For years, all online writers needed to think about was SEO (search engine optimisation). Now, it’s been joined by GEO (generative engine optimisation) and AEO (answer engine optimisation).
If you’re still getting up to speed on what GEO and AEO need from you as a writer (or need to sign off content confident in the knowledge that all the boxes have been ticked), this guide is for you.
It’s designed to give you a grasp of the basics by:
- recapping what SEO, GEO and AEO are and why they matter
- exploring how to write content that ticks all the SEO, GEO and AEO boxes
- understanding how to measure SEO, GEO and AEO results.
The TL;DR version of the following 1,500-odd words is simply this:
- SEO, GEO and AEO matter
- the fundamentals of high-quality, audience-focused content remain the same
- high-quality, audience-focused content is essential for effective SEO, GEO and AEO.
What is SEO?
SEO is the process of getting your website to appear as high up in search engine results as possible. It involves optimising your site for the keywords or phrases customers and potential customers will use to find businesses like yours.
I think it’s helpful to think of SEO as the tool that comes into its own when visitors have a requirement and want to do their own research. For example: ‘A writing skills trainer with experience of working with public sector teams.’
The aim is to secure the click from the search engine results to your website.
What is GEO?
GEO is the process of optimising your website’s content so it’s used in answers to users’ prompts in Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot etc.
It’s helpful to think of GEO as the tool that comes into its own when visitors want to harness AI’s capabilities in their research process. They will have a conversation with an AI to build up a clear picture of their options. For example:
- I am searching for a copywriter with experience of working with public sector organisations to help me with a report I am writing. Please could you let me have a list of five copywriters who have experience of working with public sector organisations?
- Please could you rank the strengths and weaknesses of each of them?
- Which copywriter would you recommend for my organisation?
The aim is to build your visibility / authority so you secure an enquiry or a website visit.
What is AEO?
AEO is optimising your content so search engines can use it in the ‘AI overview’ at the top of the search engine results. For example: ‘What are the benefits of writing clearly and concisely?’
My sense is it’s useful for building authority and credibility rather than directly driving sales or visits to your website.
Now we’ve covered the basics, we can dive into the specifics. How do you write content that’s SEO/GEO/AEO friendly?
How do you write SEO-friendly content?
Because SEO is the longest-established discipline I’m going to assume you’re already comfortable with the basics so I won’t cover them here. But if you want my take on it (or want a refresher on the topic), I’ve written about it previously, in particular in Three steps to choosing your SEO keywords and A guide to web content.
How do you write GEO-friendly content?
There are two parts to this. The first is to understand the types of content you’re going to need and compiling a content plan. The second is best practice when actually writing the content.
Compiling a content plan
This involves:
- compiling a list of topics where it’s important you’re featured in AI outputs
- gaining an understanding of user intent within each of those topics
- working out the content that will best meet users’ needs for each intent type.
Compiling a list of topics where it’s important you’re featured in AI outputs
Your product or service areas are the starting point here, as are your SEO keywords.
Gaining an understanding of user intent within each of those topics
For each of your topic areas, you need to understand the different reasons (or intentions) people may have for asking an AI for input – that is, the ‘user intent’. Discussion of user intent in GEO typically focuses on four types:
- informational intent (think: ‘what is …?’, ‘how to do …’, ‘examples of…’ etc)
- commercial investigation (think: ‘what is the best…’, ‘please compare…’, ‘find me reviews of…’ etc)
- transactional intent (think: ‘get a quote’, ‘find a discount’, ‘place an order’ etc)
- navigational intent (think: ‘how do I login to…’, ‘how do I reset my password in …?’, ‘how do I contact …’).
For each of these areas, brainstorm the questions users might ask an AI. The ‘People also ask’ section in Google is helpful here, as is AnswerThePublic, forums such as Reddit or Quora and customer research. Industry-specific sites such as G2 may also have useful insights to draw on.
Working out the content that will best meet users’ needs
At this point, I think it’s helpful to remind you that the four types of intent broadly speaking map to tried-and-tested marketing principles such as the marketing funnel and stages of awareness. In other words, we aren’t reinventing the wheel and the types of content you need to produce don’t really change.
When people are doing their initial research, they need explanatory or informational content such as blog posts, videos, ebooks, white papers etc.
As they start to refine their thinking they need buyer’s guides, comparisons, case studies, webinars and workshops.
As they start to narrow down providers they want product pages, pricing pages, demos, trials and reviews.
Post-sales, users need practical information such as help centres, training guides and troubleshooting pointers.
Your goal at this stage is therefore to assess what content you already have, what content needs to be updated and what content needs to be created.
GEO best practice when writing content
I’m very clear that good GEO writing is simply good writing. Essentially, it means respecting your reader, their time and their intelligence:
- get to the point quickly
- structure your content logically and break it up with informative headings so it’s easy to skim to get the information that’s needed
- use simple words and structures – don’t show off your voluminous vocabulary or grasp of complex grammatical constructs
- use real examples, real numbers and trustworthy sources over vague terms such as ‘exceptional customer service’ or ‘game changing results’ or ‘experts agree’.
You’re aiming to create high-quality, fact-led content that AIs can draw from and humans visiting your site will appreciate.
How do you write AEO-friendly content?
As with SEO and GEO, your first step is to understand the questions people are asking. I’d use the same process as for GEO here: the ‘People also ask’ section in Google, AnswerThePublic, forums such as Reddit or Quora, industry-specific sites such as G2 and customer research.
My take is that because AEO is useful for building awareness and credibility it will be a slower-burn in terms of revenue generation and it will be harder to track return-on-investment.
For these reasons, I’d suggest that AEO should be the final building block of your search strategy and the thing you think about last. In other words, once you have the questions, think about where they can logically be included in the content you’re already writing rather than thinking of new content that might be needed.
Let’s turn next to how to track the success of your SEO, GEO and AEO strategies.
How to measure SEO success
Measuring the success of your SEO is fairly straightforward. Some of them link to revenue generation more closely than others:
- where you rank for your keywords
- the number of backlinks you have (i.e. the number of websites that link to yours)
- the number of visitors coming to your site via search engines
- the number of leads you generate from your website
- the number of leads from your website that convert.
How to measure GEO success
Measuring your GEO success is slightly trickier.
When it comes to tracking your visibility in AI responses you’ll need specialist tools such as Semrush Enterprise AI Optimization, Profound and Peec AI. (Full disclosure: I haven’t used personally any of these tools and there are many more to choose from.)
What’s interesting is that GEO lead generation metrics are in direct opposition to good SEO metrics. The AI will be aiming to answer all a user’s questions in the conversation so there’s no need for them to click away to your site. You can therefore expect to receive fewer leads – but they should be much better qualified than leads from SEO. You should therefore expect a better conversion rate because they’re much further through the buying journey by the time they get to your site.
How to measure AEO success
The impact of your AEO efforts will be more tangential and harder to attribute than SEO and GEO metrics.
That said, you can track signals using metrics such as:
- increases in searches on your company name
- increases in traffic via search engines
- increases in direct website visits.
What are the writing lessons we can draw from evolving content requirements?
My take is that the evolution of GEO and AEO have made the fundamentals of good content more important than ever: put yourself in your audience’s shoes and give them the information they need in the way they need it.
This is particularly true when it comes to GEO- and AEO-optimised content.
GEO- and AEO-optimised content reflects the fact that buyers are humans.
When it comes to making a buying decision, they want concrete information and hard facts they can assess objectively – not marketing fluff or over-sales-y sales materials. This is especially the case in a business context when their career may literally depend on them making the best decision. Consider too that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep‑free experience.
For these reasons, whether buyers use an AI to do their research or not, you need to make more of the key information on your producta and services available online – and in a way that’s easy to read and digest. If you rely on having the opportunity to present information and answer questions face to face you may lose out because buyers can’t get the information they need to be happy to invite you into the room in the first place.
