Every search marketer knows the alphabet soup. First came search engine optimization (SEO), the method of structuring content and web strategy to align with the logic of search engines. Then we learned how to speak “Google.” We learned about keywords, backlinks, content hierarchies, and algorithms that rewarded relevance. SEO became the way to be found anywhere in the world where humans were searching for information in text.
Now, a new term has entered the scene and is making itself known at an unprecedented speed: generative engine optimization (GEO). There have been many different approaches to addressing AI and search, but GEO is the current method for encompassing all elements of AI within the search world.
It isn’t about nudging content to rank a page higher in the results. It’s about preparing your digital presence to be accurately surfaced, summarized, and recommended by AI-driven search interfaces. As search transitions from 10 blue links to AI-generated answers and voice-guided results, GEO ensures your brand isn’t left out of the answer box.
What GEO actually means (and how it differs from SEO)
- SEO optimizes pages for indexing and ranking: technical health, crawlability, content depth, internal linking, and authority.
- GEO optimizes your content so AI systems can accurately parse, extract, and attribute it when composing responses. Practically, that means an answer-ready structure, clear entities, explicit evidence (which helps to improve trustworthiness and credibility), and schema so machines can confidently extract the right snippets.
Think of GEO as making your content LLM readable and citation worthy at a granular block level. As search experiences compress into a single synthesized answer, what matters is whether the AI includes your brand and language, not just where a page might have ranked historically.
Why GEO matters right now
Picture this: You’re a well-known B2B SaaS company selling a platform that IT and RevOps teams rely on. Your brand story is built on reliability, enterprise security, clean integrations, and customer uptime. For years, your digital playbook was classic SEO: keyword hubs, comparison pages, backlinks—winning those 10 blue links. It worked until a buying committee asked a generative AI, “What platforms integrate with Salesforce and Snowflake, have SOC 2 Type II, SSO, and < 90-day implementation?”
The answer didn’t include you. Your certifications were buried in PDFs, your integration proofs weren’t machine readable, and customer evidence wasn’t structured. In the new way buyers search, your story didn’t surface, so you never made the short list.
Customers aren’t clicking through a page of results; they are getting a direct answer from their search platform. And that answer came from somewhere, but not from a traditional ranking page. The search experience has been compressed into a single interaction. This means how these AI tools interpret and package the information is just as important as how traditional SEO determines what to show and not show to users.
While the share of searches within AI tools and AI overviews is still in its infancy, GEO is not optional. It’s becoming the bridge between human curiosity and machine-generated responses. The focus should not be on how to replace SEO. Now it’s about how to leverage GEO with classic SEO to maximize your brand’s presence online.
Where GEO shows up
When talking about AI search or GEO, most people think of Google’s AI Overviews or stand-alone tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. But it’s broader than just that, as more companies are developing their own set of AI tools to navigate the changing landscape:
- Traditional search engine AI tools (e.g., Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot)
- Stand-alone platforms/LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity)
- Enterprise assistants and copilots (e.g., Apple Intelligence, Anthropic’s Claude, Salesforce’s Einstein GPT, GitHub Copilot)
- Vertical/industry-specific AI tools (e.g., Jasper AI, Grammarly, Surfer SEO)
B2B buyers still use traditional search engines, but more of their discovery and short-listing now happens inside AI systems, meaning inside the AI layers of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google. That shift doesn’t replace SEO; it expands it. GEO is about being discovered, summarized, and cited inside AI‑generated answers while you continue to earn rankings and clicks in classic search.
User behavior continues to skew zero‑click search for many queries. AI surfaces raise the odds of information satisfaction without a click, even as rates vary by category. GEO positions you to be cited in those answers while SEO maintains and grows your baseline organic demand.
A call to the future—are you ready?
SEO made you visible in the web’s last era. GEO makes you present in the one unfolding now. The brands that move first won’t just adapt to an AI‑driven search experience; they’ll help define it.
However, before delving into GEO, you must have a solid SEO base strategy. Here are five important questions to ask yourself before beginning GEO:
- Do your top five pillar pages each have a focused, indexable page with a clear H1–H3 structure and a concise summary up top?
- Are product, integration, pricing, security/compliance, and implementation pages properly linked internally and accessible from all relevant journey paths?
- Is your business data (company, products, categories, industries, contact information) consistent across your site and social channels?
- Do pillar pages load < 2.5s on mobile and pass basic technical guidelines (LCP/INP/CLS) with no render blocking?
- Do you have substantiating content like client quotes, previous benchmarks, and case studies with named logos above the fold?
If you hesitated on any of those, you’re not alone. Most B2B tech sites have gaps that quietly cap both the SEO and GEO upside. To successfully rank in the GEO space, you’ll need to address these gaps first.
A path forward
At CMD, we aren’t chasing yesterday’s algorithms. Our focus is on maintaining presence for brands within classic SEO—where the bulk of searches are still happening—while also preparing them for the AI-first world, where visibility is defined not by where you land on page one but whether an AI considers your voice authoritative enough to be cited as an answer.
CMD keeps your traditional SEO healthy while upgrading for AI selection. If you’re ready to future‑proof visibility across both SERPs and synthesized answers, we can help you with a focused GEO + SEO jump start and get to work.
Contact us to start the conversation.
This article is the first in a series on staying competitive in the age of AI engines and LLM search.
