It’s official – GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is the new SEO and will be our biggest digital marketing challenge (to date) for 2025.
GEO is still all about Google’s AI Overview, the lovely people at Google just keep giving new terminologies to it. The crux of the problem is we’re now up against Google not our searchers. Google will literally generate the search result based on what it sees on the websites that a) currently in the top league for SEO and b) provide what Google thinks are the most relevant answers.
It’s a bit like ordering in a restaurant and asking the waiter to serve you something comforting and vegan. Google will offer all examples from websites it thinks you want to see – including recipes, pub locations and reviews.
The last bit is most important – ‘reviews’ provide validation to Google that it’s serving up the top dishes to you. Validation comes in various packages – reviews being one but also brand credibility, backlink history and proof (case studies).
So we know that the shift is definitely to AI generated search. It’s unprecedented. A billion Google users will soon see AI summaries (or 3rd party reviews/comparison sites) instead of traditional results. That changes everything.
Our brand’s visibility now depends on who’s talking about us, not just who’s reading our content. This massively impacts a marketer’s strategy. Instead of obsessing over traditional rankings we’ll need to implement new game-changing tactics (more on that in another blog). Because the game isn’t just about our website anymore. It’s about our digital footprint across the entire web.
Since AI Overview (and GEO) launched this year, the prediction was that traffic levels would drop – and this has now been proven to be the case across most industries. This is because the TOF (Top of Funnel) searches traditionally done by searchers is now being done by Google – and provided within the AI Overview results. This eliminates the need to visit several websites to ‘find out more’. Google has served up all the answers. And yes, people will still need to find a service or product provider but Google has already thought about that and is rolling out a new AI function that allows you to click and buy from within the results without visiting the website. Only time will tell if this proves to be a popular choice – my guess is there won’t be enough trust in that function for it to take off – BUT who knows!
All businesses have had to adapt to the knock-on effects of Google’s AI overview and as such instead of focusing on top keywords us marketers need to be targeting user segments who have shown behavioural signals that directly relate to a service they may need. This includes location, browsing history and trends – so not an easy task, and re-writes the meaning of ‘avatar’.
So what’s next?
Keeping up with the changes is what’s next. AI Overview is (currently) still getting its feet under the table. It will undoubtedly affect both organic and paid search. Only those marketers who can keep one step ahead will win, though Google will tell you ‘it’s a fair playing field’ – it most definitely is not (at the moment).
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