The digital landscape is evolving faster than we could ever imagine. The rise of AI-driven search engines and generative AI fundamentally changes how users find and consume information. This shift introduces a new paradigm: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), which stands alongside, and in some ways diverges from, traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Are you targeting GEO vs. SEO?
If so, this post is for you. It explains the key differences between GEO and SEO, explores specific GEO tactics, and shows how StoryChief can help you succeed in this new search environment.
GEO Vs. SEO: Two Similar Concepts
Traditional SEO has long been the cornerstone of digital marketing strategy. However, the advent of generative engines requires a fresh perspective. This shift has created a new framework to increase visibility: Generative Engine Optimization.
What is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization, which is the next step in SEO’s evolution. Pranjal Aggarwal, from one of India’s best technology institutes, and a group of coworkers from Princeton University coined the term in a seminal paper published in ArXiv.org.
According to the original authors, GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, is:
“...the first novel paradigm to aid content creators in improving their content visibility in generative engine responses through a flexible black-box optimization framework for optimizing and defining visibility metrics.” Pranjal Aggarwal et al.
That’s a mouthful, so let’s break it down.
GEO is a new way to help content creators get their content noticed by AI search tools. It's like SEO but for the latest generation of AI-powered search engines, such as Google’s Search Generative Experience (Google SGE), Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity AI.
These search engines generate responses to user queries instead of just showing links, so people call them generative engines (GEs). GEO gives content creators a framework to figure out what "visibility" means for them and how to get their content seen more often in generative engine search results—let’s call them GERs, akin to SERPs in SEO.
Comparing the Concept of GEO to SEO?
Traditional SEO is similar to GEO because it’s also a framework for improving a web page’s online visibility. It’s a series of long-term strategies and short-term tactics used to help web pages rank when someone searches for a given keyphrase.
The key difference is how visibility is defined in either case and the tactics you can use to boost that visibility.
While SEO focuses on page rankings, GEO is more about your web page being selected as a reliable source and having your content incorporated into the AI’s answer.
Comparing the Anatomy of a Generative Engine Search Result (GER) with SERPs
We’re all familiar with search engine results pages or SERPs. They typically present a ranked list of links, with snippets of text (meta descriptions) and sometimes rich snippets (e.g., reviews, star ratings). The user clicks on a link to visit the website.
However, a generative engine result (GER) provides a comprehensive response directly on the search page. This AI-generated answer synthesizes information from multiple sources, often including inline citations.
The user may get the information they need without ever clicking through to a website. Here’s an example from the popular GE Perplexity AI.
Notice that the ordered list of search results on the right resembles a SERP. Meanwhile, the AI’s response is a well-written synthesis of the information on those web pages with proper citations.
Good SEO Vs. Good GEO
You may have heard that good SEO implies good GEO, but that’s not always true. It’s vital to note that a high SERP ranking doesn't guarantee good visibility in AI-powered searches.
In the Perplexity AI example above, web pages ranking #6 and #10 in the SERP are cited first and second in the AI-generated response, while the #1 ranking website isn’t cited at all.
Here’s an even better example, this time from Google AI Overview when searching for “what is SEO.”
In this case, the web page with the most visibility in the GER isn’t even in the top 50 SERPs results. At the same time, the top-ranking webpage for this highly competitive keyphrase doesn’t even show up once as a source in the AI response.
This evidence highlights the "black box" nature of generative models.
SEO vs. GEO Metrics: Comparing Visibility
Since results in SERPs and GERs are presented differently, you can’t measure visibility the same way for GEO as you do for SEO.
For example, visibility on search engines in SEO is measured as the average search ranking across a range of search queries.
Visibility metrics in GEO aren’t as straightforward. For example, we can define:
- An objective metric related to the order in which a source is cited in the AI response (similar to ranking) and the word count of the quoted sentence.
- A series of subjective visibility metrics related to relevance, uniqueness, and other factors.
To make matters worse, it’s early to know how these metrics correlate with organic search traffic. Until we do, measuring GEO’s impact and value will remain a challenge.
GEO Vs. SEO Tactics
Now, we get to the nitty-gritty.
While some foundational principles of SEO overlap with GEO, our previous examples with Google's SGE or Perplexity AI prove that traditional SEO techniques don’t guarantee success in the age of AI-driven search.
Optimizing for one differs from optimizing for the other; therefore, we need a distinct GEO approach.
The following subsections will explore the differences and similarities between traditional SEO techniques and emerging GEO tactics.
Traditional SEO Tactics: Tried and True Optimization Methods
Traditional SEO revolves around a set of well-established practices we can broadly categorize as follows:
- Keyword research and targeting: Finding keywords and keyphrases relevant to your target audience and incorporating them into informative content for your website.
- On-page SEO: Optimizing individual web pages by crafting compelling title tags and meta descriptions, using header tags correctly, improving user experience, etc.
- Off-page SEO: Primarily focused on building high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites.
- Technical SEO: Ensuring the website is technically sound for search engine crawlers by creating XML sitemaps, managing robots.txt, using schema markup, etc.
- Content marketing: Content marketing is the cornerstone of modern SEO strategy. It implies creating high-quality content that satisfies user intent. The types of content can vary, but content relevance matters as much as quality, so ensure you always consider what your target audience wants.
- React JS web development: Utilizing React for web development to enhance user interfaces and improve the overall performance of your web applications, which can positively impact user engagement and SEO.
GEO Tactics: Optimizing for Inclusion and Influence
GEO is a very recent and dynamic field, evolving as rapidly as the AI models themselves (which is pretty darn fast). Keep in mind that tactics considered effective today might be obsolete tomorrow.
That said, Aggarwal and coworkers developed and tested nine GEO tactics—the best we’ve got so far. Based on their study, here’s a summary of the most effective evidence-backed GEO tactics and their potential impact on visibility.
Adding Statistics
Generative engines often rely on data to support claims and provide comprehensive answers. Incorporating relevant statistics into your content can significantly increase its chances of being included in an AI-generated response. Ensure the statistics are:
- Relevant
- Up-to-date
- From a credible source
Testing this tactic on a GEO benchmark of 10,000 queries improved performance in objective metrics by 30.6% and subjective metrics by 22.8%.
Citing Credible Sources
Citing reputable sources is important for SEO and GEO. Adding citations with references (like a link to an online source) can increase GEO performance metrics by 13.5%–21.5%.
Generative models are trained to prioritize authoritative information. Providing clear citations signals that your content is trustworthy and well-researched.
Adding Quotations
Including direct quotes from experts or authoritative sources is the top-performing GEO tactic. It can add weight and credibility to your content and increase visibility metrics by 28.0%–40.9%.
This tactic aligns with E-E-A-T principles (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which are increasingly important in SEO and GEO.
To maximize the impact of quotes for GEO, ensure they are:
- Verbatim accurate.
- From reputable sources.
- Clearly attributed to the original source.
- Contextually relevant.
- Properly formatted (use quotation marks for short quotes and block quotes for longer ones).
Remember that long quote in our initial definition of GEO?
Now you know why it’s there and why we didn’t simply paraphrase it from the start.
Fluency Optimization and Easy-to-Understand Content
Generative engines are designed to provide clear, concise, easily digestible, and direct answers. Therefore, well-written, grammatically correct, and easy-to-understand content is more likely to be selected.
Use tools like Grammarly or StoryChief to improve your content's fluency and readability. You can also use StoryChief’s AI Agent to craft short, declarative sentences and avoid jargon or overly complex language.
Combining Tactics
As in SEO, combining GEO tactics is more effective than using them separately.
The most effective approach combines fluency optimization with adding statistics to the text.
Traditional SEO Techniques that Fail in GEO
Some traditional SEO techniques are ineffective or even counterproductive in the context of GEO. For example, high keyword density is a long-outdated SEO tactic that can harm your content's readability and perceived quality.
Generative engines prioritize contextual relevance and natural language processing, so keyword stuffing will likely be ignored or penalized.
Adding unique or technical words is another tactic that a GE will likely ignore.
StoryChief: Your All-in-One Platform for GEO and SEO
Traditional SEO is still important, but it’s not enough. StoryChief is designed to empower content marketers in this evolving digital landscape.
It's not just an SEO tool; it's a full-featured content marketing platform that helps with content creation for both traditional search and the new world of generative AI.
The platform offers several features that directly support GEO tactics:
- AI Power Mode to improve text fluency and identify credible sources. This streamlines the process of creating GEO-optimized content.
- Content audits to help you stay on top of your SEO and GEO game.
- Content collaboration software to facilitate the creation of well-researched, high-quality, authoritative content, a key factor for both SEO and GEO.
Storychief also offers all the tools and features needed to improve your site's SEO:
- Keyword research.
- Content analysis.
- Content calendar.
- Multi-channel publishing.
- Performance tracking and more.
Conclusion: Embrace the Future of Search with StoryChief
The future of search is here, and it's powered by generative AI.
Content marketers must embrace Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) alongside traditional SEO to succeed. Content quality is still a key factor when considering new search technologies.
StoryChief provides the tools and features to create high-quality, relevant content that excels in both traditional search and the new generative search landscape.
Start optimizing your content for the age of AI.
Explore StoryChief's features and see how they can help you achieve greater content visibility and reach your target audience.
