The best part about the internet is all the acronyms and jargon. Actually, that’s not true. The best part is the funny videos and the ability to have products delivered to your door without speaking to a human.
The worst part about the internet is all the acronyms and jargon.
AEO and GEO are new ones that everyone (in my world) are talking about. If you’re immersed in SEO, you need to know what AEO and GEO are. If you’re not, it still doesn’t hurt.
Let me take a stab at some definitions.
What Is SEO?
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of refining your website to make it easier for search engines to provide accurate results to searchers.
Basically, someone goes to a search engine because they want to find something. They want to buy a specific thing, or they want opinions on what thing to buy. Maybe they need a recipe or directions to get somewhere. Perhaps they just want some funny videos. Search engines win by getting them the best information as quickly as possible.
Many people think SEO is about tricking search engines, but that simply doesn’t work. Getting the wrong person to your site won’t help you, and it angers the person and the search engine. The only successful way to do SEO is to understand your customer, and then help the search engine understand when to send them to your site.
What Is AEO?
AEO is short for Answer Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of giving short, accurate answers to questions that people are likely to ask an AI chatbot.
In other words, you go to your favorite AI chatbot and ask them a specific question. You might want to know the ingredients of something, the best product to buy for a specific situation, or the phone number for a specific local business. You don’t want a short novel written to tell you these things. You just want a concise answer, and you want it quickly.
Providing that information to the LLMs is the purpose of AEO.
What Is GEO?
GEO is short for Generative Engine Optimization. It’s the practice of providing background information to help chat bots create longer-form content.
This is closer related to when you want a long explanation for something. Let’s say your kitchen sink is clogged up, and you want to learn how kitchen sinks work and what clogs them. Since sinks aren’t all exactly the same, and you just washed dishes after a certain meal, the LLM tries to cater the answer to your specific situation. It will need to know how sinks work and common problems. It will also need to know how your recent meal might impact it, if there are seasonal areas in your location, and many other similar factors.
Then, it will write a long and (hopefully) helpful explanation for you. GEO provides it with the information that it needs to do all of this.
How Do I Do AEO And GEO On My Website?
That is a much longer and more complicated answer. I’m still learning and sharing, and I’ll never be finished because it will always be changing.
