What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and how your content marketing may need to adapt (2025 Guide)

Author: Ryan Walsh

 

Table of contents:

• What is GEO?
• What is AEO
• How does GEO differ from SEO?
• How can our business optimise our website for LLMs?
• How can we track performance from LLMs?

If you’re a seasoned SEO pro, then you’re probably used to thinking about Googlebot and Google’s algorithm.

This is still important, of course; Google still holds the lion’s share of visitor numbers.

However, marketing agencies cannot ignore AI platforms anymore; new buzzwords are emerging, such as GEO, which stands for generative engine optimisation, and therefore, many businesses must adapt their marketing strategies.

Why does GEO matter so much?

AI platforms are reported to drive a reported 6.5% of global traffic. This will only increase as more and more people get familiar with the AI platforms, and a lot of people like how the “query fan out” allows you to keep expanding on your original question.

Google is still dominant.

What is essential to understand is that Google is still dominant; it still handles the lion’s share of searches. This means that businesses still need to focus on improving their SEO, yet at the same time, work out how GEO is becoming more widely used by shoppers.

What’s the main difference between GEO and SEO?

 

Content marketing

Whether you are optimising your website for SEO or GEO, the quality of your business’s content marketing is still essential. Google and other

GEO platforms, such as Chat GPT, will only cite an answer that provides a high-quality response to shoppers.

However, how the two platforms work is very different. Google uses ranking factors, and Google’s algorithm ranks websites according to how strong the company’s various ranking factors are.

Chat GPT and other AI modes work differently; they are LLMs or large language models, and they are trained on large amounts of data.

In either case, businesses want their content marketing to be cited, whether that’s in Google’s organic results or in an AI programme such as

ChatGPT. For this to happen, the content marketing must be of high quality and valuable to the shopper.

 

Helpful as possible

It’s nearly impossible to get a “content-thin” page to rank high on Google.

It’s also nearly impossible to find a page cited by the AI programmes if the page is content-thin.

Therefore, pages must be made as helpful as possible; we have conducted extensive research on this topic. We have found that for pages to be cited by the LLMs, it’s a good idea to cite stats, keep the pages up to date and also produce infographics.

 

It’s recommended to add structured data.

Structured data can be read more easily by Google’s algorithms, such as Googlebot.

However, structured data can also be read by the LLMS more easily. You should discuss with your marketing agency how they can incorporate structured metadata into your website.

 

Google E-EAT and quality content marketing

Regardless of whether your business wants to attract more customers from Google or from the LLM, you need to have quality content marketing. This is so that the page is well structured, allowing both Googlebot and the LLMs to understand the content marketing better.

This means that it’s easier for the algorithms and the LLMS to identify and cite relevant sections of text, which they deem appropriate, either in a Google AI Overview or an LLM.

 

Still focus on Google E-EAT.

Google had made it absolutely crystal clear that the pages that rank highly on Google will have a high “Google E-EAT” score.

But what does that even mean?

Well, Google E-EAT stands for experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness of your website.

Let’s have a look at how we can write and create content marketing to improve all of those different areas:

 

Experience

AI is just that, it’s artificial intelligence; it therefore doesn’t live in the real world. It can tell you how to bake a cake, but obviously, it hasn’t completed any of that work itself. Therefore, what is needed is real-world experience and expertise to help inform the AI and also to offer your experienced advice via your content marketing.

The point being made here is straightforward: when writing content marketing, clearly demonstrate that you have expertise and experience in the subject matter you’re writing about. This does mean usually writing to a high word count, and really making it clear your vast knowledge on the topic you’re writing about.

Expertise

Make it clear in each of your content marketing pieces that you have a lot of expertise. This could mean ensuring the author’s name is included in the content marketing. Then, provide a link to the about page, where you cite your experience, qualifications, and perhaps a link to your LinkedIn account, for example.

Authoritativeness

To make your website more authoritative, what you need is a substantial number of high-quality links. You need a lot of high-quality, relevant backlinks that come from websites with very high DA scores, such as The Daily Telegraph newspaper website. Good quality links from respected websites will improve your website’s authority.

Trustworthiness

To establish trustworthiness, we believe it is essential to gain positive business reviews. But not just that, this point is interlinked with authority, in that if high-quality respected websites, such as The Guardian, link to your work, this can help to improve the trustworthiness. If we’re talking about local SEO, then it’s essential to gain a lot of positive business reviews on your Google Business account.

How can I optimise my website for ChatGPT?

ChatGPT (OpenAI)

It has been stated that it’s essential to write clear headers, bullet point a lot of details, and also write in shorter paragraphs. It’s also important to cite the author and link back to their ‘About Us’ page. Use schema markup where possible, and publish original research as well.