Cybersecurity SEO Case Study: Dominating Compliance & X2 Leads
July 4, 2024
How to Measure Success in GEO? – GEO/AEO GA4 Dashboard
August 12, 2025
With the entry of AI into the online search market and its growing use, applying the basic principles of SEO is still a crucial foundation for any business seeking organic exposure, but they are no longer enough. The rise of AI-based search engines, such as ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and AI Overviews, necessitates the addition of a new set of tools to our toolkit. It’s important to note that this isn’t a replacement, but rather an evolution, in the form of an additional layer of fine-tuned and precise optimization.
In this guide, I will review the key concepts that will help you understand how to operate in this new arena. For those short on time, here are the main points:
- Meet AEO/GEO: Alongside SEO, a new field has emerged: Answer Engine Optimization.
- An Evolving Customer Journey: Many customers now make decisions through conversations with AI, even before they visit websites.
- High-Quality Traffic: Traffic coming from AI engines is often higher quality and has high conversion potential.
- Focus on Paragraphs: AI engines analyze content at the paragraph level, which opens up new opportunities.
- Broad Reputation Management: AI learns about your brand from a wide variety of sources, and it is essential to manage this narrative.
- Expanded Measurement: In addition to familiar metrics, we must track new ones such as mentions and the quality of traffic from AI sources.
Now, let’s expand.
Foundational Concepts for Understanding the New Search World
AEO/GEO (Answer Engine Optimization): The New Layer
Alongside classic SEO, which focuses on page rankings, a new and vital marketing field is growing: AEO/GEO. Engines like ChatGPT operate as “Answer Engines.” Their goal isn’t just to display links, but to synthesize information from various sources and provide the user with a direct, coherent answer. Our job is to influence the quality and accuracy of that answer, so that in addition to offering our product or service as a solution to a query, it also presents our brand in the best possible light.
The Changing Customer Journey
The process by which a customer searches for information is changing. An increasing number of users are turning to conversations with AI to get answers to their questions, compare products, and receive recommendations. Their decision-making process often occurs before they visit any website. We must have a presence and be influential in this new customer journey.
Traffic Quality Over Quantity
One of the consequences of the shift to using AI engines is a possible decrease in overall click-through rates to websites. However, the traffic that does come from these sources is often significantly higher in quality. These users have already received initial answers and consumed preliminary information, arriving at your site more mature and closer to taking action. In many cases, AI engines bypass the entire sales funnel, making informed decisions and choices for the user. Research even shows an increase in conversion rates and average session duration for traffic that originates from AI search engines. For decades, organic search traffic from Google was considered the highest quality. Today, organic traffic from AI search engines has become the highest quality, even more so than Google’s.
Passage-Level Optimization
Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on page-level optimization, AI engines work at a higher resolution. They break your content down into “passages” or small “chunks” and evaluate each one separately. Every paragraph on your site can be chosen and become part of an AI’s answer, even if it’s on a page that isn’t highly ranked for the main query.
Query Fan-Out
When a user enters a query, the AI performs a series of background sub-queries to gather comprehensive information. It may search for comparisons, reviews, technical data, and more. To be included in the final answer, our content must be relevant to those hidden sub-queries.
New Visibility Opportunity for Websites
The fact that the AI chooses the best paragraph, regardless of the page’s overall ranking, creates a significant opportunity for small and medium-sized websites. If, until now, a website that wanted to gain exposure in competitive fields had to build its authority over years, with AI search engines, it’s possible to bypass that barrier—high-quality, accurate content can now “win” and be included in answers on competitive topics, even against large, established websites.
The Increased Importance of Reputation Management
AI learns about your brand from a very wide range of sources: your official website, news sites, Wikipedia, reviews, forums, social networks, and even transcripts of YouTube videos. It is essential to understand which sources are influencing your narrative and to act to ensure that the information presented is accurate and up-to-date.
Addressing Deal Breakers
These are the most important criteria that a customer mentions in their search for your product or service, for example, “must have fast shipping” or “with 24/7 technical support.” The content on your site must provide clear answers to these criteria. If the AI doesn’t find a clear answer to a deal-breaker question on your site, it may conclude that your solution is not relevant for that user.
Expanding Your Measurement Tools
Traditional metrics like keyword rankings are still important, but don’t tell the whole story. To measure success in the world of AEO/GEO, we must add new metrics, such as:
Engagement Quality
Instead of focusing only on the number of clicks, the focus shifts to the quality of the traffic. The key metrics are:
- Average Session Duration: After extended monitoring and analysis, it is possible to say with relative certainty that traffic coming from LLM engines shows a significantly higher session duration than traditional Google traffic. This is a strong indicator that visitors arrived with high search intent and after receiving preliminary information.
- Conversion Rates: Ultimately, value is measured by conversions. The source notes that visitors arrive closer to a purchase decision, so higher conversion rates should be expected from this traffic. Dashboards provided in the course are specifically designed to measure this.
Visibility and Mentions in AI Engines
Tracking brand mentions is a good starting point. However, the more advanced goal is not just to check if you were mentioned, but how you were mentioned and to ensure that the information presented is accurate and reflects your messaging.
Addressing the Attribution Challenge
One of the biggest challenges is that the customer journey is broken. A customer might discover you in a conversation with ChatGPT, and then search for your brand name directly on Google. In this case, analytics will attribute the arrival to a direct or branded search, and the AI, which was the true source, will not get the credit.
The Practical Solution: Implement a “How did you hear about us?” field on your website. This is a goldmine of attribution information. The answers you receive will provide you with true insights into the sources through which customers discover you and will allow you to prove the value of your AEO/GEO efforts.
In Conclusion
The addition of AI search engines is not a threat to the old order, but a tremendous opportunity for businesses and service providers who are willing to adapt. Today, success is no longer measured solely by a high ranking in a list of search engine links, but by the ability to influence the answers themselves and become part of the narrative that AI builds for users.
Instead of thinking of your website as a collection of pages, start seeing it as a repository of high-quality, clear, and authoritative answers. By understanding the new customer journey, adapting your content to the way AI engines think, and building an internal knowledge graph, you can position yourself not just as an information source but as a trusted partner in your customers’ decision-making process. Now is the time to embrace the change and lead the conversation in your field.
