014: The Beginner's Guide to Optimizing Your Website for AI-Powered Search (GEO)

The Website Success Show - AI-Powered Search is Here: Are You Ready?

In this episode, Jules White dives into the rapidly evolving world of AI search and how it's reshaping the SEO landscape. Learn about the key differences between traditional SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and why it's more important than ever to have a solid foundation for both.

Key Takeaways:

• The Rise of AI Search: Understand the growing popularity of AI search engines like Perplexity & ChatGPT and how they're changing the way we find information online.
• SEO vs. GEO: Similarities and Differences: Learn the key distinctions between optimizing for traditional search engines and AI-powered search.
• The Importance of Trust and Authority: Discover why building a trustworthy and authoritative website is critical for success in both SEO and GEO.
• Optimizing for AI Search: Learn practical tips on adapting your content and website structure to better meet the demands of AI search engines.
• Getting Started: Get a step-by-step guide on how to begin optimizing your website for AI search, even if you're an SEO beginner.

Tune in to this episode to stay ahead of the curve and ensure your website is ready for the future of search!

Resources:

• Free SEO checklist: Download a handy checklist to track your progress and ensure you're covering all the SEO basics.

Get your free website SEO report here at The Website Success Hub and start making changes for a more sustainable marketing strategy!

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction and Context

Hi, happy Friday. It's actually not Friday when I'm recording this, it's Thursday, but I have a VIP day with a client tomorrow, so I'm not around to go live, so I thought I would pre record this. So I've got something really important to talk about today.

The Rise of AI in SEO

This is a developing trend in  the online world, probably not even a trend, it's new tech.

So  SEO is evolving and the next big thing, the big change that's happening, and it's happening right now, is the AI search. platforms that are around already and are growing and they're growing really fast and they're getting better and getting good very quickly. So even though AI search in comparison to the, to Google search is relatively new, definitely things are coming along leaps and bounds and there's a few big things happening that I think are going to make massive difference and really change things very, very quickly.

So,  What I want to talk about today is the differences between SEO and optimizing for AI and also the similarities because there are many, many similarities and I think it will  be interesting just to look at what  we can do already that will help to future proof our websites as well. So there's a new acronym of GEO which is Generative Engine Optimization Um, Whether that will catch on and whether that will be what we're calling it, what the kids are calling it,  we'll wait and see.

Maybe it will be called Artificial Intelligence Optimization. Maybe it will be called AI Search Optimization. Maybe it will be called Robot Butler Optimization. Who knows what we're going to call it? But  whatever we call it, we need to optimize our websites, not only for Google searches, but also for AI searches as well.

There are a few sort of big names in terms of the search engines that are available at the moment. There are a couple that are imminent, and I think these are going to be ones that will make a big difference and really bring on the changes and develop this. And once it becomes more mainstream, then that's where we'll see these massive developments.

Key Players in AI Search

So ChatGPT is just released releasing at the moment. It's search GPT model. It's something that I don't have. I don't have it available in my account yet I've signed up to be on the waitlist. I know there are a few people who have already got it  But this is one that there's there are many many people using ChatGPT  and it's becoming pretty mainstream already.

And when we have that search built in there, I think that is going to be a big shift. The other one that's going to be a massive shift is Apple's AI.  So when that, when we, when we get AI built in as standard in our phones, then that's where it does become more mainstream. And, and, and once. consumers are using it, then the development will, will progress massively and very, very quickly.

Impact on Businesses and SEO Strategies

79 percent of consumers are expected to use AI enhanced search within the next year. 79 percent of consumers. So this is something we really need to be aware of in our businesses, of what's happening, what changes we need to make, what we need to just be aware of in terms of how to try and still get our content in front of our customers and make sure that we are getting that organic traffic coming through to our website.

So, Perplexity is another search, AI search engine that is around, it's been around for over a year, that has 10 million monthly active users. So, I was looking at Perplexity, I've been looking for my own stuff, my own website, my own business, looking for that on AI search engines over the last few days. I wanted to see if I could get that.

It's appearing in my Google Analytics, whether I could see AI stuff popping up in there and I have already, but not for the ones that I've been doing. But there was another couple of AI things that came up in my Google Analytics, which I thought was quite interesting. Whether that's bots that are going through that, because some of the stuff that we see in our analytics could be bots.

or maybe not. Maybe it was somebody who found me through AI. You never know. So when I looked at perplexity, which is one of the biggest ones, a lot of people are adopting that one. I found my, I, I basically typed in and, um,  what did I type in? First thing I typed in, I wasn't showing up, but then I typed in something like, uh, female web and SEO consultant in my village.

And I showed up, which is good because there's not that many web and SEO consultants in my little village. But,  When I looked at it, so it had a little description about, about me and my business, it was singing my praises, so that's good, but it was the actual part that took you through to my website was like a tiny, tiny little number and you click on that and it's, that's like it's, it's citing its sources.

But I think that's where it could be concerning in terms of whether what we're showing up for on AI searches is actually bringing people through to our website. And I think it will, it will see, we'll see what happens as people start to use it more. It will be really interesting to see what searches are actually handled within the AI engines and what searches still brings traffic through to our website.

The kind of search that I did, I would have expected. It to actually have a link like a bigger link to my website there  and maybe this is the difference between something like perplexity and search GPT and it'll be interesting to see when that comes out whether

if you do that in a Google search because because Google's algorithm is so clever.

That maybe Google would know in fact  Google is has rolled out its generative search now So a lot of searches if you do them in Google, you'll see that generative search coming up at the top of the page But when I when I said did that search in Google today  It came up with a list of websites and came up with my Google business profile.

So I feel like Google's algorithm is maybe a little bit more sophisticated and it understands that search intent a little bit more, but we'll see. We'll see what happens as, as people use it. That's, that's what will determine the,  um, the, the way that it evolves is as people use it and people either get the results they want or they don't.

then things will change that way. So you've also got Microsoft Copilot as well. I haven't really used that one myself. I don't really use Bing. I tend to use Google for everything. So I've not used that one, but that's another one that's been around for a while. And it will be interesting to see when SearchGPT comes out, how much of Bing is involved in that, because that was, ChatGPT was using Bing as a search engine.

So we'll see. We'll see what happens as that rolls out.   , I think the big thing  for me when I've used like if I've used the smart speaker I'm not gonna say her name because she'll chime in otherwise, but if I use our smart speaker I Often use it for cooking questions and things like that. So I'm often asking What's 200 Fahrenheit in centigrade or vice versa and I Recently we've gotten we've got an instant pot Which is like one of these fancy all in one cookers and I wanted to cook a whole chicken in there So it's like it's a pressure cooker.

So I   asked the smart speaker how long it takes to to cook that in there. And it comes up with just one result. And this is on, we've got one of the ones with the screen. So it came up with a one result on there, but because it was something so critical where I wanted, I didn't want to give us food poisoning.

I then didn't trust that result. So then I ended up going onto my phone and looking for websites myself and looking for those trustworthy websites that I kind of could make that decision myself that actually,  I'm not sure, you know, I wasn't sure whether I would trust. Where it had got that information from.

Whereas something like what is 200 Fahrenheit in Centigrade. It's a definitive answer. So that's where I think it would be interesting as, as AI search rolls out more in terms of whether, how much people trust it. But they reckon that 70 percent of people already trust generative AI search results.

I think for me, the difference in Google is that Google's algorithm.  has been evolving since 1996. So I feel like there's so much trust built in there. And there's so it's very sophisticated. And  it's not just it's trying to give us what the answers that we want, but it's not just predicting what we're expecting to hear, which is what with AI, AI  is essentially doing that is, is, is predicting the next thing that we're expecting to see.

So, um, It is becoming more and more sophisticated, but it will be interesting to see how long it takes to have that real feeling of, yep, I can rely on what this is saying. I think the big thing as well is that  chat GPT in particular, if I've ever done things like trying to do keyword research through chat GPT, it will tell me figures that I know are wrong because I have other tools that tell me the right figures.

And then when I say, Oh, I don't think that's quite right. It will say, Oh yeah, sorry. And so it almost, the fact that it blags it, and rather than saying, I don't know, it will blag it or make something up. And I think until we get past that point, that's, that is a big trust thing. We have to be able to trust these, these AIs and the bots and the algorithms, we have to be able to trust them to deliver the right results and to deliver results that are trustworthy as well.

And that's a big part of this optimization process is making sure that our websites are very trustworthy. 

Optimizing for AI Search Engines

So, I think the big thing with the AI search engines and why they are changing things and why they're becoming so,  adopted so quickly is because they can give us direct answers. So it's not just a list of websites that we then check out.

And because they are so smart,  they can give us those answers straight away. So there's definitely pros and cons around that, as I've just said about whether, whether we trust that answer and they are taking information from different places and condensing it into one supposedly definitive answer, really.

So in terms of. How we actually can adapt to this. I think it's really important that we understand the similarities and the differences as well. So I'm going to talk about GEO, so Generative Engine Optimization. I'm going to use that acronym for a while at least.  Essentially us optimizing our websites for AI search engines.

So if we think of our website, like, um, a book in a library.  A Google search would be like a librarian , pointing people in maybe towards the right shelf or the right collection of books. And that would be like it. Directing people to the web pages, whereas generative search is more like an encyclopedia where we get an answer straight away.

So it's actually delivering the answer, getting the information from different places and delivering the answer straight away. So that's the big difference, I think, between AI powered search and Google search.  And obviously the big benefit is that it's a better user experience. It's much faster to use.

Hopefully if we get it right, it would give us more visibility in our business, but that's not necessarily to say that that's going to bring more traffic through to our website. I think the thing that we need to be really aware of is the intent behind the searches. And also if  that question, that search that people are typing in, can it be answered with a question that doesn't then need to bring them through to your website?

And if that's the case, then  Is it worth creating content around that? Or is there other content that we need to be creating that  would be more likely to bring people through to our website? And it might be that that's something that we still want to create some content around information and we want , our websites showing up in those search results.

But again, I think that will evolve and we'll see that over time. We'll see that impact on the organic traffic from our websites actually  not answering necessarily the questions that we need to bring people actually into our website. So I always, when I'm working with clients, I would always be thinking about how can we find some commercial intent keywords or some transactional intent keywords.

So where people are actually looking to make a purchase or doing some more research before they make a purchase. And I think we can often forget about this when we're, when we're optimizing sites, or when we're thinking about dipping our toe into SEO,  we can often.  Forget about the fact that there's a lot of information out there already and people will start blogging and start creating information that doesn't necessarily bring the right sort of traffic into their website.

So , there's so much free content out there and we have this sort of feeling that we have to keep creating free content. But actually, if we can create content that is more linked to those keywords where people. Have a have a commercial intent. So people are actually looking to buy something and focus on that first.

Make sure we have covered the core topics in our business, but focus on that. Those kind of keywords first, then that can bring people into our business at the point where they're actually a bit more ready to spend money with us as well.  So one of the things I think that the question, the big question that comes up.

SEO vs GEO: Similarities and Differences

Is does geo mean that I can skip SEO altogether and just go straight to optimizing for AI? And I'm really sorry. I have to tell you the answer is no.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, I think, actually, fortunately, I'll change that and flip that around. But I think it's important to understand that SEO is not dead and it's actually more important than ever.

So.  The AI search still relies on those core principles of SEO being in place, which are, , you know, quality content, a clear structure up to our website, user friendliness, relevant keywords, and that's all still critical with AI as well. , and also the fact that traditional search engines aren't going anywhere.

They were 8. 5 million. No, sorry, 8. 5 billion searches on Google a day there are still so  it's going to take time. Things will change, but Google is still in the game as well. Google has its own generative search. So  whether we're talking about Google or whatever with whatever engine we're talking about optimizing for.

There's still the traditional search will still be driving a ton of traffic to our websites as well. So it's certainly not going away anytime soon, and it's just evolving and we need to evolve with it really.  SEO, the big thing is it builds trust and it builds authority. So once we put those SEO foundations in place, a well optimized website  will show trust and for humans and for AI and for Google's algorithms. And so, yeah, it's all about building that trust and authority that then both Google and the AI know that this is a good place to send people.  So what's the difference. I think if I explain it like if you imagine a car, , if you imagine you had all the bits of a car and think of your website like that and they were thrown together, not wired up properly, not put together properly, that car exists, but it's not going to go anywhere.

It's not going to do anything. If we think about traditional SEO is like putting all the bits together properly and putting the engine in. So now you've got a car that works. And I think just thinking of the generative. engine optimization or AI engine optimization as putting GPS in. So that's then going to take us to a specific place that we want to go rather than SEO is kind of like just putting a map in and then there's, there's all these places we could go essentially.

So if we,  if we just put a GPS into that car that's not wired up properly and hasn't got an engine, we're not going to go anywhere. So that's, it's, it's kind of the equivalent of that really of.  Making sure that the structure and the foundations are in place first before  we start thinking about the generative search and before we start thinking about AI.

The difference in terms of how our content is actually shown is traditional SEO gets your page featured in the listed search results, or it might be an image that gets featured or a video or your Google profile, but essentially it's a list of results and we get featured in that. Whereas Geo gets your  Content featured  within AI results.

So it could be snippets of your content It doesn't necessarily have to be whole pages, but it gets it featured in those in those AI results And so that's sort of the main differences, but there's much much more around the similarities between the two types of optimization so both types , prioritize quality content that's relevant to the search that people are actually making, the search that people are doing.

Both of them care about how well your website is structured and how easy it is to use. So that's really important, making sure that your content on your website and the backend, the code is structured well and that it's easy and a pleasure for people to actually use and is clear. And both look for signs that your website is trustworthy and authoritative.

And  that is things like building backlinks, showing that you're, that you know what you're talking about, that you're an expert in what you're talking about. You have, , you have those trust signals on your page as well.  And the way that we tended to do that with SEO was things like optimizing titles,  , using keywords in our page titles and descriptions, building backlinks.

  And that is important for, for GEO as well.  But what we can do to make sure that we're actually showing up for GEOs is adapting for things like voice search, for short searches. So things like questions and answers. I'm going to come on to this a little bit more in a moment of the  things that the key things that are critical for GEO.

But essentially, it's, it's the more advanced parts of SEO that will then also help us in the GEO. So things like optimizing for voice,  making sure that our website is loading really quickly, making sure we've got structured data and things like that.   It's an ongoing process as the tech evolves, we need to evolve with it and we need to make sure that we are keeping moving forward.

But putting all these foundations in place to begin with is the key. critical. Nothing's going to happen unless we've got this foundation in place. So the, the key things to get started is, first of all, I would say that understanding your audience is the most important. If you're thinking about, okay, how can I get started with it, whether it's SEO or geo, how can you get started?

Really important to understand your audience, understand the core, core topics that you talk about in your business as well. So, I recorded a podcast episode about this a couple of weeks ago, about three or four weeks ago, , which was episode nine. And it's about content strategy and how establishing your core topics makes things so much easier in all, all parts of your marketing.

That can help you as well with doing some keyword research to understand that user intent and making sure that you're then targeting those  topics where people are more likely to have that commercial intent makes a difference. And then thinking about your website as a whole. So rather than with SEO, and even this has changed quite a lot, really, it's not, we can't just get away with stuffing keywords into a web page and expecting Google to, you know, I'm going to show you how you can rank that unless there's not a lot of other content around that, but it's all about making sure that our website is a topical authority.

So that's where understanding our core topics can be really helpful, because we can make sure that we create content around that, that then helps Google understand why we're the authority on that topic. So looking at what the related terms are, looking at what are the  synonyms and similes and how we can explain things in slightly different ways, but it's all related and it all has a good structure that that Google then understands how this is all related as well.

And also us  linking our content.  So that's it. People have that journey as well of being able to come into our website and binge our content, read a couple of blog posts, read our pages, and then move along that journey of then becoming a buyer from us or then becoming a customer.  The second thing I would think about is thinking how you can write like you talk.

So rather than writing very structured, and more like written content, actually, how can you have a conversational tone to what your, what your content is? So how can you actually create your content in a way where you're asking and answering questions well, and that can be taken as snippets.

that AI then may take out of your website and use, and Google does this as well. If you are, if you look at the related searches in Google then, or people also ask, or the frequently asked questions, those kind of things will, are, are will also then show up on a Google search page. And those are the kind of things that then AI can take those answers and put those in a generative search result.

I would definitely say. Thinking about how you can weave your human experience through it as well. I think that's a big thing. If we're thinking about how we can stand out against all the AI generated content as well, which is again, really important. This is what helps build that trust, making sure that we're telling our own unique stories, putting our own perspective on it,   even things like client stories and case studies and just anything that makes it.

More human and makes it more relatable to your experience and why you are then that authority on that subject can make a massive difference and that can be really helpful with the AI Generated search in terms of it being more trustworthy content or seen as more trustworthy content  And then thinking about the structure of our pages.

Technical Aspects and Best Practices

This is something that is a little bit technical, but it's critical for SEO, but even more so for AI. So, thinking beyond just keywords, having that semantic core, which is like that, that core topics that you talk about in your business is really important on your website. And making sure that our page hierarchy is set out well, so that Google and   AI searches can understand the different parts of a page.

So if you have one h1 heading, then the h2 headings below that could essentially  then be snippets of information that could then be added into a generative search result. So you'd want to make sure that you wouldn't, you're not using a h1 heading and then a h4 heading. And unfortunately, website builders tend to set us up to fail a little bit with this because they're set up to use these headings as styling for the page.

So often they are used to style a page and it's not really given that structure. It's not really thought about that. So I would definitely say if you're thinking about creating web pages, if you're thinking about creating blogs, then planning that out on paper first is always a good way to go. So, working out, okay, what are the key things I need to talk about on this page?

Make those,  as your headings, and then everything else below that, realistically, you don't need much below a H3, and everything else probably is going to be paragraphs, really. But having that there, then also,  it makes it easier.  For people to then understand your content as they're reading it.

They can see, they should be able to skim read it and understand it, but especially for the bots to be able to understand it as well. And then having structured data on your site as well. So this is what's called schema markup. I'm not going to dive into this today because it is a topic of its own and it is a bit of a mammoth topic, but some website builders do actually ,  have it built in.

Even for website builders that don't like I use FBA create and that's not a function there at the moment it's something that's on the planned list but hopefully that will come in soon but even without that it is actually very simple to go and create some schema data and this is structured data that , it's built into the code that again, it helps the bots to actually read your website and know what the different parts of it are.

Then it helps it to know whether it's, whether you're talking about an event or you're talking, oh, it's a blog article or whether you're talking about, like, if it's a recipe site, it will help  the  bots to understand which bits of the ingredients and which bits of the cooking times and all of this sort of thing.

So it's very clever. And it's actually, once you get used to it, it's not that difficult to do as well. It's really not difficult to do. And once you've written the article, you've got all that bit done. Then all you're doing is just literally, okay. Adding a few bits in there's a, there's a website you can visit that will actually do generate the code for you.

And then you just copy and paste that over into your website builder. Even if you, if you don't have something built in, if you're using WordPress, you should definitely use a plugin for this. It's set up to make it make it very easy. , but even if not, then it's something not to be scared of and that can make a big, big difference.

And then just making sure that the technical stuff is in place. So making sure that your, your page speed is good, that your website is  mobile optimized, that it's clear, it has good navigation and is easy for people to use and for bots to understand. So.

Conclusion and Next Steps

I hope that is helpful just as a little intro to those differences and similarities.

I think the big takeaway is that the work that you do on your SEO foundations is going to pay dividends in the future. So it's something that is going to then be carried over into your, the GEO or whatever acronym it's called in the future. And that optimizing  the work that you're doing now is, is not going to go away.

It's not going to be,  for nothing. It's, this is the foundations that you're putting in place to make sure that you do show up  and all the tech, all the technology that comes in the future. And as things develop that you're set up to make sure that you can have the best chance of getting some organic traffic to your website.

And that's the goal, right? The goal of this, all of this, of showing up in searches is getting more of the right traffic to your website. And I think that's something to think about as well, is that, you know,  We're not just trying to get anybody just looking for a bit of free information to our website.

That can be part of it, but realistically, focus on those commercial intent searches first, and make sure that those kind of pages on your website are set up properly first can make a big difference. So, it is an ongoing journey, I'll definitely say that. It's something that we're all still adapting to the new technology, and it will continue to adapt.

And I think  just making that decision to embrace it a little bit. I'm definitely embracing the AI stuff. I feel like it's just such a,  such an amazing thing and amazing thing for our businesses in the ways that we can use it to just make everything a bit easier and a lot easier really. And even outside of our businesses as well.

I think if we can get ahead of the game and make sure that we're  We are embracing it at this point, then it's the way to move forward, really. So if you want to get started, if you feel like I haven't even started on the SEO basics, I need to get those bits done. Or if you've done a bit and you're not sure how you're doing, then you can head to my website.

You can get either a free SEO report if you want to see how you're doing, or you can get a free SEO checklist. If you just want a little checklist to see how, what bits you've, you've done and you can check those off, then head to my website to get started. Check those out.  Have a great weekend. Bye!