Why rankings alone don’t tell the whole story, and what businesses should be doing now.
SEO has been a marketing buzzword for years. Just as businesses have got their heads around it, along come two new kids on the block: AEO and GEO.
More acronyms. More things to think about. Possibly another person telling you that you need to change your entire marketing strategy.
Before we get carried away, I think it’s worth looking at what’s actually changing: how people ask questions, research products and decide who to buy from.
From what’s for dinner to which TV to buy
You might ask ChatGPT, Claude or one of the many other AI tools what to cook with the ingredients in your fridge.
Then you’re looking for a new TV. Which model suits your budget? Is the expensive one worth the extra money? What do reviews say, and what have other buyers found?
Instead of opening a series of websites, you can ask questions, compare options and keep narrowing down your choices in one conversation. You still need to check the answers, particularly prices, specifications and the sources behind recommendations.
Now think about someone choosing an accountant, a solicitor, a supplier or a marketing agency.
If they research your service that way, what information is available to help them understand and consider your business?
First, let’s translate the acronyms
SEO means Search Engine Optimisation. It helps your website appear in relevant search results when people look for what you offer.
AEO means Answer Engine Optimisation. It focuses on making your content useful for systems that provide direct answers to questions, including answers displayed within search results.
GEO means Generative Engine Optimisation. It focuses on how your business and content might be understood and referenced in AI-generated answers.
There’s overlap between these terms. They aren’t three neatly separated activities, and they don’t automatically require three separate budgets.
Where traditional SEO alone can fall short
If your approach to SEO starts and ends with keywords, rankings and website traffic, you may be missing part of the picture.
An AI answer can draw on your website, but it can also refer to reviews, industry publications, videos and information other people have published about your business. Your business may be mentioned without a link to your own website.
That means we need to consider what customers can learn about us across the web, as well as where our website ranks.
AthenaHQ’s State of AI Search, Q4 2026 report offers an interesting example. In its sample, 34.18% of citations were categorised as informational content, while 24.36% were comparative or selection content. Together, that’s around 59% pointing to content that explains something or helps people weigh up options.
These are findings from the report’s sample, not a guarantee of what any individual business will achieve. But they give us a useful question: does your content help someone make a decision, or does it just describe what you sell?
What should businesses add to their approach?
1. Help people choose.
Go beyond a list of services. Explain who each service is suitable for, what affects the price, how the process works and what someone should compare before deciding. Your sales team will probably have plenty of questions to start with.
2. Give clear answers.
Put useful information on the relevant pages. Avoid making people search through vague descriptions or download a brochure just to understand the basics. Write in the language your customers use.
3. Make your experience visible.
Use genuine case studies, customer feedback, qualifications and information about the people doing the work. Show what supports your claims rather than simply calling yourself “leading” or “trusted”.
4. Look beyond your own website.
Check your business profiles, reviews and relevant directory listings. Are they accurate? Do they reflect your current services? Useful contributions to industry publications and genuinely helpful videos can also give people more ways to discover your expertise.
5. Check how your business is being described.
Try a few realistic customer questions in AI tools. Look for inaccurate information, missing services and the sources being referenced. Treat this as a spot check, not a definitive ranking report: answers can vary between tools and searches.
And keep doing the SEO basics.
Your website still needs to be accessible to search engines, work properly on mobile and make it easy to enquire. Google’s own guidance says established SEO practices remain relevant to its AI search features; no special additional optimisation is required for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google’s guidance
Can businesses ignore it?
I wouldn’t recommend it. How much AI search matters will vary by business and audience, but it deserves consideration now.
You don’t need to chase every new platform. Start with your most important services and ask whether you’re giving people enough useful, accurate information to make a confident decision.
Keep measuring enquiries and customers, too. Being mentioned in an AI answer is only one part of understanding whether your marketing is working.
There’s no guaranteed shortcut to an AI recommendation. My advice is to build on the foundations you already have, make your expertise clearer and give people better reasons to choose you.