What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?

0:00For 20 years, we played the SEO or search engine optimization game. The goal was to rank in a list of blue links so that a user would click through to your website. But today, users aren't just looking for a website. They're looking for an all-in-one answer more and more. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are providing those answers directly. This has led to the rise in

0:28what we call a zero-click search. Meaning, there's a lot of users that aren't clicking through to websites anymore. If your business isn't a part of that all-in-one answer that the AI is giving, you're effectively invisible. So, today, that's why we need to talk about GEO. GEO stands for generative engine optimization. GEO is the process of optimizing your brand's reputation and prominence online so that the AI platforms almost treat your brand like

0:58it's a fact. But here's the good news. You don't have to throw away your entire SEO playbook. Unlike a lot of those doom and gloom videos on YouTube, what they're saying, you simply have to evolve your strategy. Here's how you evolve from just being a link on a list to being a part of that all-in-one response. My name's Scott Redgate. I'm a digital marketing coach, and if you need a little help, make sure to grab my free

1:227-day online marketing jumpstart doc. You can get it at scottredgate.com/jumpstart. I'll leave a link in the description below. Okay, so how do you start to become a part of that response that is given from the AI platforms like ChatGPT? Well, you need to start to optimize for citations, not just clicks. Just like with SEO, your website is important. But here's the thing. These AI platforms don't just look at your website. They look at what the rest of

1:50the world is saying about you as well. So, let's say that you have a plumbing business. So, let's say there's a blog in your area that came out with a top 10 list on the best plumbers in your region. To come up as a response in those AI platforms, being in that list is essential. When the AI provides an all-in-one answer, they're looking for those businesses that are popping up everywhere across the internet. And if your brand is able to be in those placements, the AI might look at you as the consistent choice to recommend or site with its responses. Similar to having other websites talk about you,

2:29you have to build a multi-platform ecosystem. AI platforms look at your entire digital footprint to see if you're a trusted source on that topic. If your brand only appears on a single domain, your website, that's a single point of failure. You need to be everywhere that makes sense for your business to help verify some of the claims that you're making. So, think of it this way. Modern AI tools don't just read text. They watch, they listen. When the AI provides an all-in-one answer, it might pull from a YouTube video that was created or reference a podcast episode on that exact topic. So, if the AI is

3:10able to recognize and see that you have a video on YouTube, you've got built-out social profiles for your business, and your name is mentioned in those trusted third-party sources like those top 10 lists that we were mentioning earlier, the AI tool is no longer just taking your word for it. It's saying that your business is the real deal, and it helps you be looked at as an expert in your space. I mean, let's contrast this to how SEO used to be. SEO in the early

3:37days was all about tricking the robots. Now, it got substantially better over the years so that it was more focused on your customer base, but GEO is still one step ahead of that. In my opinion, GEO is actually optimizing even more for humans. What are those elements? What are those trust factors that your potential customer base would be looking for and looking to as they're deciding

4:03if they want to become your customer. Well, here's two examples that help that and can help you with your GEO. You need to get specific reviews. If you're proactive in asking your customers to provide a review after you provided excellent service or provided a great product to them, they're going to naturally use language in the review that talks about the great time that they had and use words and phrases that the AI platforms are going to be looking to to verify that you're an expert in the space and heck, they might even pull from some of those reviews in their answer. And when you get social proof,

4:39so mentions on social media platforms, forums like Reddit, and even local news websites, those are positive data points that the AI uses as it's building its responses. So, here's the bottom line. The goal of marketing hasn't changed and the difference between SEO and GEO isn't as big as some of those YouTube videos that are out there just to get views are telling you. The goal of marketing hasn't changed, but the way that customers are looking for answers certainly has. And at the end of the day, you need to be the most trusted

5:12solution to your customers' problems. The shift from traditional SEO to GEO isn't a threat. It's an opportunity to stop chasing algorithms and start focusing on building more real-world authority. When you become the consensus choice in your industry, you don't just win the AI recommendation, you win a customer. So, stay consistent, keep your website information fresh, build real-world authority, and enjoy the benefits of having the AI platforms recommend you as a solution to your customers' problems. I hope this video

5:46was helpful for you. Until next time.