The game has changed. Your customers aren't scrolling through ten blue links anymore. They're asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini for a single, authoritative answer. And if your brand isn't the one these AI engines trust and cite, you've potentially lost sales opportunities or missed ways to enhance your corporate reputation. This is a quantum shift from SEO to GEO. It’s time to reengineer how you establish authority, build presence, and get recommended by large language models (LLMs).
Questions Over Keywords: Speak the Language of Intelligence
The shift from search to conversation requires a rethink of how you approach discovery. AI models don't parse keywords. They understand context, intent, and natural human language. Smart marketers are shifting their focus from search keywords to the actual questions their customers ask at every stage of the journey: "What's the best solution for...?"; "Compare X versus Y"; "What are the controversies around...?". This question-first approach is better for both bots and humans too, resulting in content that both ranks and is truly relevant.
Concept Proximity: The New Battlefield for Brand Authority
Ranking highly on Google is likely to remain important, especially with Google’s Gemini model that draws heavily on underlying search data. However, Concept Proximity is increasingly important. How consistently and authoritatively does your brand appear alongside the topics, questions, and conversations that define your category? The key is to seed authoritative signals across the web. LLMs draw from multimodal sources, so you need to be present in channels and on platforms that you may never considered relevant to your business.
Make Your Website Authoritative and AI Accessible
Websites have always had to be more than “brochureware,” but now the bar is higher. Your website must be the definitive, easily parsable knowledge base that AI can trust and extract from. This means granular, answer-first content architecture. Break comprehensive guides into hyper-specific articles, use rigorous schema markup, and structure every page with clear hierarchies that mirror how questions are actually asked.
Think of each web page as a potential source citation, designed not just to inform visitors but to teach AI engines what makes your brand authoritative.
Seed Your Narrative Everywhere That Matters
Your own site is the anchor, but effective discoverability requires strategic presence in the places AI actually looks. That means engagement in Reddit and Quora communities, optimised video content on YouTube, up-to-date information on Wikipedia, and earned media in publications with direct AI licensing deals. This isn't SEO link building, it's how to seed your narrative. Every mention, citation, and authentic recommendation becomes a data point that shapes how AI perceives and presents your brand in its answers.
Share of Model: The Metric That Matters
Analytic requirements are shifting. Share of Model (SoM) is emerging as a key metric. What’s the percentage of relevant AI-generated answers that mention your brand, reflect your key messages, and cite your content? Continuous benchmark your performance by regularly querying major AI platforms with your target questions, analysing which brands appear, tracking sentiment, and identifying which sources are being cited.
Traffic numbers and keyword rankings tell you the score of yesterday's game.
GEO is a Building Block of Competitive Advantage
Today, visibility isn't just about being found: it's about being trusted, cited, and recommended. The battle for discovery has moved from search results to AI training data. Most leading brands will soon be using the same techniques and platforms to be authoritative. In the long run, creativity and strategic presence remain the ultimate competitive advantages.
