SEO, GEO, AEO. Same thing - and now Google agrees.
But what does the mean for your business?
Nearly 70% of news searches now result in no further clicks. Having already had to pivot from paper to pixels, publishers have understandable concerns about monetisation in the age of the zero-click. They’re not alone - it’s a question most content-led businesses are grappling with.
This week, Google published a suite of tools and guidance aimed at helping publishers navigate these waters, including a new opt-out feature for AI Overviews following a ruling from the UK’s Competition & Markets Authority.
One section of the statement from Google stood out for me. Their advice to publishers suggests providing a unique point of view, being people-first, organise content helpfully, and use generative AI tools sparingly. Sound familiar?
It’s what good SEO practitioners have been saying for years, and ties with the theme I’ve been talking about for as long as this newsletter has been going - if you’re getting the SEO fundamentals right, you’re in good shape for AI.
SEO, GEO and AEO aren’t parallel tracks or options.
They’re like tiers of a wedding cake, each built on the last. The businesses best positioned for AI search are, in most cases, the ones that have been doing the fundamentals properly all along.
So, what has changed? Well, AI tools answering evaluative queries - “who are the best providers of X” - don’t rely primarily on your website any more. Instead, they rely on sources they trust: trade publications, comparison platforms, review aggregators. Think listicles.
If you’re absent from those, you’re going to be absent from the AI shortlists, no matter how well organised your website is. This is a real shift, and highlights the need for PR, but also the need to do business properly.
The increasingly harsh truth for some firms is that AI searches are, at their core, an automated reputation audit. You know that thing you do with a business you haven’t heard of, where you look for it on Reddit and Trustpilot? Well, that’s what AI overviews are doing.
So if you say you’re a people-obsessed, customer-centric business, but in reality your response times are slow and lacking in substance, then you’ve got a much bigger problem to fix than keywords.
AI is increasingly finding gaps between how businesses describe themselves and how they’re actually perceived - across their own pages, reviews, press coverage, and every public forum where customers talk about them.
Closing that gap isn’t just a project for your SEO geeks. It’s a business transformation project. The businesses that will be consistently recommended by AI tools are those where the positioning and the reality are aligned.
The acronym is new. The underlying question isn’t: are you actually as good as you say you are?
Further Reading
Mark Zuckerberg this week stated that he wants Meta AI agents to run whole businesses. These will answer customer queries, recommend products, create appointments, and even finalise sales. We’ve come a long way from it being a messaging platform. Meta has also started to roll out its 13+ content settings globally to help parents manage their kids’ access.
Meanwhile, a slightly wilder story affecting LinkedIn, where Chinese spies are supposedly targeting UK and military staff to try and get access to classified information. I for one can’t wait to hear what James Bond learned about B2B sales from visiting an underground volcanic lair.
That’s it for this week! If you found this interesting, I would hugely appreciate it if you shared with your friends and colleagues.
If you’re feeling particularly generous and enjoyed this edition, I won’t stop you from buying me a coffee. Otherwise, I’ll see you next time 🫶