Generative Engine Optimization: Optimizing Content For AI Without Losing SEO

Content creation was once a simple practice: write, edit, submit — and watch the clicks roll in from your website.

Today, content creation is a game of acronyms. Releasing successful content means implementing AI and navigating LLMs to accommodate GEO and preserve SEO. You’re forgiven if that process feels overwhelming. Every acronym represents another moving part, another algorithm to please, and another signal to optimize. What was once a straightforward creative process has become a strategic balancing act between technology, data, and storytelling.

What Is Generative Engine Optimization?

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, is the deliberate optimization of a website to accommodate AI engines. These optimization steps help websites improve their ranking, and frequency of mentions, within AI-generated overviews. These same steps also help brands increase their footprint across some of the world’s most used large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

For virtually every industry, LLM models and Google’s AI search results are already replacing traditional Google search results traffic.

What Are AI Search Results?

Alongside large language models, Google’s AI search results are the other contributing factor behind many brands’ declining organic search numbers. Since Google launched AI-generated summaries at the top of search results in May 2024, these summaries have created a drastic increase in the number of “no-click” searches: when a user enters a query into a search engine and gets the answer directly on the results page, without needing to click through to a website.

With fewer users reaching your website, brands in every industry are seeking answers to the same question: how do I improve my brand’s ranking within AI and LLM results to recover some of that lost traffic?

How Can Brands Optimize Content For GEO and AI Search Results?

Here are a few deliberate GEO strategies we’ve deployed that help brands improve their presence with AI-generated summaries and large language model responses:

• Page FAQs: Structured question-and-answer content increases the likelihood of being referenced in AI-generated responses and featured snippets.
• More Frequent Crosslinking: Linking pages using clear, intent-matching anchor text helps AI models map topic relationships across the site.
• Author Profiles: Including author bios with geographic credentials builds authority and helps language models understand content origin and relevance.
• Near Me Variations in Content: Including common phrasing like “dentist near me” or “beach rentals near Amelia Island” helps improve local AI prompt matches.

It’s Time For Your Organic Strategy To Evolve.

We’re entering a particularly challenging, but opportunistic, period of organic search results. New LLM models and AI results create new opportunities for brands to rank well online, even if those brands didn’t previously focus on SEO. At the same time, brands exclusively invested in SEO must now integrate GEO best practices to remain relevant online.

If you’re ready to capture traffic across new audiences reading LLM and AI results, we’re ready to help. Get in touch today for a GEO roadmap that can connect your brand with new online users.