify your message, reach a wider audience, and drive traffic back to your site.
- Connect with Marketing 4 Real Results, to stay up to date on best practices in generative AI and GEO.
If you have questions about generative engine optimization, or want to optimize your website content for AI search engine, schedule a call.
Content written by Nia S. Pearson, MBA, Founder of Marketing 4 Real Results and Aamirah Gober, content manager at Marketing 4 Real Results, supported by Gemini language model from Google AI.
Nia S. Pearson, MBA is the founder of Marketing 4 Real Results, a full-service marketing agency based in Los Angeles, California. Nia has two decades of B2B and B2C marketing experience and is frequently sought out for her expertise in marketing through seminars, workshops and academia.
