GEO: Is Generative Engine Optimization the New SEO?

We all know SEO, but now something new is on the rise: GEO.
Maybe you’ve heard it mentioned before, but you’re about to hear it a lot more. GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. Where SEO helps you get found in Google, GEO makes sure that AIs like ChatGPT and Gemini understand your content and ideally use it as a source in their answers.

In this blog, we’ll explain:

• What GEO actually is
• How it’s different from SEO
• Why it matters for marketers
• How to make your website AI-ready
• And how we’re approaching it ourselves

So, what is GEO?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is all about making your website easier to understand for AI systems, also called generative engines. Think of it as structuring your site and content in a way that tools like ChatGPT or Gemini can make sense of it, and hopefully cite it in their responses. The goal? To help AIs truly understand what you do and recommend you to potential clients.

Think about how you use ChatGPT yourself. Maybe you’ve asked something like:
“Where can I find a good Thai restaurant near the Jordaan?”
Or
“What is the best design agency in Amsterdam specialist in Tech platforms?”

We’re starting to ask AI the kinds of questions we used to Google. And when we do, AI tools scan websites to find helpful. If your site is clear and well structured, there’s a much better chance you’ll show up in those answers. That’s where GEO comes in. It helps AI understand what your company does and why it matters and when someone asks something related, it knows you’re worth mentioning.

GEO vs SEO: what’s the difference?

We’ve created a visual to show the difference at a glance. But in short, SEO is about being found by Google, which reads your whole site. GEO is about being understood by AI, which reads specific sections based on your website structure.

Let’s take a moment to look at the difference between SEO and GEO. With SEO, the goal is to show up in Google. You make sure the right words are on your website, and Google reads your entire site to figure out where to place you in the search results.

But tools like ChatGPT don’t work that way. They don’t read everything. They look for very specific parts of your website to understand what you do. If your content isn’t clear or well structured, there’s a big chance AI won’t understand your business, and that means you might not show up when someone asks a question you could help with.

So while SEO is about being found, GEO is about being understood. To make the difference even clearer, we’ve added a simple overview below.

Here’s a quick example from our own website. One of our focus industries are biotech companies. Now imagine we wrote this on our site:

“Biotech is our specialty. We create impactful biotech websites.”

It sounds good for SEO, because Google can figure out the context from the rest of the page. But for AI, it’s too vague. What do we actually do? And for whom?

Now compare that to:

“We build websites for biotech companies that want to clearly explain complex innovations to investors, customers, and policymakers.”

That one sentence gives AI a much clearer picture of what we do, who we do it for, and why it matters. It helps systems like ChatGPT understand our site better and recommend us when someone is looking for an agency that truly understands biotech.

What makes a page GEO-ready?

If you want to start with GEO, a few things really make a difference. Our advice: learn a bit about it first before diving in.

1. Clear, easy-to-understand content

Avoid jargon and fancy buzzwords. Explain your product or service like you would to someone outside your industry. AIs are smart, but just like people, they need context.
And context is everything.

2. Good structure

AI doesn’t scan your site the same way Google does. You can help by:

• Using clear headings (H1, H2, H3)
• Sticking to one topic per page
• Adding internal links
• Avoiding duplicate pages like “web design” and “web design Amsterdam”

Think of your website like a book: AI needs to know where a chapter starts, what it’s about, and where it’s going. It won’t read every word.

3. Technical optimization

This part is even more important for GEO than for SEO. AI uses extra layers of information to understand your content. So we recommend (or your web developer does):

• Adding an llms.txt file: This is like a map of your most important pages. We include it by default on our newest sites—but you can improve it yourself too.
• LLM-FULL: Longer summaries per page, which help provide extra context.
• Structured data (like via Yoast): Extra bits of code that explain what something is (like an article, a product, or a person). We also add this to our latest websites.

Good news: We’ve already updated our own llms.txt file. It’s live and helping AIs better understand who we are and how we’d like to be used as a source.

4. Build trust (E-E-A-T)

AIs want to use reliable sources. Just like Google, they look for signs of: Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust

Here are a a few simple tips to get started:

• Add author info to your blog posts or news articles
• Tell your story, who you are, how long you’ve been around
• Use real client cases or testimonials

Why should marketers care about GEO

You might be thinking: Why spend time on this new topic, is it not a trend?
However, AI tools are being used more and more for research. You’ve probably heard questions like:

“Which agency can help with a biotech rebrand?”
“What’s the difference between SEO and GEO?”
Or
“What should I eat tonight that is quick and healthy?”

If your website is GEO-ready, there’s a higher chance ChatGPT will mention your brand and link to your page.

How we’re doing it at Mars

We’re currently testing with different generative engines and working hard to make our own site GEO-proof.
Our llms.txt file is live, and we’re already working on the next steps.

We’re also looking at how to use what we’ve learned to help our clients. How can they be among the first to grow through language models?

And most importantly: we’ll keep testing, learning, and improving.
Because just like SEO, GEO keeps evolving.

Ready to get started?

Here’s the key takeaway:
GEO isn’t just a trend. It’s a new layer on top of your existing SEO strategy.
If you want your company to show up in AI-generated answers, now’s the time to start—especially since most companies haven’t jumped on this yet.

Want to chat about GEO or get help making your site AI-ready?
Feel free to reach out.

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This page explains the difference between SEO and GEO, why GEO is important for marketers, how Marsmedia created and uploaded its own llms.txt, and how you can get started too.