SEO, AEO & GEO — What Are They,
and Which Do You Need?
Search has changed fundamentally. Getting found online now requires three distinct strategies — traditional search rankings, direct answer boxes, and AI-generated responses. Here is what each one means and how to know which applies to you.
The practice of improving your website so it ranks higher in traditional search engine results pages (SERPs) — the blue links in Google, Bing, and other search engines.
What it targets
The ranked list of results when someone searches a keyword. Position 1 typically gets 25–30% of clicks; position 10 gets around 2%.
Key signals
- Title tags, meta descriptions, and heading structure
- Content quality, depth, and keyword relevance
- Backlinks from other websites
- Page speed and Core Web Vitals
- HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, and technical health
Who needs it
Everyone with a website. SEO is the foundation. Without it, neither AEO nor GEO will perform well — Google won't cite content it doesn't trust or can't find.
Structuring your content so search engines and AI systems can extract it as a direct answer — appearing in featured snippets, Google AI Overviews, People Also Ask boxes, and voice assistant responses.
What it targets
"Position zero" — the answer box that appears above all other results. Also Google's AI Overviews, which summarise answers without requiring the user to click through.
Key signals
- FAQPage, HowTo, and QAPage structured data schema
- Question-format headings (What/Why/How…)
- Concise 40–80 word answer paragraphs
- Ordered and unordered lists for list-type snippets
- Speakable schema for voice responses
Who needs it
Sites publishing informational content — guides, how-tos, FAQs, tutorials, definitions. If people search questions related to your business, AEO helps you become the answer.
Making your website visible, trusted, and citable by AI language models — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Bing Copilot — so they reference your content in their generated responses.
What it targets
AI-generated responses in tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot, where users ask questions and receive synthesised answers with cited sources.
Key signals
- llms.txt file declaring AI content permissions
- AI crawlers allowed in robots.txt (GPTBot, PerplexityBot etc.)
- Author attribution and Organisation schema
- E-E-A-T signals (sameAs, About page, Contact page)
- dateModified in schema for content freshness
- Links to authoritative sources
Who needs it
Any business that wants to be visible as AI tools increasingly mediate how people research and make decisions. Especially important for B2B, professional services, and high-consideration purchases where buyers research using AI.
| SEO | AEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in Google | Become the answer | Get cited by AI |
| Target surface | Blue link results | Featured snippets, AI Overviews, PAA | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot |
| Primary signals | Content, backlinks, technical | Schema, question headings, lists | llms.txt, E-E-A-T, AI crawlers |
| Maturity | Established (30+ years) | Growing (since ~2015) | Emerging (since ~2023) |
| Who benefits most | Everyone | Informational content | Research-heavy sectors |
| Time to results | Weeks to months | Days to weeks | Ongoing / long-term |
| Technical difficulty | Medium | Low–medium | Low (mostly content) |
| Required | Always | Recommended | Forward-looking |
Run SEO only. Fix the fundamentals first — title tags, meta descriptions, heading structure, HTTPS, sitemap, and robots.txt. AEO and GEO are much more effective once your SEO foundation is solid.
Add AEO. If you write blog posts, guides, FAQs, or tutorials, structuring them for featured snippets and AI Overviews can significantly increase visibility without extra content effort.
Run all three. Your buyers research using ChatGPT and Perplexity before contacting you. Being visible in AI-generated responses is increasingly important in B2B, professional services, and complex purchases.
Focus on SEO + AEO. Product schema, review schema, and FAQ schema are highly valuable. GEO matters less for transactional queries but is worth enabling for product research terms.