SEO vs GEO: where should your business put its effort?

1. Understand the overlap

SEO is work intended to improve a website’s discoverability in search. GEO is commonly used for work focused on AI-generated search experiences. The distinction describes a focus; it does not automatically create two independent sets of tasks or justify doubling a content budget.

Google’s current generative-AI optimisation guide says its AI search experiences use its core Search ranking and quality systems, and treats GEO work for those experiences as SEO. Other providers have their own systems and controls. Ask an agency to identify the platform, the proposed change and the evidence behind it.

Keep readingUnderstand GEO, mentions and citations

2. Fund the improvements that help across the journey

A clear service page helps a customer arriving from several sources. So does an accurate comparison, a readable mobile layout, a working enquiry form and a coherent set of internal links. These shared improvements are often a sensible starting point because their usefulness does not depend on one provider citing your business.

Make a short inventory of the gaps. Perhaps your best service has no dedicated page, your pricing explanation contradicts an old article, or enquiries go to an unmonitored inbox. Deal with the strongest commercial constraint before adding a new label to the programme. The purpose is a better customer decision and a reliable next step.

• Shared work: service clarity, original guides, current evidence and usable pages.
• Search-specific checks: indexing, query relevance and page performance.
• Provider-specific checks: documented crawler access and reproducible answer observations.

3. Use a constrained-budget example

Hypothetical example: an Australian B2B firm has ten hours of internal review time available this month. It could spend all ten reviewing generic AI-search articles. Alternatively, it could clarify one important service page, contribute expertise to a detailed comparison and review the enquiry flow. The second option directly addresses known customer decisions; its value can be checked on the site.

If the foundations are already strong and customers report using a particular AI service, a focused experiment may be reasonable. Define a small set of genuine research questions, document the current answers and identify whether the cited pages reveal a content gap. Make a targeted improvement and observe over time without promising causation.

This is a prioritisation example, not a recommended time allocation or performance forecast. Your starting point, customer research and delivery resources should determine the split. Keep room for changes when the evidence shows a different constraint.

4. Avoid combining unlike metrics

Conventional search reporting can show page and query performance. AI monitoring may record whether an answer mentions or cites your business. Website and CRM reporting can show available referral information, enquiries and outcomes. Keep the definitions visible, because a mention count and a customer count are not interchangeable.

Google’s AI-features documentation says traffic from its AI features is included in Search Console’s Web reporting. Do not present that combined total as a separate AI-only traffic measurement. If a report estimates a category, label the method and its limits rather than presenting a precise-looking number as directly observed.

An agency should be comfortable reporting that an experiment has not yet produced a useful signal. Low enquiry volumes, changing responses and incomplete referral information can all limit what the data supports. Use the findings to decide the next action, rather than trying to declare a winner between acronyms.

5. Ask for one joined-up scope

When reviewing proposals, put the tasks side by side. If both packages include the same content audit, article production and internal-link updates, ask how duplication is avoided. Where GEO adds a distinct task, such as reviewing a provider’s crawler controls or maintaining an observation sample, ask what it costs and what the output is.

Demandify’s starting point is an ongoing SEO scope connected to the service and enquiry journey. AI-search considerations can inform that work. Bring customer questions, current pages and any real examples of AI referrals so the priorities come from your business rather than a generic package comparison.

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