SEO vs GEO: what stays the same and what changes?

The goals differ in a small but important way. SEO wants a click from a results page. GEO wants a mention inside an answer, ideally with a link. Someone may read the answer and never visit a site, so being named matters in itself.

We've covered how assistants pick businesses in a separate article on getting recommended by ChatGPT. This one is the comparison: what you keep, what you add, and how you know it's working.

A site that loads, can be crawled and has pages worth reading helps both. So do clear headings, sensible page titles, fast mobile pages and content written by people who know the subject. AI search tools often draw on the same web index and the same pages that rank well in ordinary search, so ignoring SEO to chase GEO usually backfires.

Reputation carries over too. Reviews, links from respected sites and a record of being right are as useful to an assistant as to a search engine.

Assistants quote. They lift a sentence or a fact and put it in an answer, so a page that makes a plain claim near the top is easier to use than one that circles the point for four paragraphs. Your facts also need to match everywhere: name, address, services, prices and opening hours on your site, your profiles and directories. When sources disagree, an assistant may skip you or get it wrong.

Structured data helps machines read those facts without guessing. And what other trusted sites say about you carries more weight: industry lists, directories, press, community answers. Nobody can promise any of this will get you cited, but it removes the usual reasons you'd be left out.

SEO has mature tools: Search Console, rankings and organic traffic. GEO measurement is rougher. Pick fifteen or twenty questions your buyers really ask, put them to the main assistants each month, and record whether you're mentioned, in what position, and which page was cited. Also look at referral traffic from AI tools in your analytics. It's imperfect, because answers vary from run to run, so watch the trend rather than any single result.

If you have limited time, don't try to do everything. Fix the basics first, then work down the list below.