For two decades, marketers and consumer-facing companies have obsessed over search-engine algorithms, and in particular their rankings on Google search. Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, became the holy grail of digital visibility, spawning armies of consultants who promised to crack the code.
But now, the next algorithmic wave is breaking, and it is no longer about keywords, backlinks or the arcane art of structuring headlines and sub-headings “just so”. The new science of search will be an art, and it will be the art of the answer.
The key to that answer will be a new kind of SEO. It demands that you get ready for GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation. Some call it Answer Engine Optimisation.
The shift is as profound as the move from the Yellow Pages to search engines. SEO worked on the assumption that humans would type in a few words, receive a list of links, and click the most promising ones. Entire industries sprang up to game this process, from keyword stuffing to link farms. But generative AI demolishes that model. Instead of lists, users now want direct answers, delivered conversationally, to conversational questions.
I asked ChatGPT to tell me the difference, and it gave me a typical but very helpful metaphor: “Picture SEO as a shop window. You dress it up, polish the glass, and make sure passers-by are drawn inside. GEO, by contrast, is like having a salesperson who knows your entire inventory and steps outside to answer questions before the customer even comes through the door. The content still has to exist, but it must now be structured so machines can digest it, summarise it, and serve it up as authoritative answers.”
This evolution became a revolution last week as Google rolled out AI Mode, or AI-powered search, across 180 countries. Microsoft’s Bing has embedded ChatGPT-style answers in its search results for a while now, but few noticed, as few used it.
The old SEO commandments, like keyword density and title tags, still play a role, but more as a footnote than the main story.
How do you get GEO-ready? The short answer is clarity, authority, and structured data. In other words, a page that spells out key facts in crisp language, with verifiable sources, stands a better chance of being surfaced.
I’ve distilled advice from Google and other sources into five golden rules:
- Restructure content for AI queries. Don’t hide your knowledge in walls of marketing fluff. Create Q&A style resources, FAQs, and semantic-rich text that matches natural language questions.
- Build authority and trust. Generative engines are like old-school librarians (yes, ChatGPT gave me that metaphor, too), who prefer sources with credibility. Publish original research, cite data, and ensure your brand appears consistently accurate across platforms. Authority beats volume.
- Optimise for AI ecosystems. This one is for the techies: generative answers draw from multiple platforms, so use structured data that is machine-readable to make your content visible to machines hunting for sources.
- Diversify content formats. Provide rich sources in multiple formats, including video, audio, images, and text, so that AI engines have a wide range of material to cite. If your product only exists in text form, expect competitors with video explainers to be quoted instead.
- Leverage external reviews and coverage. Perhaps the most overlooked tactic is external validation. Positive reviews on independent platforms and mentions in reputable media carry disproportionate weight. If the only one praising your service is you, AI will likely ignore it. Encourage genuine user reviews, and value credible third-party coverage, because generative engines read those signals as proof of authenticity.
This shift is a threat and an opportunity. Many smaller businesses have been slow to embrace even basic SEO, leaving them at risk of digital invisibility. But GEO levels the playing field: if you can articulate your value clearly and provide the data to back it up, you don’t need a multinational marketing budget to surface in generative results. A small Cape wine farm suddenly has a better chance of being found by a tourist from Canada.
There is, of course, a dark side. Generative answers sometimes paraphrase content without attribution, meaning companies could see their expertise regurgitated by a chatbot without the benefit of a click-through. The pragmatic response is to publish content that is not only machine-readable but also brand-identifiable. That ensures when snippets are quoted, your name is attached.
* Arthur Goldstuck is CEO of World Wide Worx, editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za, and author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to AI – The African Edge”.