The digital marketing landscape is undergoing one of its most significant evolutions in decades. The traditional SEO playbook, once dominated by technical audits, keyword research and link building, is being rapidly rewritten. With the rise of AI-powered search, large language models (LLMs) and generative overviews, marketers must now recalibrate their strategies and rethink what optimisation actually means.
Welcome to the era of GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation.
But GEO isn’t just another buzzword. It reflects a deeper, strategic shift that places human behaviour, brand experience and integrated content strategy at the core of organic visibility. Marketers who fail to make this leap risk becoming invisible in a world that is no longer driven by static search results but by dynamic, AI-curated content.
From Search Engine Optimisation to Search Experience Optimisation
For years, SEO has been framed as a battle to game the algorithm. But here’s the reality: chasing algorithm updates is a losing game. Search engines like Google are evolving to understand human intent more deeply than ever before. This means optimising not for bots, but for people.
In this new environment, SEO can no longer be treated as a siloed discipline. It is no longer just about rankings, technical fixes or backlinks. Instead, it is about delivering the right experience to the right person at the right time across search, social, PR and content.
Whether you call it search experience optimisation, organic media planning or GEO, the implication is clear: marketers must adopt a human-first, integrated approach to organic growth.
What is GEO, Really?
Generative Engine Optimisation is the practice of positioning your brand to be featured, referenced and recommended by generative search technologies. This includes AI summaries, LLM responses and new features powered by platforms like Google’s Search Generative Experience or tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT.
GEO requires a shift in mindset:
- From keywords to concepts
Success is no longer about targeting individual terms. It is about understanding how your brand solves problems and contributes meaningfully to broader themes that AI models are trained on. - From ranking to relevance
Being present in blue links is not enough. Your goal is to be cited in summaries, recommended in contextual answers and positioned as a trusted voice in the conversation. - From link-building to brand-building
In a world where LLMs prioritise credibility, freshness and authority, brand salience becomes the new organic metric. The more trusted and recognisable your brand, the more discoverable it becomes.
SEO is Now Multi-Channel
Marketers must stop thinking of SEO as a purely technical or on-site exercise. The content you publish across platforms, TikTok, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, mainstream press, feeds into how discoverable and desirable your brand appears in search results.
This is where the concept of organic media planning comes in.
Organic media planning is about plotting your brand narrative across all touchpoints, owned, earned and shared, and understanding how they influence search behaviour. Search visibility is now a byproduct of your entire brand ecosystem.
What Marketers Should Be Doing Now
Here are five strategic shifts marketers must embrace to stay ahead:
- Optimise across the full ecosystem
Look beyond your website. Ensure your brand is mentioned in the places LLMs look, trusted media, product reviews, Wikipedia, social conversations and influencer content. - Prioritise category ownership
Don’t try to win everywhere. Focus on owning your specific category. Build content and campaigns that associate your brand with a defined space in the customer’s mind. - Measure brand salience, not just clicks
Visibility metrics are no longer enough. The brand that comes to mind at the moment of decision wins. Start tracking brand recall and mental availability as part of your organic strategy. - Create content with dual value
Your content must serve both human curiosity and algorithmic recognition. Combine creativity and clarity with structure and optimisation. - Break down the silos
Your SEO team does not need to become PR or social experts. But every team needs to understand how their work contributes to search success. Integration is no longer a luxury, it is essential.
Stop Chasing Channels
There is a tendency in marketing to chase whatever’s trending, whether that is TikTok SEO, LLM snippets or zero-click results. But brands that focus only on the channel miss the bigger picture.
The real opportunity lies in creating relevance across channels. The goal is not just to rank or be seen, but to be remembered and chosen.
Search is no longer just about keywords. It is about meaning, trust and timing. And in this new world, the most successful brands will be those that understand people better than algorithms do.
Because at the end of the day, Google is not chasing algorithms. Google is chasing people. So should you.
