GEO vs SEO: It’s the Same Thing, Baby
Generative Engine Optimization is being sold as a brand new playbook. Strip the marketing and it’s mostly SEO with two new files on top. Here’s the actual checklist, why your existing SEO covers most of it, and the song I wrote to make the point.
A song titled “Same Thing, Baby” by Leo Morejon about GEO and SEO.
Want just the song, full lyrics, and nothing else? Here you go.
GEO is the practice of getting your brand cited when AI tools answer questions. The job is two parts. A clean, well-structured site (most of SEO). A credible mention network across the open web (most of off-page SEO). The newer pieces are incremental: an llms.txt file, an HTML sitemap, FAQ schema, and a writing style built to be quoted.
If you’ve been doing SEO well, you’ve been doing GEO. Drop the deck, skip the $3,000 course, and run the seven-item checklist below.
What is GEO, in plain English
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of getting your brand named or cited when an AI assistant answers a user’s question. Someone asks ChatGPT for the best running shoes for flat feet. The model names a handful of brands. GEO is the work of being one of those brands.
The category is real. The behavior shift is real. More buyers start their research in a generative tool than ever before, and the share is climbing every quarter. Where the discourse goes off the rails is in the framing. Most GEO courses pitch it as if a brand needs to start over from scratch. They don’t.
“If your brand did SEO, bestie, calm down. You’ve been doing GEO, you just ain’t know the sound.”
— Same Thing, Baby (verse 3)
Why GEO is mostly the same as SEO
The two disciplines share the same physics. AI assistants build their answers from two sources: the open web they crawl (or were trained on), and the brand’s own site if they can fetch it. Those are the same two surfaces SEO has always worked on. Get your site clean, get the rest of the web saying your name, and most of the GEO work is done.
| Lever | Matters for SEO? | Matters for GEO? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean on-page structure | Yes | Yes | Same headers, same schema, same crawl rules |
| Site speed and mobile | Yes | Yes | Bots fetch your pages too |
| Internal linking | Yes | Yes | Helps the AI understand your topical depth |
| Backlinks / mentions | Yes | Yes (huge) | The web saying your name is the GEO currency |
| FAQ schema | Helpful | Yes (big) | AI quotes structured Q&A disproportionately |
| llms.txt | No | Yes | New file. ~10 min to add. Worth it |
| HTML sitemap | Helpful | Yes | AI prefers a human-readable index when available |
| Quotable writing style | Helpful | Yes | Short chunks, lead with the answer, scannable lists |
The new lines (llms.txt, sitemap conventions, quotable style) are tactical additions on top of the SEO foundation. None of them are a reason to throw out your existing playbook.
The 7-item GEO checklist
If you do nothing else, do these. In rough priority order.
Your site already does most of GEO if SEO is in place
Headers in order. Real product specs on product pages. Clean titles and meta descriptions. Schema where it makes sense. Internal linking that reflects how a human would explore the site. AI crawlers read all of this the same way Google does. If your SEO stack is in place, the rest of GEO is trim, not foundation.
Get talked about. Citations are the GEO currency
When ChatGPT names a brand in a generated answer, it's statistically likely because that brand shows up across many independent sources. Reddit threads. Press coverage. Review sites. Comparison roundups. Podcast transcripts. The web saying your name out loud is what teaches the model your name belongs in the answer. Same dynamic as SEO link building, with a wider definition of "mention" and more weight on context-rich sources.
Add an llms.txt to your domain
Drop a small text file at /llms.txt that summarizes your site, lists your most authoritative pages, and tells AI crawlers what your content is for. Treat it like a friendlier robots.txt that talks to language models. Takes ten minutes to write. The major foundation models have signaled interest in honoring it.
Add an HTML sitemap that humans can read
Beyond the XML sitemap search engines crawl, add a /sitemap or /resources page that a human (or an AI summarizing your site) can scan top to bottom. AI crawlers prefer a structured index when they can find one. It's also useful internal navigation in its own right.
Add FAQ blocks with FAQPage schema where they fit
Not on every page. On pages where users actually ask questions, add a 4-to-8 question FAQ section, mark it up with FAQPage schema, and write the answers as standalone snippets. AI tools quote FAQ content way more often because the format is easy to extract.
Write in chunks the AI can grab
Lead each section with a one or two sentence answer, then expand. Use lists. Use clear bolds. Avoid run-on paragraphs that only make sense in context. The bot wants a snack, not a 2-hour lab. The same rewrite makes your content easier for humans too. Both audiences want the same thing.
Track citations, not just rankings
Set up a quarterly check: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude the questions a buyer would ask in your category. Note when your brand is named, when a competitor is named, when neither is. Track it over time. It's the closest thing GEO has to a ranking position dashboard right now.
How to track GEO results
GEO doesn’t have a SERP rank tracker. The closest thing is a quarterly habit. Ask the major models the questions a buyer would ask in your category, and record which brands they name.
- 1.Pick 5 to 10 questions a buyer in your category would actually ask. Mix category-level (“best running shoes for flat feet”) and brand-level (“is [your brand] worth it”).
- 2.Ask each question in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. Record which brands are named, in what order, and whether the cited sources include your site, your customer reviews, your press, etc.
- 3.Run it again every quarter. Trend lines over four quarters tell you whether your work is moving the needle. Single-shot results are noisy.
That’s the closest thing GEO has to a ranking dashboard right now. Build it once. Run it quarterly. Good enough.
Building something where AI in marketing comes up? I help teams cut through the noise and figure out what’s worth their time. Reach out and tell me what you’re working on.
Related reading
FAQ
GEO is the practice of getting your brand and content cited by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini when they answer user questions. It's the AI-era counterpart to SEO. The core mechanics overlap heavily with SEO: clean on-page structure, clear content, and credible mentions across the open web. The newer, GEO-specific pieces are a small set of files (llms.txt, an HTML sitemap) and a content style built to be quoted (FAQ blocks, scannable chunks).
About 90 percent the same. Both depend on the same two ingredients: a well-structured site that bots can crawl and cite, and a network of credible mentions across the open web. The differences sit at the margin. SEO ranks pages in a list. GEO gets your brand named in a generated answer. Optimizing for both at the same time is more efficient than treating them as separate disciplines because the foundational work is identical.
llms.txt is a small text file at the root of your domain (like robots.txt) that tells AI crawlers what your site is about, where the canonical sources of truth live, and how you want your content used. It's an emerging convention, not a formal standard yet, but the major foundation models have signaled interest in honoring it. Adding one takes ten minutes and signals brand authority. Worth doing.
Three habits matter most. Write in clean, self-contained chunks: a 1-2 sentence definition, a short explanation, a list. AI quotes prose that travels well out of context. Add FAQPage schema where it fits. AI tools quote structured Q&A disproportionately. Get mentioned across the open web. Reddit, press, reviews, podcasts, and quote roundups are how the model confirms your brand is the right name to drop.
Yes. If you've done the SEO basics, you're about 90 percent of the way to a GEO-ready site. Your titles, headers, schema, internal linking, page speed, and mobile experience all matter to AI crawlers the same way they matter to Google. The new work is incremental: add llms.txt, layer in FAQPage schema where it makes sense, and shift some of your content style toward shorter, quotable sections.
No. The honest version of every GEO course fits on a one-page checklist. Clean up your site, get talked about across the web, add a couple of small files, write in a way the AI can quote. If you need help applying it to your specific brand, hire someone who's actually shipped both SEO and AI work, not someone who sells the course.
Marketing Strategist & AI Expert