
The rise of AI has sparked a lot of debate, particularly in the SEO world. Is it a threat, or an opportunity?
We’ve gotten many questions from our clients, ranging from “does SEO still matter anymore?”, to “I use Gemini/ChatGPT for all my research, how can I ensure my company is cited to my customers who are doing the same?”
Many initially feared AI would replace traditional search, rendering SEO obsolete. However, the reality is proving to be quite the opposite. AI is not killing SEO; it’s evolving it.
In this blog, I will cover everything you need to know about using AI as your next powerhouse marketing channel!
ChatGPT and Gemini: More Than Just Chatbots
Platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini are rapidly evolving beyond simple conversational AI. They’re becoming powerful information retrieval tools, essentially acting as search engines in their own right. But how do they work, and what does this mean for your website?
Let’s take a practical example. We recently had a client, Wisconsin Oven (manufacturer of Gruenberg and Blue M Ovens) ask us how to show up in AI results.
They input the question, “What brands of industrial ovens are used for composite curing?” into Gemini, here’s what shows up:
This is just a snippet, but the result shows a full list (Wisconsin Oven, Gruenberg, Blue M, Columbia Coatings, and Evenheat). As you can see, each bullet/brand cites domains and specific pages linking to the brand’s website.
And here is what shows up in ChatGPT. The answer is similar, but does not cite the sources like Gemini does.
How it Works
When you ask this question, these AI platforms will scour their vast datasets, which include information scraped from across the web. They’ll synthesize this data to provide a direct answer, often listing several prominent brands. This is where the crucial point lies: the AI is relying on existing information to formulate its response.
You will notice that with both Chatbots, the results feel conversational in comparison to what you might see in search engine results. You also can ask follow up questions. In the ChatGPT example, you are encouraged to specify industry, temperature range or other requirements, which can also be relevant in our optimizations approach.
How YOU Can Show Up in ChatGPT/Gemini Results
To be included in these AI-generated responses, your website needs to be a trusted, authoritative source of information.
This means:
- Creating high-quality, comprehensive content that answers specific user queries.
- Building strong E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
- Ensuring your content is well-structured and easily understood by AI.
Sound familiar? The same practices we have recommended for many years when it comes to ranking in search results applies to the results that ChatGPT or Gemini return.
AI and Traditional Search Engines (Google)
You may not be going to a Chatbot to do all of your research. Many of us still rely on traditional search engines (Google, Bing) to ask questions. We often pose them the same way we would a Chatbot – conversationally – even though we know the results will not be delivered the same way.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
This brings us to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). You can consider this to be the evolution of SEO.
GEO is the practice of optimizing content to appear in AI-generated search results and responses. It’s an extension of traditional SEO, focusing on providing information that AI can easily understand and use.
GEO vs SEO
There is some crossover between GEO and SEO. Their aims are quite similar – both hope to achieve increased visibility of their content, and incorporate specific keywords or phrases to show up for popular search queries. As mentioned before, the basics of SEO (E-E-A-T, high-quality and relevant content), apply to GEO, too.
So, what is the difference? Simply put, SEO targets search engines, while GEO targets generative AI and answer engines. Answer engines gather information and are more dynamic in their reply, with the ability to provide context and relevancy.
Here are some important areas to keep in mind:
- Context: The prominent strategy for SEO is target keywords. Given longer strings of queries are generally input into answer engines, to optimize for GEO you need to create content that is clear and provides context.
- Information Synthesis: SEO focuses on page rankings, where GEO uses AI to interpret multiple pages and sources. Therefore, you’re not just focusing on quality on one specific page for one thing, but across your website.
- Formatting: It’s pretty obvious the difference in results when you compare a question asked to ChatGPT vs a search engine. AI-generated content is just that, generated content. Search engines simply pull in the results with the content you provide (title tags, meta descriptions), while AI engines use natural language processing to provide nuanced and precise responses.
- Performance Tracking: We measure the success of SEO based on keyword rankings and page performance, while GEO is measured by referral traffic from AI engines (more on that below).
The Benefits of GEO
The greatest benefit of GEO is increased visibility. GEO is also a helper in that it optimizes your content for you, versus simply copying directly from your website. It can add more context to the answer. Lastly, GEO can help you build your brand authority and set you apart from competitors.
By creating detailed, accurate, and well-structured content, you increase the likelihood of your information being used by AI.
Google’s “AI Overview” Results
Google’s introduction of “AI Overviews” is a prime example of an AI answer engine and the GEO evolution.
Using the same prompt from earlier, here is what shows up in Google’s results:
As you can see, the AI Overview provides a summary of the top brands, drawing information from multiple sources (websites), plus links to those websites.
How YOU Can Show Up in Google’s “AI Overview” Results:
By creating detailed, accurate, and well-structured content, you increase the likelihood of your information being used by AI.
- Provide clear, concise answers to common questions.
- Use structured data (schema) to help Google understand your content.
- Focus on providing high-quality, authoritative information.
Focus on building up your website’s content library. Having concise, helpful information, such as FAQs and blogs makes the site content more likely to be picked up. Implementing schema markup for these items then helps AI systems clearly understand and utilize this content. Beyond the things you can control on the website are authoritative lists i.e. third-party directories or consumer review sites. With the example above, we also saw a few directories (Thomasnet, for example) show up in the AI results.
Tracking Traffic from AI Sources
The last portion of this blog focuses on how to track GEO and Chatbot success. What KPIs can you look at to understand whether generative AI is working to increase your exposure and traffic?
When users arrive from ChatGPT with utm_source=chatgpt.com, Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will attribute the ‘Session Source’ as ‘chatgpt.com’. If other UTM parameters (like utm_medium, utm_campaign, etc.) are present, GA4 will populate their corresponding dimensions.
This means you could filter your source (chatgpt.com) to see traffic from that Chatbot specifically.
For example, I asked ChatGPT search “What are the typical temperature ranges for industrial ovens, and what purpose do they serve?”, and it gave me a succinct list of ranges and applications, citing various sources:
As you can see, in the IQS directory URL above, the UTM code is added making it trackable in GA4.
However, I have not noticed Gemini adding the UTM codes, which means that the traffic that comes to your website through those links would be reported as direct traffic. Fortunately, there is still a way to track this by creating a page referral traffic report.
I recommend grouping common AI tools and creating a custom report to track the traffic from those channels.
You will need this regex formula:
^https:\/\/(www\.meta\.ai|www\.perplexity\.ai|chat\.openai\.com|claude\.ai|chat\.mistral\.ai|gemini\.google\.com|chatgpt\.com|copilot\.microsoft\.com|copy\.ai)(\/.*)?$|.*\.ai.*|.*\.openai.*|.*\.groq.*|.*\.metaai.*|.*\.meta\.com/ai.*
You can then create a custom Exploration to sessions and events (conversions) from AI traffic. Choose “Explore” from the left-side column in your GA4 home, and the plus button to create a new exploration.
Under the variables column, choose “Page referrer” under dimensions. Add both “Sessions” and “Events” as metrics. This will show you traffic and events (conversions) that took place from users arriving through and AI source.
Under the Settings column, drop your dimensions (page referrer) under “column”, and your metrics (sessions and events) under “values”.
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Finally, add a filter for the page referrer, and under conditions choose “matches regex”. Copy in the expression above. Once all conditions have been applied, your report should look something like this –
Conclusion
AI is not the death knell of SEO. Instead, it’s a powerful catalyst for its evolution. By focusing on creating high-quality, authoritative content, you can not only improve your ranking in traditional search but also increase your visibility in AI-powered searches. Embrace the change, adapt your strategy, and leverage AI to your advantage. AI is proving to be a strong case FOR SEO, not against.
Ready to up your marketing game, and use this valuable data to build a comprehensive strategy that doesn’t only include SEO/GEO, but content, UX, social media, and paid campaigns to win new business? I’d love to talk!