By Rich Croxford, Account Manager
(Read to the end of this article to get a free AI search optimisation audit).
I recently gave a talk on Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO – sometimes called AI engine optimisation) and asked the room how Google had changed in the last 12-months.
There were a few murmurs about ChatGPT taking over but no one mentioned the fact that Google’s AI Overviews now accompany nearly every search you do.
In fact, research from The Digital Bloom showed that 60 per cent of searches are now being completed without clicking through to a website.
In other words, people are turning to Google’s AI features for answers rather than websites themselves.
The question, therefore, becomes: “How can digital marketing continue without websites being used by consumers?”
For me, the answer lies in GEO.
What is GEO?
At its simplest, GEO is the process of getting your brand recognised, quoted and promoted by AI platforms in its synthesised answers.
These platforms of course include ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, Google’s AI overviews, Microsoft’s Copilot, etc – the list ever-growing.
From a more technical perspective, to get recognised by this hoard of platforms, we use:
- Up-to-date content using relevant keywords and answering questions that users are looking for
- The volume and quality of Google reviews (or things like TripAdviser depending on your business)
- External citations – online newspapers, awards, directories, etc.
- Brand sentiment (i.e. what people are saying about your brand on social media and forums like Reddit)
However, all of this has to be built on a solid foundation of search engine optimisation (SEO) and a technically sound, easily navigable and quick-loading website.
Why didn’t anybody notice the change to Google search?
From my very extensive, super detailed research (i.e. asking about 12 people as well as some colleagues around the office), it’s clear that AI overviews have been implemented without much disruption.
If it had affected peoples’ experience on Google, it would have been decried as a massive error in judgement… but it hasn’t.
The fact that no one has noticed tells you that…
- It’s working well
- It’s seamlessly integrated into the user journey
- It’s probably here to stay
So now marketers like us are working hard to ensure that the brands we represent are getting mentioned in the AI features we all use on a regular basis.
If your brand isn’t showing up, your competitors probably are, and that’s a problem.
What does GEO mean for your marketing?
Fundamentally, getting your brand into AI search engines/platforms is now on the agenda for growth-oriented businesses.
We’ve seen an increase in the number of clients and non-clients coming to us for advice on ChatGPT and equally seen the number of referrals in web stats rise.
It’s the next big thing in marketing and you should be paying attention.
You need to do an audit (or get a free one from us) to show whether you’re showing up on AI platforms and if you aren’t look at what you can do to get the robots to recognise you.
If you are showing up great news, but…
- Is AI showing the right information about you?
- Are you showing above your competitors?
- Do you show up for every search your potential customers are doing?
If you aren’t showing up on AI…
- How much business are you losing because of that?
- Which of your competitors are beating you?
Arguably, the most important question is: “What are you going to do about it?”
If you don’t fancy doing an AI audit yourself (which can be quite time consuming and complicated), click here.
Alternatively, if you want to start improving your AI rankings today, get in touch with our team.
