Annie Price

January 29, 2026

If you’re hearing more and more about GEO, you’re not alone. With AI-driven search becoming mainstream – from Google’s AI Overviews to tools like ChatGPT and Claude – brands are starting to ask the big question: What is GEO?

So, What is GEO?

Put simply, GEO is Generative Engine Optimisation – the optimising of your website for AI, such as ChatGPT, Claude, AI Overviews and other large language models. Sometimes called AI optimisation, GEO is a key factor for site visibility in 2026.

It focuses on making your content easy for AI systems to understand, trust, and surface when users ask questions in natural language, rather than relying solely on traditional keyword-based search.

Why GEO not AIO?

AI optimisation makes sense as a phrase, especially in reference to SEO, but AIO already stands for ‘AI Overviews’. Because of that, most companies call optimising for AI, GEO.

Do we need GEO as well as SEO?

At Envisage Digital, our answer is simple: Yes – but GEO only works properly when it’s built on strong SEO. GEO isn’t a replacement. It’s SEO plus.

Without solid technical foundations, clear site structure, and well-optimised content, AI systems have nothing reliable to draw from. GEO builds on proven SEO principles and extends them into AI search.

GEO vs SEO: Why Strong SEO Is Still the Foundation

There’s a lot of talk about SEO becoming redundant in the future as AI takes over. Let’s be clear: in our view, GEO does not replace SEO.

SEO still underpins:

– Crawlability and indexation
– Authority and trust signals
– Content relevance
– Technical performance

Without these fundamentals, generative engines have nothing reliable to work with.

Where GEO comes in is how your content is:

-Interpreted
-Connected
-And surfaced by AI

That’s why we describe GEO as SEO plus, not a totally separate entity – and certainly not a replacement.

So is GEO the Same as SEO?

Yes and no. SEO helps your content get found. GEO helps your content get used.

Generative engines don’t think in keywords alone: they think in topics, entities, and meaning. That’s where GEO expands on traditional SEO thinking. It focuses on how information is interpreted, connected, and confidently reused by AI when answering real user questions.

While SEO is about visibility in search results, GEO is about relevance and reliability within AI-generated responses.

**Is GEO the Same as SEO? – A Brief Overview**
Aspect	SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)	GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
Definition	Optimising websites and content to rank higher in traditional search engine results.	Optimising prompts, data, and content generation strategies for AI or generative engines to produce better outputs.
Focus	Keywords, backlinks, site structure, technical SEO, and content quality.	Prompt engineering, model understanding, data quality, and fine-tuning content generation.
Target Outcome	Increase organic traffic, search rankings, and visibility.	Generate high-quality AI outputs efficiently and accurately aligned with user intent.
Techniques	On-page SEO, off-page SEO, technical SEO, content strategy, link building.	Optimised prompts, structured data, prompt templates, iterative refinement, context tuning.
Metrics	Organic traffic, SERP rankings, click-through rates, backlinks, domain authority.	Output relevance, coherence, creativity, engagement, alignment with goals, prompt efficiency.
Example	Optimising a blog post to rank #1 on Google for “best laptops 2026”.	Crafting prompts to make an AI generate accurate, human-like product descriptions or marketing copy.

How do you do GEO?

Because GEO is closely tied to SEO, many of the wins come from refining what already performs well.

Here are a few patterns we’ve consistently seen success with.

Semantic Clustering Keyword Optimisations

One of the biggest GEO opportunities we’ve identified comes from semantic keyword clustering.

If a page is already ranking strongly, it’s often ranking for related semantic terms – even ones that aren’t explicitly mentioned on the page.

When we identify those semantically linked keywords and add meaningful, contextually relevant mentions, without keyword stuffing or dilution, we’ve seen great rankings visibility in Google’s AIOs. Not only that, but the semantic clustering strengthens their topical authority, alongside being picked up more frequently in AI-generated answers and AI overviews.

This is classic SEO, applied through a GEO lens. After applying semantic clustering across the board on our site, we saw a huge increase of 22 % of keywords featuring in the AIOs. We carefully monitored where we added the new keyword, and found it didn’t really matter – from paragraph to H1, to FAQ, over 90 % of rankings increased, with 22 % featuring in the AIOs. So semantic clustering works for SEO and GEO.

FAQs That Feed AI Answers

FAQs have become a major GEO asset. Well-structured FAQs match conversational AI queries and provide direct, quotable answers. These also help reduce ambiguity for generative models. They’re one of the most effective ways to support GEO without reinventing your content strategy.

FAQs offer clear structure and explicit meaning and AI engines thrive on clarity.

We consistently see better GEO performance when content:

– Uses clear H2s and H3s
– Answers specific questions directly
– Explains concepts rather than assuming prior knowledge.

Schema Markup

One of the most underutilised yet powerful tools for GEO is Schema markup. Think of it as giving AI engines a “map” of your content. Schema helps generative engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews understand:

1. What type of content a page contains (article, product, FAQ, review, etc.)

2. Key entities, dates, prices, or other structured information

3. The relationships between topics and sections of your site

Pages with well-implemented schema are more likely to be pulled into AI-generated answers, because the AI can quickly parse structured data instead of trying to interpret unstructured text.

At Envisage Digital, we’ve noticed that combining semantic clustering with schema markup produces some of the strongest results in GEO. When AI can see both context and structure, your content jumps in relevance and authority: especially in answer boxes and generative search snippets.

Again, Schema markup is great for SEO as well – so the GEO is a bonus! But FAQ Schema markup seems particularly favoured for GEO – probably because clear FAQs are too!

GEO and eCommerce

GEO is transforming how eCommerce sites approach search, content and conversions. By leveraging AI-driven content generation, product descriptions, and interactive experiences, brands can optimise their sites for both search engines and user engagement more efficiently.

For platforms like Shopify and Etsy, ChatGPT now offers a “straight-to-purchase” experience. Shoppers can interact with the AI to get instant product recommendations, detailed comparisons, and even complete transactions directly through the chat interface. This reduces friction in the buying journey, shortens decision-making time, and increases conversion rates.

At present, this direct checkout functionality is only available for Shopify and Etsy merchants, meaning other eCommerce platforms cannot yet leverage it for purchases through ChatGPT – but it’s coming!

Integrating GEO into an eCommerce strategy is fast becoming an essential aspect of your SEO+.

Why Invest in GEO with Envisage Digital?

At Envisage Digital. we have in house experts following the latest GEO trends and testing them in real time. As part of our in-house SEO, GEO comes as standard.

Effective GEO isn’t a bolt-on. At Envisage Digital, GEO is:

-Built on proven SEO foundations
-Informed by real performance data
-Aligned with how AI engines actually interpret content

We don’t separate SEO and GEO: we evolve SEO into something that works now, and continues to work as search changes.

If your SEO is already strong, GEO helps you extract more value from it. If it’s not, we can build your SEO with an additional awareness and focus on GEO, with tools to help you track your LLM visibility.

GEO isn’t the end of SEO; it’s just the next stage.

As AI-driven search becomes the norm across platforms like Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude etc brands that combine strong SEO with GEO-focused optimisation will be the ones that stay visible.

That’s why we see GEO as SEO plus: and why our clients are already investing in it.

What is GEO?