Mistake #1 is spot on. It’s something you have to build and earn across every door AI opens. Optimization can and should be done, but if you haven’t built the external world to validate it… AI search will find someone else that did.
I think entities are still very underestimated. A brand is an entity, and if it’s corroborated by many external sources, it’s one that both trad search and AI’s can trust. Trust is really first among equals now in EEAT.
People need to be thinking about what their customers are going to ask next, too. Everybody and their brother are answering what customers have already asked. Go from “people also ask” to “people will ask…” Be that answer before they search for it. Data journalism, the questions being asked on Qwoted, HARO, and SoS, etc.
Personal stories have never been more important, too, IMHO.
I would love to see a follow-up study on what happens in detailed ICP queries, for example, "the best customer support tool for small teams that handle support in Gmail". My hypothesis is that smaller brands can still get into "commercial-intent" queries if they go deeper, vs trying to compete at the category level.
In my educational project, the "brand" is the institution, the museum. Same sort of results quoted here, 70% and more from 3 sources.
Common mistake in this case is to be like the museum - or in this case like the brands on top - and the old copy approach falls flat. There's already a few top museums doing this, and we're not a museum. And that framing also means a ton to being recognized for provenance, originality, which we have and never featured correctly, for SEO or GEO. To get in, you can't just be like the top 3 already in there, and good luck with fighting some institutional/brand dominance. It just is, it's like their moat.
Mistake #1 is spot on. It’s something you have to build and earn across every door AI opens. Optimization can and should be done, but if you haven’t built the external world to validate it… AI search will find someone else that did.
Yessir. This is the biggest difference between SEO vs. GEO.
I think this may be particularly true in e-commerce. The safe bet for an AI buying agent is a major brand.
Yessir. It's increasingly becoming a brand and trust game.
I think entities are still very underestimated. A brand is an entity, and if it’s corroborated by many external sources, it’s one that both trad search and AI’s can trust. Trust is really first among equals now in EEAT.
People need to be thinking about what their customers are going to ask next, too. Everybody and their brother are answering what customers have already asked. Go from “people also ask” to “people will ask…” Be that answer before they search for it. Data journalism, the questions being asked on Qwoted, HARO, and SoS, etc.
Personal stories have never been more important, too, IMHO.
Yep, this is topical approach to content strategy thinking about the follow up questions rather than just "one-off" pages.
I would love to see a follow-up study on what happens in detailed ICP queries, for example, "the best customer support tool for small teams that handle support in Gmail". My hypothesis is that smaller brands can still get into "commercial-intent" queries if they go deeper, vs trying to compete at the category level.
This is true ☝️ the more long-tail you go, the more winnable / favorable the conditions become for challenger brands with niche positioning.
Appreciate that this piece calls out the off-site work. I’m finding that’s what makes a GEO strategy really sing.
Yeah there's definitely a requirement for adequate 3rd party corroboration in order to get recommended.
Strategic marketing is back, baby!!!
In my educational project, the "brand" is the institution, the museum. Same sort of results quoted here, 70% and more from 3 sources.
Common mistake in this case is to be like the museum - or in this case like the brands on top - and the old copy approach falls flat. There's already a few top museums doing this, and we're not a museum. And that framing also means a ton to being recognized for provenance, originality, which we have and never featured correctly, for SEO or GEO. To get in, you can't just be like the top 3 already in there, and good luck with fighting some institutional/brand dominance. It just is, it's like their moat.
Brand dominance is a moat for AI search, there's no way around it!