Summary
In this video from Growth Hackers, Tom and Alexander discuss practical steps companies can take to optimize for GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and identify which content formats perform best for AI search visibility. The conversation outlines a clear action plan for businesses getting started with GEO. The first step is mapping out relevant prompts and search terms, the GEO equivalent of keyword research in traditional SEO. Next, companies should audit their current AI search visibility using tools like Agent Mindshare to understand how often their brand is cited in AI responses. Technical readiness is equally important: websites must be crawlable by AI, load quickly, be mobile-friendly, and include structured data like schema markup. A key insight is that off-page signals matter significantly for GEO. AI models do not just read your website; they crawl the entire internet to understand how others talk about your brand. This makes external mentions and backlinks potentially even more important than in traditional SEO, though the value has shifted from link authority to contextual understanding of how other sites discuss your brand. The most actionable finding is that specific content formats dramatically outperform others for AI citation. FAQs, Q&A sections, bullet lists, tables, and short paragraphs are consistently cited more often by AI models. The presenters recommend using conversational language, clear headings, and structured formats that are easy for both humans and AI to digest. Content should focus on genuinely answering user questions rather than optimizing for keyword density.
Description
In this talk, we’ll explore some practical steps companies can take to start optimizing for GEO. We’ll also discuss which types of content perform best for GEO — with some indicators suggesting that FAQs and Q&As are the way to go! Finally, we’ll briefly touch on whether backlinks are important for GEO visibility.
FAQ
What content formats work best for GEO optimization?
FAQs, Q&A sections, bullet lists, tables, and short structured paragraphs consistently perform best for AI citations. These formats are easy for LLMs to read, understand, and extract for use in generated answers.
What is the first step a company should take for GEO?
Start by mapping out the most relevant prompts and search terms for your business, similar to keyword research in SEO. Then audit your current AI search visibility to understand your baseline before making optimizations.
Are backlinks still important for GEO?
Yes, backlinks are still very important and may be even more important than in traditional SEO. However, the value has shifted from link authority to AI actually reading the content on those linking pages to understand how others discuss and evaluate your brand.
How should website technical setup differ for GEO versus SEO?
For GEO, websites must be crawlable by AI models (not just search engines), load quickly, use clear schema markup, and present content in structured formats. You should also verify that different AI tools like OpenAI and Perplexity can actually access your pages.
Should I focus on keyword density for GEO content?
No. Unlike traditional SEO, GEO relies on semantic understanding rather than keyword density. Focus on genuinely answering user questions with clear, structured, and valuable information rather than repeating specific keywords throughout your content.
Transcript
0:01 Happy Monday. Great to back for another 0:04 chat regarding J. H. Last week we spoke 0:08 about how long it actually takes when 0:10 you start to work with J to actually see 0:12 some results and see your name or your 0:14 brand pop up in the LLMs. But for 0:18 today's session, I think it's time to 0:21 dig a little deeper and actually talk 0:23 about techniques that you can use as a 0:25 company or brand to get that visibility. 0:28 Uh so let's start there. As a company, 0:31 what's the first step you should start 0:34 working with to get that visibility? 0:37 >> Yeah. Uh good question and happy Monday, 0:40 Alex. Uh I think to break down that 0:43 question, uh I would say the most 0:46 important thing maybe we should start 0:48 with mapping out the most relevant 0:50 prompts and uh search terms. uh in the 0:54 traditional SEO world basically we're 0:57 talking about the most important 0:58 keywords uh so I think that's equ 1:01 equivalent in that case we understand 1:05 what prompts and the terms we should be 1:07 working on and should be monitoring 1:12 >> okay but when we have that understanding 1:14 what would be like the next part so we 1:17 know the problems that we should be 1:19 visible in I know that already what 1:22 should I do Next. 1:24 >> Yeah. Next, I think we should uh start 1:26 with auditing your current uh 1:28 performance uh which is uh visibility uh 1:32 as the term we talked about last time. 1:34 How often AI actually site sites your 1:37 brand and links and there are me 1:41 multiple methods to do this. uh most 1:43 common ways that you could use different 1:46 pl AI uh search uh uh overview platforms 1:51 to help you build the current 1:53 performance and the trend over time. Uh 1:56 we actually have a tool called HMI share 1:59 that you can use for this purpose. 2:02 And uh after that uh of course you also 2:07 need to make sure that the site is uh 2:10 technically uh technically ready for 2:13 this purpose and uh don't forget about 2:17 uh offline signals 2:20 uh sorry I mean off page signals uh 2:23 because uh AI don't just site content on 2:26 your page they also uh crawl uh across 2:30 the whole net to understand other 2:32 contents and try to answer the 2:34 questions. So that part also matters a 2:37 lot and uh finally but of course 2:41 probably is also the most important 2:43 thing that we need to set up a good way 2:47 to monitor the trend and the change. So 2:49 we understand all the efforts we we give 2:52 will be bring good performance to us. 2:56 >> Interesting. You said one thing about 2:58 the technical aspects. Could you like 3:01 sling back to that and uh and get a bit 3:05 more concrete what you actually mean 3:07 with technical part? That would be 3:09 great. 3:10 >> Yeah. Uh I think many people are 3:12 familiar with the technical SEO. So in 3:15 this um uh case it's quite similar. Uh 3:19 first you need to make the side make 3:21 sure the pages are crawable. So AI 3:24 actually can crawl and read uh the 3:26 content on the page and also the page 3:29 need to load fast enough u mobile 3:32 friendly and many other aspects we need 3:36 to think about uh and also some other 3:38 small tips that we could talk about here 3:40 is to we need to have a structured data 3:43 uh like schema markup for AI engines to 3:47 easily understand and extract the 3:49 content of the page and also for the 3:53 content of the page. Uh it would be good 3:55 to optimize the content in a very clear 3:58 and structured way. So we use more like 4:01 a conversational language to break down 4:04 the answers into bullets or shorter 4:07 paragraphs. Uh just imagine is like when 4:10 when a real human being is consuming 4:12 content on the page, what will the best 4:14 way to understand what you what the 4:16 information you have? And uh best 4:19 practice could also be that try to 4:21 format the questions and answer based 4:25 information so people can easily digest 4:28 what this is about and what answer 4:30 you're trying uh trying to give. Yeah. 4:33 So in practical I think uh we we have 4:36 seen a lot of cases like Q&A or FAQ 4:39 sessions would get cited quite often by 4:42 AI. 4:44 A bonus question maybe or once again 4:47 stepping back from what you started with 4:49 in that sentence it's crawable. I think 4:51 we always talk about your site needs to 4:53 be crawable your app needs to be 4:55 crawable your information needs to be 4:56 crawable. What what is the actual 4:58 definition of having something crawable 5:00 for the LLMs would you say? 5:03 >> Yeah. Yeah. There are some technical 5:05 definitions like you could make if you 5:09 don't want actually you could make the 5:10 site not crawable by AI but of course in 5:14 our case we would want to do the 5:16 opposite. So one easy yeah one easy case 5:20 I think probably many people experience 5:23 uh would be uh if you give the same link 5:26 to open AI or to perplexity for example 5:31 uh sometimes you could experience that 5:32 the link could be accessed by perplexity 5:36 but not by open AAI so that's something 5:38 we definitely need to think about 5:41 >> okay perfect 5:43 thing that's been been asked quite a lot 5:46 Is is backlinks still as an important as 5:51 when we're talking about SEO? So is 5:53 backlinks important for SEO as well or 5:56 is it main the main information on your 5:58 site that's more important or is back 6:00 links still valid? 6:02 >> Yeah, I think uh both matter. Uh, of 6:05 course the content on the page as we 6:07 said you need to have it in a very 6:09 structured way easy to digest but back 6:12 links uh are still very important or to 6:15 some some extent I would say is probably 6:18 more important uh than before because in 6:22 the classic or traditional SEO world uh 6:25 backlink that they read different 6:28 domains to like which give back links to 6:30 you to understand like how uh the whole 6:34 network referring to your to to your 6:36 information to your pages. But in this 6:38 case, uh AI would rather actually to 6:42 read the content on those pages or or or 6:45 places try to understand how people or 6:49 or other sites generally talk about you. 6:53 So I would say that's definitely like 6:56 important in different ways. 6:58 And I think just to highlight something 7:00 uh if you have more questions regarding 7:03 the comparison between JO and SEO, we 7:05 have an entire webinar when we break 7:07 that down in I would say pretty detailed 7:09 level. So uh don't forget to watch that 7:12 if you don't think we cover it well 7:14 enough in this little chat. Uh but back 7:17 to the topic of today, the last question 7:20 I have, what would you say is the best? 7:22 I think you have mentioned a few times 7:24 already, but once again, just to put it 7:26 as clear as possible, what would you say 7:28 is the best and most important content 7:32 to make sure that you have your 7:35 opportunities to be as good as possible 7:37 when it comes to the law? 7:39 >> Uh yeah, I think uh uh end of the day, 7:41 we are still uh we still need a good 7:43 content. So like make sure the content 7:47 is very uh clear structured uh easy to 7:50 understand 7:52 uh easy for AI to uh digest and that of 7:56 course includes not only the structure 7:58 also the technical perspect 8:01 uh and also maybe have around the most 8:04 important prompts or or search terms 8:07 build different how to guidelines and uh 8:11 try to answer the question try to put 8:13 put ourselves into uh users perspective 8:17 what do they really want to understand 8:19 and what do they really want to like ask 8:22 or learn about this try to build content 8:25 around that and then I think that would 8:28 be a really good start 8:30 >> and I mean I I think the most of uh the 8:33 people who will watch this sooner or 8:35 later have used an LLM and they've seen 8:38 that LMS love to have their answers in 8:41 bullet list in diagrams So, and FIQs, 8:46 etc. So, FIQ's, Q&As, short bullets. I 8:51 think that that makes it easier for the 8:53 LMS to actually read the information on 8:55 your site. I we think we don't have the 8:58 absolute answer, but we think they 9:00 prefer that towards like one pure. So, 9:02 make sure that you have your information 9:04 as concrete as possible. 9:06 >> Yeah, absolutely. uh as you said we we 9:09 cannot say it for sure but in all the 9:11 cases we have tested that's definitely 9:13 has been validated every time and on top 9:17 of that another format format of content 9:20 uh table for example we see that it's 9:23 also very often picked up by AI so try 9:26 to make the content easy to consume 9:30 don't give very long sentences and long 9:32 paragraphs 9:34 that would be my suggestion thank 9:37 It's Monday. I know you're a busy man. 9:40 So, let's keep this short and sweet for 9:42 and let's bring it back next week. But 9:44 for now, if you guys have any other 9:46 questions, feel free to reach out. 9:47 Contact grow. Or just reach out to me. 9:51 Thank you for 9:52 >> Thank you. Have a good Monday.
