GEO vs SEO

GEO vs SEO – what’s the difference and why you need both in 2026 

Search isn’t just about ranking anymore. It’s about being recommended by large language models in AI overviews and AI tools. I’ll look at the similarities and differences between SEO and GEO marketing for local business. 

What is SEO? 

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising content in order to rank it higher in traditional search engine results pages (or SERPs) like on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The idea is to gain visibility for your business, increase the number of click throughs to your website from the organic traffic (not paid for ads). To win the first place position, SEO specialists use keyword research, on-page optimisation, technical SEO, backlinks and schema markup. 

What is GEO?

Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is optimising content to appear in AI generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude. And more importantly, in the AI overviews that appear above websites in search engine results pages. The goal is to become a trusted source of information that AI can cite or recommend to searchers. To be recommended your business needs to show factual clarity, conversational structure, answer FAQs, and provide authority signals. 

GEO requires a different strategy to SEO. 

Key differences between GEO vs SEO

	SEO	GEO
Result	Ranking in search results	AI overview or prompt response
Query type	Short search (keywords)	Long question (prompt)
Optimisation	Position one ranking for traffic	Being mentioned by AI
Action	User clicks through to your page	AI summarises your content
Goals	Ranking, clicks, conversions	Shown in AI instead of competition

Where GEO and SEO are the same

Both GEO and SEO reward high quality, authoritative and well-structured content. The work that is done for SEO – making the website fast, crawlable by robots, easy to find information – will help AI to collect the information.

Much of the page structure that is essential to SEO is also relevant for GEO. For example, short precis, FAQs or bullet point lists can perform well in both featured snippets (SEO) and AI summaries (GEO). 

Original research and data attract backlinks (SEO) and are cited by AI (GEO). Regurgitating someone else’s content either exactly or very closely will get your website penalised for duplicate content (SEO) and disregarded by AI (GEO). 

Why GEO matters now

AI tools frequently answer searches and prompts without requiring a click. Zero click marketing has been a thing for a few years now (If you would like to read more about it, I highly recommend Amanda Natividad at Spark Toro). 

Fewer people are clicking a search engine result to visit a website and read information. The AI overview provides them with the answer directly on Google. That’s why it is so important that your business is mentioned by AI in tools and in AI overviews. 

On the plus side, being cited by AI can increase your brand authority and drive higher quality traffic over time. If a person sees your company name mentioned by AI, they will assume your business is valid. YouGov data says 61% of 18-34 year olds think AI overviews are useful and 47% of them think they are very trustworthy or fairly trustworthy. 

If you are ahead of the game and get your brand mentioned in AI overviews now, you will gain a competitive edge. 

How to optimise for both SEO and GEO

On-page optimisation for SEO will continue to include keyword research and mapping the intent of the person who is searching. It will continue to include page titles, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, and internal linking. Tech SEO will continue to optimise for fast load times, mobile-friendliness, clean architecture and crawlability. 

At the same time, GEO will require writing that is natural and conversational. This has long been a standard feature of good SEO writing – writing for real people in the way that they speak, not just for robots. Using clear headings that answer questions and adding FAQ sections with short, factual answers. And publishing original research and data that can be cited. Again, this echoes good SEO which has always prioritised original information. 

So running the two types of optimisation alongside each other is not an impossible ask, and if your SEO is experienced at structuring websites and content clearly and publishing original content (like me), it may feel like not much has changed. 

Monitoring organic traffic, keyword rankings, click through rates, bounce rates and conversions are integral to marketing and SEO is one channel in the mix. For GEO it is useful to measure citations; frequency, brand mentions, and share of voice. High quality search tools (e.g. SEMrush, AHrefs) are already building this data into their reports. 

GEO vs SEO – what’s the difference?

There are clear differences between GEO and SEO. Searches are no longer confined to search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. More than half of searches now happen in AI tools like ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude. The structure of those searches are different. Instead of short keyword phrases, searches are phrased as questions and AI tools take part in conversational back and forth. And AI answers do not lead to as many clicks. 

For local business the crucial difference is that instead of, or in addition to, optimising for search engine page results (SERPs) and clicks, optimisation must focus on answering questions, providing unique information, and making it easily digestible by AI so that it can be cited in answers. 

Trustworthiness hasn’t changed. Authority is important for both SEO and GEO. Clean site structure and underlying tech that is fast, crawlable and easily indexable remains important. Businesses that want to be ahead of the curve need to factor GEO into their marketing planning now and, at the same time, maintain the good foundation that SEO has built for them.