After 27 years of SEO being the golden child of online visibility, we’re apparently witnessing its dramatic death scene. Cue the violins and the breathless LinkedIn posts declaring “SEO is dead, long live GEO!”
But before you start planning a funeral for your keyword strategy, let’s have a proper chat about what’s actually happening with search in 2025.
The Great Search Shake-Up: What’s Really Going On
Spoiler alert: SEO isn’t dead, it’s evolving. Google still holds roughly 90% of the search market, whilst ChatGPT’s search share remains below 1%.
What we’re actually seeing is the rise of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) – basically, making sure your content gets cited when AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude answer user questions. It’s no longer just about click-through rates, it’s about reference rates: how often your brand or content is cited or used as a source in model-generated answers.
Think of it this way: SEO was about getting invited to the party, GEO is about being quoted at the party.
How GEO Actually Works (Without the Jargon)
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the process of making your content quotable by AI systems like ChatGPT and Gemini. These tools don’t list links – they write answers. GEO is how your content becomes part of what they say.
The mechanics are refreshingly straightforward:
Traditional SEO: Write content with keywords, build links, hope Google notices, appear in search results
GEO: Write genuinely helpful content that AI can understand and cite when answering questions
To influence AI-generated answers, the words associated with a brand, their frequency and consistency, and where they appear on the web are all important factors. It’s less about gaming algorithms and more about being genuinely useful.
The Business Reality Check: Where is GEO At Right Now?
Let’s be realistic about what we’re dealing with here. While generative AI has a small share of the overall search market, at the rate it’s growing, it may become 10% of website traffic by next year. That’s not world-ending, but it’s not ignorable either.
Some early adopters are seeing promising results. Some have reported up to a 115% increase in visibility in AI-generated responses. But this isn’t about replacing your current strategy; it’s about expanding it. SEO was never just about Google, despite how much we might focus on Google as the default search engine, thanks to its current dominance in market share. Bing is a thing.
Smart Implementation: Your Action Plan
Right, enough theory. Here’s how to actually start with GEO without losing your mind or your budget:
1. Audit Your Current Content
Look at your existing content through the lens of “Would AI find this useful to cite?” If your content reads like keyword soup or feels robotic, it needs work. AI does not pull through the same overlapping content as we do, and AI pulls based on clarity and context, and authority not the order on a page.
2. Think Questions, Not Keywords
The Question is King – Brainstorm questions your target audience asks that eventually lead them to your business as an answer. Now develop content that answers those questions. This isn’t revolutionary thinking, but it requires a mindset shift from “What do I want to rank for?” to “What questions am I answering?”
3. Structure Like You Mean It
The Structured Look – GenAI engines, like Google bots, don’t really “understand” your content the way people do. They need signs that point the way and tell them what things are. This means proper headings, clear explanations, and logical flow.
4. Build Authority, Not Just Backlinks
You Are What You EEAT – GenAI engines, like Google, rank and index content based on the age-old SEO principle of EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness). Focus on demonstrating genuine expertise rather than manufacturing authority signals.
5. Test and Track (Because Nobody Knows Everything Yet)
GEO is still very new. The playbook is still being written and is likely to change. What works well for one brand’s content may not work as well for another. Tools like are starting to offer GEO tracking capabilities, but expect this landscape to evolve rapidly.
Why This Matters Now
With 18 million UK users and 79% of teenagers already embracing AI tools like ChatGPT, generative AI adoption is accelerating faster than most predicted.
Plus people who debated ChatGPT with personalised knowledge had 81.7% higher odds of changing their opinion, highlighting AI’s persuasive power in shaping public perception. So we’re not just optimising for visibility anymore; we’re optimising for influence. As genAI tools compress the research process, people may only see two or three brands in AI-generated answers.
Companies that fail to adapt risk being filtered out entirely. As the saying goes, there’s no page two in AI responses. You’re either part of the answer or you’re not. Ouch.
What (Not) to Expect
Before you get carried away with visions of AI-powered marketing dominance, let’s set some realistic expectations:
Don’t expect overnight transformation. GEO is still in its experimental phase, much like the early days of SEO. We’re all figuring this out together.
Don’t abandon your current SEO efforts. GEO isn’t the death of SEO. It’s what happens when search becomes multi-platform, multi-modal, and powered by AI. Think integration, not replacement.
Don’t expect universal solutions. What works for B2B software might not work for local restaurants. The AI citation game varies significantly by industry and audience.
Looking Forward: The Next 24 Months
Here’s what smart businesses are doing right now: they’re treating GEO as an addition to their marketing stack, not a replacement. Rather than replacing SEO, GEO complements it, allowing brands to achieve greater visibility across traditional search engines and AI platforms.
The businesses that will thrive in this transition are those that focus on creating genuinely useful content rather than chasing the latest optimisation hack. GEO isn’t about keyword stuffing or backlink chasing. It rewards content that’s genuinely useful, structured clearly, and built on trust.
The Bottom Line
SEO isn’t dead, but it’s certainly not the only game in town anymore. GEO represents an opportunity to get your expertise in front of people in a new way, but it’s not a magic bullet that solves all your visibility problems.
The smart move? Start experimenting with GEO principles while maintaining your current SEO efforts. Focus on creating content that serves real purposes and answers real questions. Structure it well, build genuine authority, and track what happens.
Most importantly, remember that all of this – SEO, GEO, whatever comes next – is ultimately about connecting your expertise with people who need it. The channels may change, but that fundamental truth remains constant.
Need a hand building a search strategy that actually works for your business – traditional and AI-powered? Let’s have a chat about what makes sense for your specific situation.
