Introduction
- It’s a new year and site owners are in a predicament
- Website traffic is falling at a major rate
- We just saw Tailwind CSS lay off a good portion of their staff due partially to lost traffic to their documentation (and hence lost marketing opportunities) since LLMs gained popularity
- Our own website (htmlallthethings.com) has also seen a hit, especially on pages that did not have an AI overview before, and suddenly got one from Google
- And we’ve been hearing complaints from across the industry due to lost traffic, even to things like tutorial content in written and video form (so not even YouTube videos are safe
- For years the answer for a successful website was to provide value to your readers, listeners, and viewers
- How-to guides
- Listicles on the best products in a particular niche
- Reviews on top products
- But answers aren’t coming websites anymore
What’s the solution for website owners?
- Answers aren’t coming from websites anymore they’re coming from Google itself - said another way, a search query is ending with no clicks
- That means that nobody is coming to your website so nobody is seeing your ads, CTAs, or product listings
- The answer to market shifts has always been better SEO in recent years
- Evolve your SEO strategy
- Update your content
- Make technical changes
- Take advantage of new features (ie try to get into featured snippets once they launch)
- But today something new is happening…
Today, a new shift is reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands and it’s happening faster than most teams realize. AI-driven discovery is the new front door to information. A study from UVA Darden shows that nearly 60% of consumers now use AI tools when researching or evaluating purchases, a number poised to grow as AI-enabled browsers and platforms mature.
- Marketing Dive (AEO, GEO and accessibility: The 3 forces that will define 2026 marketing | Marketing Dive)
- We’ve been hearing about AI SEO lately in two forms:
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
- AEO (Answer-Engine Optimization)
- These two are closely related and sometimes are referred to under a singular umbrella term (GEO)
- So now site owners are at a crossroads - do they keep going hard into SEO like they have been, or do they split into SEO, GEO, and AEO?
Definitions and Differences
| Concept |
Primary goal & platform |
Key characteristics |
| SEO (Search-Engine Optimization) |
Rank webpages in traditional search results and drive clicks
|
Focuses on keywords, on-page optimization, backlinks, and technical health.
High rankings still matter; moving up just one position can significantly
raise click-through rate.
|
| AEO (Answer-Engine Optimization) |
Increase the chance of being cited in AI-generated answers (featured snippets,
AI Overviews, or answer boxes)
|
Builds on SEO but emphasizes concise answers, structured data (schema markup),
and question-based content. Often results in zero-click outcomes; AI Overviews
lead to 34.5% lower click-through rates for the top organic result and appear
mostly on informational queries.
|
| GEO (Generative-Engine Optimization) |
Make your content discoverable and citable by large language models (LLMs)
such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude
|
Emphasizes factual density, cited sources, and content credibility. Treats
your business as an entity with relationships to people, products, and
locations. Strategies include offering statistics and quotations (which can
boost AI citations by 30–40%) and building structured knowledge graphs.
|
But do GEO and AEO tactics work?
- Generative engines draw from existing web pages and context; they rarely cite pages that do not already rank in the top organic results. A 2025 eMarketer study found that fewer than 10 % of sources cited in ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot overlapped with Google’s top‑10 results (Generative Engine Optimization in 2026)
- This means if your SEO tactics got you high up in the Google search results, do not guarantee AI will cite from your website
Google’s Stance – Are Separate Strategies Necessary?
Source: What Google Really Said in Zurich: SEO Fundamentals in 2026
- Google says that no AEO or GEO is needed
- At Google Search Live in Zurich, John Mueller stated
- “AI systems rely on search. There is no such thing as GEO or AEO without doing SEO fundamentals.”
- “Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) are often presented as the “next big thing.” While they are important, John Mueller made it clear that they are not alternatives to SEO. Without clear on-page optimization, relevant topics, and structured content, there is no GEO and no AEO — only good SEO done right.”
Should Small Businesses Bother With AEO and GEO?
Resource constraints matter.
- Studies show that AI adoption is accelerating
- 67 % of organizations had adopted large‑language‑model solutions by 2025 (Source)
- 63 % of marketers prioritised GEO. (Source)
- 70 % of searches now end without a click (Source)
- E‑commerce sites reported a 22 % drop in traffic due to AI‑generated suggestions. (Source)
- What should small businesses do?
- SEO remains the foundation.
- Leverage agility and niche expertise.
- Use structured data and FAQs
- Measure beyond clicks.
Can You Target SEO, AEO and GEO in One Piece of Content?
Yes - with strategic planning. The content frameworks suggested by digital marketing agencies show that a single article can serve multiple purposes:
- Start with a strong SEO base:
- Provide a comprehensive answer with natural language, subheadings, internal links and relevant keywords.
- Good technical SEO
- Remember you’re still targetting the old-school SERP systems with this - not GEO, AEO, etc.
- Embed answer snippets and FAQs:
- Within the article, include concise sections answering specific questions.
- Use lists, bullet points, or question‑and‑answer boxes.
- This section can feed AI Overviews and answer engines; adding citations and statistics increases your chances of being quoted.
- AEO helps capture zero‑click searches and can keep you visible even when traffic drops. (Source)
- Add citations and external links: (Source)
- Generative AI values verifiable sources.
- Cross‑link to authoritative studies, official documentation or customer testimonials.
- Building entity authority by connecting your brand to recognized entities (people, locations, products) also improves GEO.
Feasibility for small teams:
- Challenging but not impossible
- Prioritise your most important topics and create comprehensive, well‑structured articles that answer multiple questions.
- Use repurposing: convert long‑form articles into scripts for short videos or podcasts, then embed them
- Align internal resources by focusing on quality rather than quantity - AI is smarter than SEO crawlers at sniffing out rushed content
My Concerns Right Now
- Since a lot of search queries end with no click - some marketers are placing value in showing up in results that don’t end up with direct traffic to your site
- What good is that to many websites that rely on a lot of traffic?
- Staying in results and on the minds of searchers is great for websites that sell products, but what about value-based websites? Are they dead?
- There are tools that are coming out that help measure your AI impact and other metrics beyond clicks
- AI is moving very fast so what is applicable today may not be applicable tomorrow
- SEO changed a lot over the years, but it’s a mature part of being online and so changes to things like how Google crawled results were almost routine to marketers - study and adapt
- But AI is so new that it’s appearing everywhere (traditional search, videos, etc.)
- Is there any longevity in any GEO/AEO tips?
- Even with proper planning and re-purposing, how good can your content really be if it needs to span podcasts, blog posts, YT videos, and short-form content?
