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An AEO/GEO Strategy is an SEO Strategy

Sep 22
2 min read

I was at a marketing conference recently, listening to one of my favorite SEO experts (Kelly Stanze) do her thing, when she said something that made me pull out my phone and take a picture of her slide. 


“The reality is 90% of what you’re doing for SEO applies to GEO [AEO/AIO].” 

Venn diagram illustrating the differing views on the relationship between SEO and GEO: Google suggests they are identical, AI hustlers claim they are separate, but in reality, there is a 90% overlap.
Venn diagram illustrating the differing views on the relationship between SEO and GEO: Google suggests they are identical, AI hustlers claim they are separate, but in reality, there is a 90% overlap.

She went on to explain that’s because AEO relies on what it can find on the web to pull information from. If you’re ranking in search, AEO is finding you.


Read that twice if you need to. I did.


Here's why that matters


Right now everyone is panicking about “how do I show up in ChatGPT” like it's some brand new discipline you need to hire a specialist for. It isn't. AI engines still crawl the web. They still pull information from pages that rank well, get linked to, and get talked about. They're just adding a few new ingredients to the recipe — Reddit threads, forums, review sites — alongside the same offsite SEO signals search engines have rewarded for years.


So what do you actually do about AEO/GEO/AIO?


I hate to tell you this but anyone who tells you they've got AEO figured out is selling you something. It changes daily. I listened to one of sharpest people in this industry, and even she said she's still learning it every single day.


But she also left the room with a rule of thumb I haven't stopped thinking about: optimize for what consumers want, because that's what search engines want and reward — and that's exactly what AI engines are pulling from. I took a photo of that slide too. 

A presentation slide emphasizes the importance of creating user-focused content by stating, "While there is nuance between the two, the rules are generally the same: Give the users good, helpful, well-written, human-first content."
A presentation slide emphasizes the importance of creating user-focused content by stating, "While there is nuance between the two, the rules are generally the same: Give the users good, helpful, well-written, human-first content."

Write good content for actual humans, and you end up with decent SEO and decent AEO..


That's the whole strategy.


Three things worth doing this week


  1. Answer the actual questions your customers ask you — in plain language, on your site in a true FAQ format (AI engines can parse FAQs).

  2. Keep showing up in the places people already trust: your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your local community sites.

  3. Stop chasing algorithm rumors and start writing like a person who actually knows their stuff.


If you don't know whether your business is even showing up when people search for you, on Google, or in AI answers, that's usually the first thing we check in an Audit & Blueprint. Not glamorous, but it tells you exactly where you stand before you spend a dollar chasing algorithm rumors.



 
 
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