6 Similarities Between GEO and SEO That Can Help You Appear in More LLM Chats

It's not that SEO is less important than GEO, it's that GEO will be its equal one day. Knowing how they're similar will help you master them both.

Your customers are using AI tools, so it makes sense to improve your chances of being cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and others. At the same time you'll still want to be optimising your site for Google search rankings.

You’ll be a strong competitor in both SEO and GEO if your website is a trustworthy source of useful and true information; if it’s up-to-date and easy to understand, and if it loads fast.

This is part of a two-part series comparing GEO and SEO. The other article highlights the differences. We’ll be referencing it heavily below, so we recommend having it open in another tab and bouncing between both when it makes sense.

GEO won’t replace SEO but they do overlap

Generative Engine Optimisation, as the name suggests, is the process of optimising your online presence so large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini (which powers the AI Overview that sometimes appears with search results) can interpret your content, and mention or link to your pages in responses.

In an earlier article we suggested practical steps to make your websites appear more in AI chats. If you implement these steps you’ll notice that many of the core SEO principles also apply to GEO.

Websites that rank well in Google searches frequently appear in AI citations.

In this article we’re looking at what GEO shares with SEO. Understanding the overlap between the two is important to get the best results for both.

Every day Google processes over 16 billion searches, which is a lot more than ChatGPT's 2 to 3 billion prompts. But the AI userbase is growing fast. Its usage as a search tool increased by over 500% in the year to May 2025.

The overlap in action

Tests show that websites which rank well in Google searches frequently appear in AI citations as well. "Domain overlap" shows that a website is good, and "URL overlap" shows that a given page has strong SEO and GEO, probably by balancing 'skimmability' and depth.

As you can see in the graph below, according to data from Semrush, the overlap of citations varies by platform.

Of the four AI platforms tested:

• Perplexity cited domains and URLs that overlap with Google 90% of the time.
• Google AI Overview also closely overlapped with Google search results (85% overlap).
• ChatGPT had the least overlap, with cited domains only overlapping with ~45% of the top Google searches.
• Google’s AI Mode, a separate dedicated AI chat tab within Google, had similar results to ChatGPT (53%).

It’s important to note that this data is from July 2025. That's less than a year old, but with the rate that AI models change and evolve, these data points will definitely move, if they they never diverge entirely.

• Why won't they diverge? Because each system is looking for good, credible sources of information. The search method differs more than the target does.
• On they other hand they will always differ. AI is more likely to cite “deeper” or long tail content, whereas SEO has a stronger preference for landing pages.

This overlap has multiple causes. In some cases, there’s going to be prolific and notable online sources or market leaders that any system would be wrong to ignore. In other cases there will be websites with useful and well-structured information, which is equally useful to the crawlers behind search engines and LLMs.

Related articles:

• Technical SEO tips: Help your business website talk to the bots
• Using WordPress? Here's the SEO basics for any WordPress site
• Improve your webpage load time to increase your SEO

Even if you’re not the best known global name in your field, you can set up web content in a way that boosts your results in both SEO and GEO.

In our article highlighting differences (have you opened it yet?) we tried searching for a local electrician using both AI and Google. In that example, both AI citations and search rankings heavily relied on user reviews. But SEO and GEO share a lot more than just a reliance on review scores. In fact, the fundamentals to improving both share many similarities.

Similarity #1: It's all about fulfilling user intent

Search engines and AI tools both try to service their end user (the person searching for information). The outcome differs between platforms (Google search users expect a link to a website, AI users want answers summarised to them), but both tools are designed to answer questions.

Google measures content will against their E-E-A-T principles. That stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Sites with these qualities get priority ranking.

Google themselves say trust is the most important part of that equation. And one simple step to build trust is to make it clear who authored the content, and provide some background on the author. This could mean including a byline on content that you publish, or ensuring that your About Us page is up-to-date with relevant information.

Similarity #2: High quality content is as important as ever

Clear and concise, high quality information is vital for both SEO and GEO. Neither humans, nor AI, want to trawl through needlessly lengthy or wordy pages to find the answer they’re looking for.

Users need a reason to click a link, and they need a reason to read a whole article. When users spend lots of time reading a page, that signals relevance to search engines. On the other hand, users spending very little time on a page indicates to the search engine that it needs to feed the user better or more relevant content.

LLMs don’t consider time-on-page metrics, but the AI is looking to cite informative and relevant content to its users. Over time, it will learn from people's follow-up questions whether it's serving up useful information, or ought to look somewhere else for answers.

So, is your content a definitive source of relevant information? Content that gives an accurate and concise answer to a question will do well. That's true for readers, and for bots.

Similarity #3: Proving authority is important

Both Google and LLMs only want to promote pages from trustworthy sources. Users of both are more likely to trust and read information that seems to come from reputable sources.

This is where user reviews come into the equation. Both search engines and LLMs are looking for ways to verify that you’re a reliable source. Reviews on third party review sites (like Google itself) are places that both search engines and AI tools look to prove authority.

There’s nuances to how each tool assesses a site’s authority, which you can read more about in our article comparing the differences between SEO and GEO. But if the opportunity comes up to appear or be mentioned on other websites or social media it’s a good opportunity to build authority for both Google and AI search.

Similarity #4: Technical qualities matter

Fast load times, mobile responsiveness, good internal linking, and clean URLs all make content easier to discover and read. If your reader has to wait for a page to load, they’re probably going to get frustrated and close the tab. Search engines take load speed into account when ranking pages.

AI bots scraping your website for information are the same, except, instead of getting frustrated, they’re programmed to time-out at a point.

You don’t want LLMs (or humans) ignoring your content just because your pages load too slowly. Sometimes it’s your website’s code or content slowing page loading times. Other times it’s your web host slowing you down by running your website on out-of-date servers.

If you’re using WordPress and want to see how your web host’s servers affect your website, you can test your site’s performance using PHP Vitals.

Similarity #5: Well-structured content is more likely to be cited

If a page flows logically, headings are ordered corrected, and paragraphs are kept at readable length, then readers will find the content more digestible. SEO rankings certainly take that into account.

LLMs also find it much easier to read and interpret clearly structured content. They’re programmed to process pages designed in a certain way, so when websites buck that trend or are structured improperly, then AI bots are more likely to skip your content and find an easier information source to use.

It’s important to maintain the proper order of subheadings. That means formatting the main title as h1, introducing major topics with h2, and formatting subsections with h3 and h4. Don’t use headings as a way to make text stand out and look bigger. All you will do is confuse LLMs. And maybe human readers too. Good, logical formatting pleases everyone.

Similarity #6: You can't just "set and forget"

There’s no ticking off either SEO or GEO as “done”. Showing up ahead of your competition in Google search rankings or being cited by ChatGPT does not guarantee continued success. They both involve ongoing effort, monitoring and maintenance.

No wasted effort

The good news for anyone that’s already invested lots of time and energy into SEO is that your previous work will put you a foot ahead in the GEO journey.

But while the backbone of good GEO is built on strong SEO principles, remember they each have their differences—particularly in the way the end user uses the service.

A starting point

GEO, much like SEO, can go as deep as you’re willing to take it, and is layered with intricacies and nuance. As AI algorithms continue evolving, GEO techniques and practices will also keep evolving. Pay attention to the GEO space and keep up to date with the latest news in the constantly shaking world of LLMs to stay in the loop. Today’s best advice could always become outdated overnight if there’s big changes with AI models.

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