From SEO to GEO: How marketing leaders stay visible in AI-driven search by Contentful

Does it feel like your organic traffic is disappearing? You aren’t imagining it. AI Overviews and answer engines are sidelining classic SEO results. 

To stay visible, brands need to adapt – fast.

The good news: you don’t need to rewrite your entire SEO playbook. With a few smart tweaks, you can shift from SEO to GEO and reclaim your share of search in the age of generative AI.

GEO, or generative engine optimization, focuses on entities – not just pages. That means your brand, products, services, and experts. By strengthening these signals, you increase the chances your business is cited, referenced, and recommended inside AI-generated answers and conversational search results.

This shift to GEO matters because AI search tools work differently from traditional engines. Instead of a list of blue links, AI delivers answers that anticipate follow-up questions and add context. Users get what they need faster, but brands get fewer clicks.

Organic search demand isn’t disappearing, but traffic is drifting away from it. As clicks decline, visibility inside AI-generated responses becomes more critical than ever.

What you need to do now

You don’t need to reinvent your strategy to move from SEO to GEO. GEO builds on the principles you already use, with added focus on structure, clarity, and consistency.

1. Prioritize E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness)

AI engines reward clear, authoritative content that signals real expertise. When your content aligns with established quality guidelines, it’s more likely to be used in generative answers.

2. Make your content easy for AI crawlers to read

While Googlebot handles JavaScript well, many AI crawlers don’t. Fully rendered HTML, clean structure, and predictable layouts make it easier for AI systems to understand your content and reference it accurately.

3. Invest in structured data

Schema markup, complete metadata, descriptive alt text, and transcripts help AI models understand your content and connect it to the right entities. These behind-the-scenes signals make it more likely your content appears in AI-generated conversations.

4. Rethink measurement

Traffic is no longer the north star. Focus instead on conversions, deeper funnel impact, sentiment, and your brand’s visibility inside generative results.

Want to go deeper?

If you’re ready to pivot from SEO to GEO with confidence, explore proven best practices, frameworks, and real-world examples on Contentful’s GEO Hub. It’s your go-to resource for understanding the shift – and staying ahead.