Analyze This: How GEO Is Changing How You Rank Online
By Peggy Tierney Galvin, co-founder, chief strategy officer
Whatever else you say about it, Gen AI gets around. Just this morning, members of my book club group chat recommended a friend use ChatGPT for creating a cover letter, I watched a social media feed devolve into argument over whether a video was an AI deepfake, and I talked with a colleague about training models for a project we’re working on. And that’s just one morning!
Granted, it’s not great for recipes. And you probably shouldn’t try to date it. But people – including your customers, investors and partners – are using LLMs as oracles to advise on what technology options to consider, and even which to purchase. Even people using a traditional search engine like Google or Bing are seeing AI-generated summaries of their search results right at the top, disinclining all but the most determined to scroll further and click through to a website for an answer.
What does this mean for you? It means you’ve probably noticed a dramatic drop-off in web traffic. And that means that regular old SEO isn’t enough for your top of funnel organic digital strategy. It means you also need GEO: generative engine optimization. GEO is the practice of optimizing content to appear in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE). And as more people use – or are being pushed towards – generative engine results, GEO will only become more important to include as part of your overall marketing strategy.
Fortunately, for you, we’re on it. For months now, we’ve been testing the latest LLMs, tools and analytics to uncover what PR strategies and tactics deliver the clearest and most definitive results in response to queries in the likes of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google Gemini or Search Generative Experience (SGE). Curious to see how your company rates? Reach out to us for a free GEO audit of your company’s online presence.
