How to master your GEO
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the newest frontier. Similar to AEO, it’s a strategy for making your content visible to AI systems. However, while AEO seeks to provide concise, direct answers (think, featured snippets),GEO seeks to get your content cited and synthesised by AI models. The goal is for your content to be the authority that informs the responses that they are giving. This article focuses on how to master your GEO to make this happen.
GEO Checklist:
✅ Citation-worthy authority
Generative AI prioritises sources that look like authorities. Include expert quotes, unique statistics, or insider knowledge that isn’t found on every other site. Not only will this help get you pulled into AI summaries, but it’s best practice for creating high value content that positions you as an authority.
Ensure your ‘About Us’ and author pages are robust to establish E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
✅ Use of ‘anchor’ statistics
AI models love citing numbers to back up their summaries. Include specific data points or ‘fast facts’ throughout your content. For example, “90% of readers prefer…” or “Founded in 1985…”.
✅ Sentiment and brand tone
Generative AI often summarises the tone of a brand or book – so it’s more important than ever to have clarity around your brand. Ensure your copy clearly reflects your brand’s unique voice. If you want to be known as innovative, use those adjectives in your descriptions so that models that sentiment.
✅ Cross-platform presence
GEO isn’t just about your website; AI models are trained on the whole web. Ensure your information is consistent across things like social media and industry directories. The more nodes of consistent information the AI finds, the more it trusts your data.
✅ Formatting for synthesis
Make it easy for an AI to incorporate your content. This is where tried-and-true SEO practice comes in, with the use of clear formatting throughout your content. Things like subheadings will act as a map.
Summarise long-form articles with a ‘Key Takeaways’ section at the end. This makes it easier for AI models to understand your content, but also benefits readers in a rush!
GEO Tools:
For AI visibility checks:
🛠️Perplexity, Gemini: Regularly prompt these models about your topics to see if your content is being included in their knowledge base.
For content strategy:
🛠️ MarketMuse: Uses AI to help you identify topic gaps, so you can cover subjects more comprehensively.
🛠️ Surfer SEO: Now includes auto-optimise features specifically designed to make content more digestible for modern search algorithms.
