The short version: three acronyms, one foundation
SEO (search engine optimization) is the discipline most businesses already know: earning rankings in Google, Bing and Google Maps through content, links, technical health, your Google Business Profile and reviews. Traditional search ranks pages; your goal is a position in a list.
AEO (answer engine optimization) predates ChatGPT and originally meant optimizing for featured snippets and voice assistants, the single spoken answer to “who’s the best Honda dealer near me?”
GEO (generative engine optimization) is the ChatGPT-era version of the same goal: optimizing your website and broader web presence so generative AI engines include and cite your business in their answers. If SEO is about ranking in the list, GEO is about being part of the answer. You will also hear “AI visibility” and “LLM optimization.” Same thing; GEO is winning as the acronym.
My position, argued on stage for two years now and since echoed by Google’s own search liaison: good SEO is good GEO. The terms are not identical, but the distinction matters far less than the work. For the generative side in depth, see what is generative engine optimization.
Why they overlap: AI engines read the same web Google does
For anything current or local, inventory, prices, “dealers near me,” an AI assistant runs searches behind the scenes, reads the results and builds its answer from what it finds, citing sources. The industry calls this grounding. You cannot optimize the model. You can optimize the sources it grounds against: your website, your business profiles, your reviews, and the articles and lists that mention you.
The expert consensus confirms it. The 2026 Whitespark Local Search Ranking Factors survey includes, for the first time, AI search visibility factors: on-page signals 24 percent, reviews 16 percent, citations 13 percent, links 13 percent, Google Business Profile 12 percent, personalization 9 percent, social 9 percent, behavioral 4 percent. Same ingredients as SEO, remixed.
SmartSites has never sold GEO as a standalone service, yet we were one of the most-cited brands in a Search Engine Land study of roughly 8,000 websites, purely as a byproduct of ordinary content and link-building SEO. I expand on it in my eCommerce Expo London talk on GEO and in the chapter on what AI search is.
Is SEO dead? No, and the numbers say so
As of 2025, AI chat handled about 7.6 percent of all searches while overall Google search volume kept rising, and 99.7 percent of people who use AI also still use traditional search. AI search is a channel added to the journey, not a replacement for it.
What has changed is which clicks you get. AI Overviews now appear on roughly 48 percent of US Google searches and about 68 percent of Google searches end without a click. The clicks being lost are informational research clicks; branded, local and shopping clicks have held up or grown across our dealer clients.
AI search is where your customer forms the shortlist; traditional search is where they act on it. The average Google query is still three to four words; the average ChatGPT prompt runs around 23. Long, exploratory questions are research; short, decisive queries are action. Abandon SEO for an AI-only strategy and you win the mention but lose the handoff. More in AI, search and the future of agencies.
What actually changes in practice
Here is where GEO earns its own name. Several habits have to change.
- Write for prompts, not keywords. When 142 people were asked to write a prompt with the same shopping intent, barely any two looked alike. Cover the questions, use cases and comparisons a real buyer brings, thoroughly enough that whatever words they use, your page is the best match.
- Question-based headings and answer-first paragraphs. AI engines extract and cite passages that answer directly. Lead with the number or the verdict, then explain. This is exactly how featured snippets worked.
- A dedicated page for every service, model and buying question. A page per service is the number two expert-ranked AI visibility factor, and 82.5 percent of AI citations point to deep, specific pages, not homepages.
- First-party data pages. Generic how-to content is over; the AI owns it. What no model can generate is your real prices, real inventory and customers’ actual words. Publish numbers that exist nowhere else and the AI has to cite you.
- Get on the lists. The number one AI visibility factor is presence on expert-curated “best of” lists, followed by mentions in press, blogs and industry sites. This is link-building outreach aimed at a new target.
- Consistency of facts everywhere. Name, address, phone, hours, brands and services identical across your site, GBP, directories and social. AI engines trust what corroborates; inconsistency makes them less confident in citing you at all.
- Let the AI crawlers in. Check robots.txt for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended. For 99 percent of businesses, blocking AI crawlers now is like asking Google not to index you in 2010. Also confirm key content is readable without JavaScript, which most LLMs do not execute.
One honest note on FAQ schema: we include it on every page because it gives engines a clean, machine-readable version of your Q&A, but our own test across 1,000 sites showed no significant lift in AI citations from the markup alone. Hygiene, not a lever. The full playbook is in the chapter on GEO for car dealerships; most of it applies to any local or e-commerce business.
What stays the same
More than most GEO vendors will admit. Google Business Profile remains the top local pack signal and a core input to AI answers about businesses near you. Reviews do double duty: roughly 16 percent of local pack rankings, and AI assistants summarize review text when recommending a business, so what reviewers write matters. Links from authoritative, relevant sites build the domain and topical authority AI engines weigh, if anything, more heavily than Google does. On-page content is still the largest factor group in both surveys. Technical SEO is still front-loaded: crawlability, rendering, structured data, clean feeds.
Also unchanged: do not paste raw AI output onto your website. Google’s spam systems target scaled low-value content, and AI engines cite AI slop less because they weigh authority more. Use AI to research and draft; have a person who knows the business finish it. Basics are in my WordCamp Canada SEO session.
Which to prioritize for your kind of business
Local service businesses (dentists, contractors, law firms): SEO first. GBP, reviews and a dedicated page per service are the whole game, and they are exactly what gets you recommended when someone asks an assistant for a business nearby. GEO is a layer on the same hours.
Car dealers and local retail with inventory: SEO plus two GEO checks. Make sure vehicle or product data is server-rendered and backed by schema and a clean Merchant Center feed, and build numbered buying guides and attribute pages with real local numbers.
E-commerce brands: the one vertical where I would weight GEO and AI advertising earlier, because AI search generates demand rather than capturing it. Feed quality and deep product and comparison pages matter most. See how ChatGPT ads work.
B2B and knowledge businesses: topical authority and third-party mentions. Digital PR, expert lists and clear entity and author information beat another blog post. Publish what only you know.
Paid-search-only operations: you do not need a GEO program. Ads inside AI Overviews run from the existing Google Ads system, so healthy campaigns and feeds already make you eligible.
What to do this quarter
- Open robots.txt and confirm GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended are allowed.
- Load your three most important pages with JavaScript disabled. If key facts disappear, ask your web provider about server-side rendering.
- Pick the ten questions your buyers actually ask. Give each a dedicated page that answers in the first sentence and includes a fact that exists nowhere else.
- Audit your business facts across your site, GBP, top directories and social profiles until they match exactly.
- Start one outreach effort aimed at a “best of” list, local business journal or industry roundup.
- Keep review generation running, ask customers to mention specifics, and quote the best on your site.
- Set up measurement: verify in Bing Webmaster Tools, check Search Console’s Generative AI report monthly, and run the monthly AI spot-check across ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode. Details in how to measure AI search visibility.
And if anyone promises to rank you number one in ChatGPT, walk away. There is no number one; the same prompt run 100 times returns different answers, and visibility percentage is the only honest metric. Get in touch or book me to speak to your team.
Questions people ask
What is answer engine optimization (AEO)?
Answer engine optimization is the practice of structuring content so it becomes the single direct answer an engine gives, rather than one of many results. The term predates ChatGPT and originally covered featured snippets and voice assistants. Today it is used almost interchangeably with GEO, and the techniques are the same: lead with a direct answer, use question-based headings, keep facts consistent, and build authority that engines trust.
Is GEO the same as SEO?
Not identical, but close enough that good SEO is good GEO. AI engines ground their answers in the same web Google crawls: your site, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and the pages that mention you. The 2026 expert survey of AI visibility factors weights the same signal groups as classic SEO. GEO adds emphasis on direct answers, dedicated pages per topic, first-party data, best-of list mentions and AI crawler access.
Is SEO dead now that people use ChatGPT?
No. As of 2025, AI chat handled about 7.6 percent of searches while Google search volume kept growing, and 99.7 percent of AI users still use traditional search. What changed is the mix of clicks: informational research clicks are moving into AI answers, while branded, local and shopping clicks that lead to purchases still come through classic search, maps and your website. You need both.
How do AI Overviews affect SEO?
AI Overviews appear on roughly 48 percent of US Google searches and sit above the traditional results, so impressions rise while clicks on informational queries fall. Being cited inside the Overview counts as an impression without a click. The practical response is to be inside the answer: answer-first pages, specific deep content, consistent facts and strong third-party mentions. Judge SEO on impressions, click intent mix and leads, not raw clicks.
Can you rank number one in ChatGPT?
No. ChatGPT has no rankings. The same prompt run many times returns different answers, and positions inside an AI answer are effectively random from response to response. The honest metric is visibility percentage: how often your business appears across many prompts, phrasings and runs. Anyone guaranteeing a number one position in ChatGPT or any AI assistant is selling something that cannot exist.
Should I block AI crawlers like GPTBot?
For the vast majority of businesses, no. If AI crawlers cannot read your site, assistants cannot cite or recommend you. SmartSites gets thousands of monthly visitors and form leads from ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity by leaving them in. Check robots.txt for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, avoid blanket bot-blocking defaults, and make sure key content renders without JavaScript.