SEO VS GEO: Which is the best strategy?

Last week I had an opportunity to talk to my client who I did SEO for him sometimes back. During our conversation he asked me if I know GEO and if GEO is better than SEO. This question led me into thinking about writing a post about SEO VS GEO and which is the best strategy for business owners looking to boost their online visibility.

Before we dive deep into the discussion, lets first understand what these two terms mean

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing a website’s visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). It focuses on optimizing various elements of a site to make it more attractive to search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. By ranking higher for relevant keywords and searches, a website can gain more organic (unpaid) traffic, leading to greater reach and potential conversions.

2. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is an emerging strategy in content optimization that aims to increase visibility within AI-driven search engines and generative tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. It focuses on tailoring content so it can be accurately understood, cited, and surfaced by these AI systems.

While both of these strategies aim at helping your content gain visibility online, their approaches are different. Here is their comparison

Aspect	SEO (Search Engine Optimization)	GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)
Focus	Improving rankings on traditional search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo)	Enhancing visibility in AI-driven search and generative tools (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity)
Goal	Drive more organic traffic by ranking higher on SERPs	Get cited, referenced, or recommended by AI systems in conversational answers
Optimization Target	Keywords, meta tags, backlinks, site structure, and content relevance	Structured, authoritative, and AI-readable content designed for large language models
User Interaction	Users search → click on website links from search results	Users ask questions → AI provides summarized answers and may reference brands/sources
Content Style	Keyword-focused, optimized for crawlers and algorithms	Context-rich, factually accurate, and semantically clear for AI interpretation
Main Benefit	Increases website traffic and brand discovery via search engines	Increases brand authority and exposure within AI-generated responses
Stage	Mature, widely adopted, industry-standard practice	Emerging field, still evolving with generative AI technologies

After looking at the comparison, let's look at which is the best strategy

GEO vs SEO: What's The Difference?

After reading many articles online, GEO and SEO differ mainly on how each proposes a response to the search intent of a user. While GEO focuses mostly on well reviewed, ranked articles on different online platforms, on the other hand, SEO focuses on keyword based articles, meaning that in the same question asked by a user, GEO will look at different responses, articles that clearly answers the users questions. It will base on reviews and factual while on the other hand SEO will look for a well keyword optimized content that answers the users question. 

SEO VS GEO: Which one is the best strategy?

In this world where information is key to decision making, both customers and businesses look at a response that is more relatable and clearly answers their questions. In this, many will believe that GEO is the best strategy but wait a minute. While GEO can seem better than SEO, I have seen GEO make some errors while providing responses. Below is a screenshot when searched for what is the best digital marketing agency in Tanzania. Most agencies mentioned by Google’s AI overview were agencies outside Tanzania. On the other hand, SEO provided me with the list of the best digital marketing agencies actually based in Tanzania. Strange. I understand that GEO is a work in progress, but relevance in information is key. So for me, as a business owner, focus on making your content more relevant to your targeted audience. In simple words focus on improving your SEO game.

Will GEO replace SEO – or become part of it?

First, there is nothing like GEO Vs SEO. Here is why? You can not target on improving your brands visibility on GEO if your SEO is poor. In SEO, we focus on keyword related content, link building to rank higher on SERP. The same reasons are used by GEO to share relevant answers to users. So if during your SEO process you didn’t do link building by listing your business on directories, getting reviews from clients and writing content that answers your targeted audience questions- forget about GEO. The key point is to make sure your SEO is on point. Below is a screenshot to show you how I did SEO perfectly that Google AI overview references my content

Final word on SEO VS GEO

I know there is a lot of discussion on whether GEO will replace SEO but one thing to remember, there is no GEO without SEO. For AI platforms such as Chatgpt, Google AI overview and claude to site your content, you must do a thorough SEO. Make sure your content is keyword rich, focused on targeted audience, relevant to searches and mostly get reviews from credited sources. All these processes are SEO processes. The more relevant your content is to the targeted audience, the likelihood of it being cited by AI is high.