Is GEO the new SEO?

For decades, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has been the bedrock of digital visibility. As SEO marketers, we have spent years understanding algorithms, A/B testing and reporting back our findings to clients to become experts in our field. The thing about SEO is, it never stays stagnant and with the rise in AI we can all look to be kept on our toes with the new landscape of search.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation, referring to the methods involved with optimising content for AI-driven generative models like Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity AI. Unlike traditional search engines that primarily present a list of links, these generative engines aim to synthesise information from various sources and provide direct, comprehensive answers to user queries.

This means the goal of GEO shifts from simply getting clicks to having your content chosen, cited and incorporated into these AI-generated responses. It’s about becoming a trusted source that AI systems can reliably pull from to answer user questions.

How does GEO differ to SEO?

GEO is newer and lesser understood, with search tools like Semrush and Ahrefs only recently rolling out reporting and research tools to be able to measure growth of GEO presence. A lot of fundamentals, in terms of how to create and optimise content, may be similar across both SEO and GEO, but new tactics and knowledge are required for adapting strategy to this newer technology.

While GEO and SEO share the overarching goal of enhancing online visibility, their approaches diverge in significant ways:

• Target Audience: SEO targets traditional search engine algorithms to rank web pages. GEO targets AI models to ensure your brand’s message is accurately represented and distributed within AI-generated answers.
• Content Goal: SEO aims to bring users to your website through ranked search results. GEO focuses on ensuring your brand is accurately included and represented in AI responses, even if a direct website visit doesn’t occur.
• Optimisation Techniques: While SEO emphasises keywords, backlinks and site structure for ranking, GEO focuses on structured data, contextual depth, semantic relevance and providing clear, concise and authoritative information that AI can easily understand and interpret.
• Success Metrics: SEO often measures success with metrics like click-through rates and bounce rates. GEO considers “reference rates”, how often your content or brand is cited in AI-generated answers.
• User Intent: Both focus on user intent, but GEO takes it further by creating comprehensive content that directly answers user inquiries, often anticipating follow-up questions or providing broader context.

How will this change my digital marketing strategy?

The emergence of GEO is a direct response to the evolving way people search for information. With AI summaries and direct answers becoming more prevalent, users may get the information they need without ever clicking through to a website. For businesses, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

How SEO is changing

Informational searches are in decline

The advancement of AI means users can quickly search informational questions and receive a direct and concise summary of research, all collated into simple to understand content that can be consumed at speed. This benefits users as they no longer have to click links in search engines, where they may need to visit several sites to get the information they need. AI also benefits users as they can easily amend their search query should they find the information provided isn’t answering their question. AI is learning more each day to better the quality of results, some LLMs may be better at this than others though and it’s still not an exact science. Users are still at risk of receiving incorrect information so diligence is always recommended.

For brands investing in a thorough organic content marketing strategy, this could mean AI is stealing clicks away from your site. In many cases, AI could be sharing excerpts of your blog to users, meaning they don’t need to click onto your site to read the same content. This can be frustrating for SEOs measuring organic traffic, meaning we have to adapt in how we measure success moving forward.

If you only focus on SEO, you could be missing out

LLMs are already reducing SEO traffic to sites, see more stats on this below. So, if you want to continue to have a brand presence across all relevant channels for your digital strategy, it makes sense to invest in GEO. It’s not a case of one or the other, the future will likely see SEO and GEO work hand-in-hand to achieve a well-rounded organic presence across both search engines and LLMs.

Sites will need more semantic understanding and context in their content

Beyond just keywords, GEO demands content that demonstrates deep semantic understanding of a topic. This involves creating comprehensive, well-structured content that clearly answers user intent and provides context, making it easily digestible for AI to summarise and integrate.

Clicks as a KPI will be less important (but still worth tracking)

With more answers being provided directly in AI Overviews, the goal isn’t always a click. GEO will increasingly measure success by ‘reference rates’, looking at how often a brand or its content is cited or used as a source by AI models, even if a direct website visit doesn’t occur. A good organic strategy should analyse both organic clicks and reference rates to see correlation between brand mentions and site visits as some users migrate from search engines to LLMs.

How many people are using LLMs over search engines in 2025?

In 2025 alone, I have found myself heading to Google Gemini more frequently than I do Google search. So, I can understand the draw for users. It genuinely does save time and improve results quality for many queries. So, how many people have made the switch overall?

According to ChatGPT, it had over 300 million global weekly users as of December 2024. Another study reports that 78% of brands were already using LLMs for content planning in 2025. Google has also shared some insights on how AIO is faring versus traditional search, claiming that AI Overviews are reducing clicks on traditional search results. Ahrefs reported in April 2025 that AI Overviews reduced SEO clicks by 34.5%. This implies that for a substantial portion of queries, users are finding their answers directly from the AI summary rather than navigating to a website.

Google reports that AI Overviews already reach 1.5 billion monthly users as of Q1 2025. This indicates a significant number of people are encountering AI-generated summaries directly within their search results, potentially reducing the need to click on traditional links. As of March 2025, 13.14% of all queries generated an AI Overview, with 88.1% of those being informational.

In what areas does SEO content triumph over GEO content?

Low-funnel content

All is not lost for traditional SEO, as there are some areas it will remain king for now. Purchases are still being made directly through sites, meaning your lower-funnel commercial and conversion-focussed content should stay as a priority. Think testimonials, customer reviews and in depth FAQs about your brand or product.

Branded traffic

Direct traffic, driving those who have an existing knowledge and relationship to your brand, is still strong. Many users, who know of your brand, will use search engines to find your site. For some, LLMs can play a key role in increasing brand awareness, driving more direct traffic to your site over time.

Complex content

For complex topics such as product comparisons or service evaluations, users want to dig deeper than a summary. SEO content provides the comprehensive, nuanced information that satisfies this need, often leading to better-qualified leads and higher conversion rates.

Unique perspectives

One thing AI will never be able to replicate is the human experience. Meaning unique content told from an individual perspective will always hold value against changing technologies. Case studies, personal reviews or UGC may even become more valuable as audiences look for authentic and credible content.

Credible sources

There are some areas where AI will never be as trusted or authoritative. Take healthcare, as one example, where information around symptoms or medications can never be as trustworthy as a direct governing body like the NHS website. For many users, they will still rather go direct to a source of trusted information, than risk receiving what AI deems to be the best results.

New studies and data research

AI models are trained on existing data. They can’t conduct original research, interviews or experiments. This means SEO content that presents unique data, new perspectives or proprietary insights (e.g. a new study from your company) will become invaluable and something AI will likely just cite, rather than generate.

Experts in their respective fields

Authors on sites and across social media can demonstrate their learned experience within a single topic, highlighting the trustworthiness of the information. Whilst AI is working on an E-E-A-T model, it’s still early days and mistakes can (and are) happening. Getting medical insight from a doctor online, weather advice from a meteorologist or digital marketing advice from an expert, holds much more value than LLMs generative results.

What does AI excel in?

Quick results for informational queries

For now, AI is helping users more so on informational content. Where it’s strengths lie are in collating multiple sources to produce listicles, lifestyle tips and recommendations at speed. AI can churn out large volumes of research to help you find quick answers that are usually relevant.

Ideating content ideas

AI tools are excellent for quickly generating topic ideas, content outlines and initial drafts, serving as a powerful assistant to overcome writer’s block and kickstart the creative process. LLMs can be good as getting a top-level idea of what’s out there currently, what news is trending on a particular topic or what competitor brands are writing about.

Finding sources of data

This is where LLMs and search engines can work together. AI can quickly find you high quality sources of data, which can drive you to these sites to source information directly. A good example of this is ONS data, there is a lot on the site to browse and it can be tricky to navigate or find a particular study, but with LLMs you can ask AI to direct you to a specific page to see if the data you are looking for exists onsite. This helps reduce user journey and improve efficiency for users browsing larger sites. This is why it is important for businesses to make sure their data is structured to rank and correctly indexed.

Quick analysis of data

You can input large quantities of data and ask LLMs to find trends or interesting insights, which are still recommended to be fact checked in person, however this can help you decide to take on a data analysis task and see if the outcomes will be worth the effort before getting too invested.

In summary, GEO will be a new avenue for SEOs to explore. GEO will be a skill in addition to, not in replacement of, traditional SEO. For brands, this will mean doing the right research when looking for an SEO freelancer or agency, ensuring who you partner with is keeping up to date with new strategies to drive results.

If you’re interested in finding out how freelance SEO or digital PR could transform your digital growth, get in touch below.