Forget SEO. Welcome to the World of Generative Engine Optimization
This holiday seasonrather than search on Googlemore Americans will probably turn to major language models to find gifts, deals, and sales. Retailers could see up to a 520 percent increase in traffic from chatbots and AI search engines this year compared to 2024, according to a recent store report from Adobe. OpenAI is already moving to take advantage of the trend: Last week, the ChatGPT creator announced an important partnership with Walmart that will allow users to buy goods directly within the chat window.
As people begin to rely on chatbots to discover new products, retailers need to rethink their approach to online marketing. For decades, companies have tried to game Google's search results by using strategies known collectively as search engine optimization, or SEO. Now, to get noticed by AI bots, more brands are turning to “generative engine optimization,” or GEO. The cottage industry is expected to become almost worthless $850 million this yearaccording to one market research estimate.
GEO, in many ways, is less of a new invention than the next phase of SEO. Many GEO consultants actually came from the world of SEO. At least some of their old strategies probably still apply because the core goal remains the same: anticipate the questions people will ask and make sure your content shows up in the answers. But there is also growing evidence that chatbots turn up different types of information than search engines.
Imri Marcus, CEO of the GEO company Brandlight, estimates that there used to be about a 70 percent overlap between the top Google links and the sources cited by AI tools. Now, he says, that correlation has fallen below 20 percent.
Search engines often favor verbosity – think of the long blog posts that appear above recipes on cooking websites. But Marcus says that chatbots tend to favor information presented in simple, structured formats, such as bulleted lists and FAQ pages. “An FAQ can answer a hundred different questions instead of one article that just says how great your entire brand is,” he says. “You're essentially giving the AI engines a hundred different options to choose from.”
The things that people ask chatbots are often very specific, so it is useful for companies to publish extremely granular information. “No one goes to ChatGPT and asks, 'Is General Motors a good company?'” says Marcus. Instead, they ask whether the Chevy Silverado or the Chevy Blazer has a longer driving range. “Writing more specific content will actually drive much better results because the questions are much more specific.”
