As AI instruments develop into extra widespread, they’re altering how folks search, delivering direct, personalised solutions, usually with out sending customers to different web sites.
Meaning digital advertising and marketing is shifting—from chasing clicks to constructing model visibility and belief proper contained in the AI’s reply.
Consider it this fashion: conventional website positioning was like competing to have the perfect storefront on a busy avenue. GEO is like ensuring the native tour information is aware of about your enterprise and recommends it to guests.
On this information, you’ll learn to get your model seen within the period of AI-powered search and the right way to observe your AI visibility.
Right here’s why each marketer wants to grasp GEO proper now:
Two: when an AI Overview appears, the top search result sees a 34.5% drop in clicks—a built-in change that can cause a big traffic hit for any site on the web.
Three: all major AI assistants can search the web, making them a new alternative to Google. The problem is, like AI Overviews, they answer the question instantly and don’t always link to the products or services they mention (and people don’t always click).
But before you panic about completely overhauling your marketing strategy, here’s the good news:
AI still relies on traditional search. AI assistants use something called RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), which means they actively search Google, Bing, and other search engines to find current information. So if you’re already ranking well in traditional search, you’re already in the running for AI citations and mentions.
Higher conversion rates may be the silver lining. I’ve seen numerous reports on LinkedIn and experienced this ourselves at Ahrefs—AI-driven traffic converts better (23 times in our case) than traditional search traffic. While the volume is smaller, the quality appears to be higher.
Google says don’t panic. Gary Illyes stated that specialised “AI website positioning” isn’t essential to rank in AI Overviews or the brand new AI Mode. Good content material and stable website positioning fundamentals nonetheless matter most. You don’t have to throw out every thing you understand about search advertising and marketing.
AI search is altering the sport, however it’s constructing on the identical basis you’re already working with.
In actual fact, you’ll be able to achieve AI visibility by way of “conventional” website positioning, and vice versa. Ahrefs’ content material and product pages have been talked about 7,470 occasions throughout 2,309 pages, with none effort to optimize them for AI visibility. It is sensible when you consider it: each new sort of search is constructed on present types of content material.
There are some variations, although.
In a nutshell, conventional search provides you a listing of hyperlinks to discover, whereas AI search provides you direct solutions. Conventional search is about competing for clicks, whereas AI search is about being cited throughout the reply itself. Customers go from “click on and discover” to “ask and obtain.”
| Side | website positioning (Search Engine Optimization) | GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Focuses on serving to web sites rank increased in conventional search engines like google and yahoo like Google or Bing to draw extra clicks. | Focuses on growing your model’s visibility in AI-generated solutions—ensuring you’re a part of the dialog, even when customers by no means click on by way of to your website. |
| Content material aim | Goals to deliver customers to your web site. | Goals to make sure AI instruments precisely point out and characterize your model, even when the person will get all the knowledge they want with out visiting your website. |
| Authority indicators | Usually comes from backlinks or how lengthy your area has been round. | Comes from constantly showing throughout trusted platforms, being acknowledged by consultants, and having clear, up-to-date, fact-based content material that AI instruments can simply perceive and use. |
| Response sort | Record of ranked hyperlinks. | Direct, summarized solutions. |
| Interplay fashion | Quick search queries, click-based. | Conversational, lengthy prompts, usually no clicks wanted. |
| Knowledge supply | Internet pages listed and ranked. | Combines info utilizing built-in data + search (RAG). |
Now for the sensible stuff. Succeeding with GEO requires mixing stable website positioning fundamentals with ways borrowed from different advertising and marketing disciplines. Right here’s your motion plan:
1. Get talked about throughout the internet
This will likely shock you: most mentions of your model will probably come from different web sites, not your personal.
After I appeared on the prime sources for Ahrefs’ model mentions in AI responses, third-party websites dominated. For instance, in Google’s AI Overviews, the highest pages mentioning Ahrefs didn’t embody ahrefs.com at all.
Perplexity was the one assistant that listed our web page as one of many prime sources mentioning our model, however not as the primary supply.
This implies it’s essential deal with getting talked about throughout the online by way of:
- Business rankings and lists: get included in “better of” lists and trade roundups.
- PR and media protection: conventional PR turns into much more precious within the AI period.
- Evaluations and case research: encourage prospects to say your model in critiques.
The large distinction from conventional link building is that these mentions don’t need to be linked. AI can pick up unlinked brand references just as easily, as our research on Google AI Overviews shows.
To find sites that often appear in AI answers, just plug their domain in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and look at the AI citation count in the Overview report:
If you’re choosing between two sites with similar AI citations, consider:
- Domain Rating (DR): Still a solid measure of trustworthiness and popularity. It’s the number right next to AI Citations in Site Explorer.
- Branded search volume: Sites people actively search for often have more influence in AI citations. In Site Explorer, open the Overview report, scroll down a bit to the Entities graph, and select only the site’s brand name.
In a bit, I’ll explain how to find and close your AI visibility gap.
2. Create the type of content that does well in AI search
Not all content performs equally well in AI search. Our analysis of pages receiving AI traffic reveals clear patterns about what content types AI assistants prefer to cite.
The general trends across all sites:
Based on broad analysis, certain content types consistently earn the greatest proportion of AI traffic:
- “Best” content: 7.06% of AI traffic goes to pages with “best” in the title.
- “Top” lists: 5.5% of AI traffic.
- “Vs” comparisons: 4.88% of AI traffic.
- How-to guides: 6.35% of AI traffic.
- Product-focused pages: “Contact” (6.8%), “products” (6.43%), “product” (4.71%), and “services” (4.53%) pages.
But here’s the thing: every brand and industry is different. So I dug deeper into the last 3 months of our own data to see what type of content generates the most traffic for Ahrefs. I’d strongly recommend doing the same for your site.
| Content category | Total views | Engagement | Strategic insight |
|---|---|---|---|
| How-to guides | 7315 | 184 sec time on page | Bread-and-butter traffic drivers; AI assistants favor clear, actionable guides. |
| Data studies | 6134 | 207 sec time on page | High engagement; authoritative research performs well in AI results and invites further clicks. |
| Homepage | 2875 | 0.53 bounce rate (low) | Captures navigational queries; AI assistants surface brand entry points. |
| Listicles (tools) | 976 | 0.84 bounce rate (high) | Strong time on page; useful for tool discovery via AI assistants, but high bounce suggests single-visit utility. |
| Definition | 747 | 173 sec time on page | Fulfills direct informational queries; AI assistants use these for concise answers. |
| Listicles | 585 | 0.79 bounce rate (high) | Good at attracting curiosity clicks from AI summaries. |
| Product | 530 | 0.24 bounce rate (low) | Low bounce rate; AI assistants can drive qualified visitors directly to product-related pages. |
| Opinion / thought leadership | 282 | 214 sec time on page | Engaging for deeper reads; niche but valuable for brand authority in AI contexts. |
I think the sweet spot is creating a content mix that covers different user intentions. Some people want quick updates on trends, others want comprehensive tutorials they can bookmark, and some are looking for hard data to back up their decisions. If you only create one type of content, you’re probably missing out on citations from the other user groups.
So, start by auditing your existing content to see which of these categories you already have, then take a look at your own analytics to spot patterns. What content gets the most engagement from your audience? That’s probably where you should double down, but don’t ignore the other categories entirely.
You can find this data in Ahrefs’ Web Analytics (free in AWT). Just click on AI Search to see how visitors from this channel interact with your site.
And here’s an extra tip: keep your core content fresh and up-to-date. We found that compared to traditional search results, AI assistants prefer citing fresher content.
3. Create a great experience on your homepage and product landing pages
Did you know that over 80% of ahrefs.com referral traffic from AI search goes to just three content types? Those are free tools (mentioned before), product pages, and our homepage.
AI-generated traffic to your site will likely follow similar patterns. Since AI tools tend to guide users to a few key pages, it’s important to make sure those pages offer a great experience.
- Make what you do and why you’re valuable immediately obvious.
- Use headers, bullet points, and clear sections.
- Make it easy for both humans and AI to find your contact details.
- Create clear, factual product/service descriptions that AI can easily parse and cite.
4. Structure content for AI comprehension
AI models love structure and clarity. Here are a few simple rules for making your content AI-friendly.
Use clear formatting:
- Hierarchical headings (H1, H2, H3).
- Bullet points for lists.
- Short, factual statements.
Implement technical optimizations:
- Add structured data (schema markup) for FAQs and product information.
- Ensure fast page loading speeds.
- Make your site mobile-friendly.
- Don’t block AI bots from accessing your content.
- Avoid too much JavaScript (at the time of writing, most AI crawlers don’t render JavaScript).
Write for clarity:
- Use simple, direct language.
- Break up long paragraphs.
- Include specific facts and figures AI can cite.
- Answer common questions explicitly.
4. Go multi-platform
Our study on the most cited domains by AI revealed two platforms that can give you the highest reach for AI citations:
To start optimizing for Reddit, focus on threads that already have visibility in Google Search.
- Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, enter “reddit.com”, and open the Organic keywords report.
- Use filters: positions 1-10, keyword includes (enter phrases related to your site). You can select a preferred location, too.
- Look for relevant keywords with a lot of traffic.
- Add thoughtful, useful answers to these high-traffic threads.
As for optimizing for YouTube, we’ve put together a complete guide that walks you through our video SEO strategy—the same one that helped us earn over 5.7 million organic views and 642,000 watch hours in 2024 alone.
5. Find your AI mention and citation gaps
One of the fastest ways to improve your GEO strategy is to see where competitors are succeeding in AI responses while you’re missing out.
I’ll show you how to do that with Ahrefs’ Brand Radar. It’s one of the fastest-growing tools in AI brand visibility, with 100M+ prompts, 5 AI indexes, and requires zero setup.
Finding your AI mention gap (competitors mentioned, but not you)
To find pages that mention your competitors but not you (your AI mention gap), add your competitors to Brand Radar, hover on any AI chart, and click on “Others only”.
Next, click on the Cited pages report to see websites you could reach out to to close your AI mention gap.
Finding your AI citation gap (competitors cited in AI answers, but not you)
- Start by clearing all the top-level filters in Brand Radar.
- Go to the Cited pages report.
- Apply the competitor filter at the bottom like I’ve shown in the screenshot:
This gives you a list of pages showing how many AI responses mentioned your competitors and the total search volume of those queries. Now you know exactly which content topics and pages to target with your own superior content.
Conventional website positioning metrics like rankings gained’t inform the total GEO story. You want a instrument like Model Radar to trace how AI programs work together along with your model.
AI mentions
These are when AI assistants embody your model of their responses, whether or not they hyperlink again to you or not. Consider it as the brand new word-of-mouth advertising and marketing—the extra your title comes up in AI solutions, the extra probably persons are to recollect and contemplate your model.
If you happen to’re utilizing Ahrefs’ Model Radar, simply plug in your model title and your rivals’ names (the instrument may even recommend competing manufacturers utilizing AI).
You’ll see a dashboard displaying how usually your model is talked about and the overall potential attain of these mentions.
Particularly, you’ll see:
- Mentions: variety of outcomes that point out the entity not less than as soon as.
- Impressions: mentions weighted by Google search quantity to estimate potential publicity.
- AI share of voice: share of name impressions out of the overall impressions for responses that point out any tracked model.
You can even see how seen your model is inside particular matters. For instance, let’s test Mailchimp’s AI share of voice as a social media instrument—a characteristic not everybody is aware of about. All it takes is including “social media instrument” to the top-level filters.
We are able to see that it has the most important visibility out of the competitors, apart from AI Mode, the place one other model has extra attain.
You can even observe a number of manufacturers from the identical firm and benchmark them towards rivals on the similar time.
AI citations
That is when your particular content material will get referenced as a supply in AI responses.
For a fast test of your quotation efficiency, head to Ahrefs’ Website Explorer and enter your area. You’ll see what number of occasions your pages have been cited, and you’ll click on by way of to see which content material AI instruments are selecting up and in what context.
Use quotation patterns to grasp what sort of content material AI prefers out of your website, then create extra content material in these successful codecs.
AI-driven site visitors
Sure, direct site visitors from AI instruments remains to be comparatively small, and sometimes poorly attributed by AI. However when it does come, it’s usually increased high quality. These guests have already been pre-qualified by AI, so that they are usually extra engaged and extra prone to convert.
In Ahrefs’ Internet Analytics, AI site visitors is straightforward to trace as a result of it’s already listed as one of many built-in site visitors sources. You don’t have to mess with UTM tags or regex. Simply click on on it to see analytics for this channel.
Truthfully, the GEO panorama is altering so quick it’s exhausting to maintain up. However listed below are the tendencies I’m seeing that would form what comes subsequent.
Serps would possibly develop into much more vital to AI, not much less
That is the massive one which caught my consideration. OpenAI made an enchanting selection with GPT-5—they designed it to be “clever, not educated.” As a substitute of cramming each reality into the mannequin, they centered on making it nice at reasoning after which let it seek for info when it wants it.
With out entry to look, GPT-5 is reportedly “just about ineffective.” Which may sound like a limitation, however coaching fashions to memorize every thing has develop into ridiculously costly and simply isn’t sustainable anymore.
If different firms observe OpenAI’s lead (and so they most likely will), it means conventional website positioning might develop into much more precious for getting AI citations. Here’s a deep dive on why this matters
Google’s most likely going to push AI Mode in all places
Proper now, AI Mode is usually out there within the US and UK, however Google often doesn’t maintain main options restricted to only a few international locations. It might finally develop into the default method folks search, identical to Google’s CEO hinted.
However possibly it gained’t be as disruptive because it sounds. I’ve already seen a few our articles present up in AI Mode with none AI Mode website positioning, which backs up what Gary Illyes mentioned: good old style website positioning would possibly nonetheless be all you want.
AI goes to start out doing issues, not simply answering questions
The subsequent wave is about AI truly finishing duties for folks. Assume brokers that may evaluate merchandise, negotiate costs, and even purchase issues for you. If that turns into the norm, being seen to AI might imply much more than simply displaying up in search outcomes.
Spam detection will get smarter (however how forgiving will it be?)
Similar to Google bought higher at recognizing spam and hyperlink schemes, AI programs will certainly get higher at figuring out makes an attempt to sport their responses. The large query mark is how lengthy AI programs would possibly “bear in mind” should you’ve tried to control them. Will they be forgiving like Google finally turned, or will they maintain grudges longer?
Closing ideas
Deal with GEO as an extension of your present website positioning technique. In any case, it’s principally website positioning for AI search. The basics—nice content material, clear construction, topical authority—work for each. You’re simply increasing your definition of success past clicks to incorporate AI citations and model mentions.
AI is transferring so quick that even the folks constructing it could possibly’t all the time sustain. Following blogs like ours is one way to stay in the loop.
Got questions or comments? Let me know on LinkedIn.
