10 tips for SEO & GEO

Why tracking is crucial for both SEO and GEO

You can’t optimize what you don’t track. With traditional SEO, you mainly look at how many people find your website through Google. Now, with AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews, you also need to track how these systems show your content.

KPIs for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

The classic metrics in Google Search Console and Google Analytics are:

• Impressions: How often does your website appear in search results?
  
• Clicks: How many users click through to your website?
  
• Rankings: Where do you rank for your key search terms?
  
• Click-through rate (CTR): ​What percentage of users who see your result actually click on it?

The playing field is changing

Users are now often shown an AI-generated answer. With the rise of AI Overviews, impressions are starting to outweigh clicks. Many users are satisfied with the generated answer and no longer click through. As a result, your content may be visible and valuable, but this will not necessarily show up in your website statistics. New metrics for this new landscape are therefore crucial.

KPIs for GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

New metrics for AI visibility:

• Mentions: ​How often is your organisation mentioned in AI-generated answers?
  
• Citations: ​How often are you listed as a source with a link?
  
• Position of first mention: Are you the first source mentioned, or further down? (first source = most dominant)
  
• Share of Voice: ​How often are you mentioned compared to competitors?
  

What tools do I need?

To get a clear overview of your progress in both SEO and GEO, a central dashboard is essential. Bring all data together in one dashboard based on your selected tools.

• Looker Studio: Free central dashboard for all data through Google Workspace
  
• AI Tracking Tool: ​Trackerly, RankShift, Mentions.so, or other alternatives
  
• SEO Tool: ​Google Search Console, Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz
  

Key takeaway: Fewer clicks does not necessarily equal less success. Citations in AI-generated answers are the new form of visibility. Track SEO metrics (clicks, rankings), as well as GEO metrics (mentions, citations, share of voice) in one integrated dashboard.

What is RAG? 

RAG stands for Retrieval-Augmented Generation. AI first retrieves relevant information (Retrieval) before generating an answer (Generation). If your content is not discoverable and clear, it will often be skipped in responses.

Vector embeddings: how AI “reads” your content

AI converts text into numbers (vectors) that capture meaning. For example, in an article about “What is the best pet?”, it uses those numbers to understand how concepts relate to each other.

• Cats score highly on "huggable" (0.9) and "fidelity" (0.7)
  
• Dogs score highly on "loyal" (0.6) and "huggable" (0.5)
• Tigers score highly on "dangerous" (0.9) but low on "huggable" (0.1) 

Knowledge graph

AI understands the world as a network of connected facts:

• "Cat" → is a → "pet" 
  
• "Cat" → has attribute → "independent" 
• "Dog" → has attribute → "loyal" 

The clearer you explain these relationships, the better AI will understand your content.

How to optimise: 

• ​Be specific: instead of “They are loyal”, say “Dogs are loyal pets.”
  
• Use attributes: ​give descriptions that AI recognises. 
  
• Provide context: ​help AI understand why something is relevant.
  

Key takeaway: ​AI understands content through semantic meaning (vector embeddings) and relationships (knowledge graphs), not just words alone. Be specific in your phrasing and explain connections clearly. That way, you help AI interpret and cite your content correctly.

E-E-A-T: the Quality Standard 

For both SEO and GEO, content remains fundamental. Google and AI tools prioritise quality through E-E-A-T:

• Experience: write from experience with real examples
• Expertise: show expert knowledge through in-depth information
• Authoritativeness: be the authority that gets cited
• Trustworthiness: be reliable with up-to-date information and sources

1 topic = 1 comprehensive page 

Create long-form content (1500+ words) that fully answers a question. AI tools and Google prefer extensive, authoritative pages over short, superficial content.

Query fan-out: consider variations 

AI internally asks multiple related questions to build a complete answer.

Example: "What can I study at UAntwerp?"

• "What bachelor’s programs does UAntwerp offer?"
• "What are the admission requirements?"
• "What's the duration of a program?"

Answer the main question and logical follow-up questions on a single page. Test the query fan-out analysis yourself using this tool.

Practical tips

• Think outside-in: who are your target audiences and what are they searching for?
• Optimise your pages for SEO keywords and use a query fan-out analysis tool to optimise for GEO.
• Focus on current, useful content, and not archives.
• Updating existing pages is better than creating new content. Regularly refreshing your content is therefore crucial for optimisation.
• Your website is not an archive for internal administration.

Key takeaway: both Google and AI look for the same quality. E-E-A-T is the standard. One comprehensive, authoritative page (1500+ words) that answers multiple related questions (query fan-out) performs better than multiple superficial pages.

Why FAQs are crucial 

FAQs serve two purposes: they help both SEO and GEO. Google often displays FAQs as rich snippets in search results, while AI tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity most easily retrieve and cite question-and-answer content.

Answer mapping: learn from AI engines 

Look at the follow-up questions that Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google suggest after a search query, as they show what users really want to know.

Example for "Master's of Marketing UAntwerp":

• "What are the admission requirements?"
• "How much does the program cost?"
• "What are possible career opportunities after graduation?"

Create a comprehensive and complete FAQ for each suggested question.

Query fan-out provides FAQs 

Using a query fan-out tool can help you find FAQ opportunities that follow the logic of an AI tool.

Practical tips

• Test your key topics in Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Google
• Gather all follow-up questions suggested by these tools
• Create comprehensive FAQ sections on your landing pages
• Answer each question thoroughly (50–100+ words)
• Build a FAQ Database and distribute it throughout your content
• Use FAQ scheme markup (structured data) for SEO & GEO

Key takeaway: FAQs are not only useful for visitors, but also structured in a way that AI can efficiently locate and cite answers.

Why usability is essential 

A user-friendly website is crucial for both SEO and GEO. Google rewards sites that load quickly and are accessible to users. AI tools struggle more with poorly structured sites.

Core Web Vitals: technical performance of your website 

Google measures three main metrics:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Loading speed of the main content
• FID (First Input Delay): Responsiveness to interaction
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Visual stability during loading

Test your website’s performance through Google PageSpeed Insights. If this gets too technical, don’t hesitate to get support from a development partner or a technical profile within your organisation.

Accessibility: access for everyone 

Accessible websites are better for users and for AI:

• Use alt-text for images (this also helps AI understand what it sees)
• Ensure sufficient colour contrast
• Make your site navigable by keyboard
• Use semantic HTML (header, nav, main, footer)

Logical structure and navigation

• Maintain a coherent navigation structure
• Maximum 7 items per navigation level (first level: 5–6 items)
• Keep each page centered on the main task and avoid information overload
• Use white space to help readability

Well-organised content

• Logical, easy-to-use navigation
• Top tasks easy to complete
• Strong web editing with up-to-date, solid content
• Clear hierarchy with headings (H1, H2, H3)

Key takeaway: A site that’s fast, accessible, and logically structured helps users, and it also ranks better with Google and AI.

Keep them as short as possible, yet as long as needed. 

Online texts do not always need to be brief; for both SEO and GEO, quality and thoroughness are far more important than brevity.

Long-form content performs better

• Good landing pages ideally contain more than 1500 words
• AI tools and Google prioritize extensive, authoritative content
• Complete answers make clicking through to other sources unnecessary

Distinguish between page types

• Navigation pages: functional and concise
• Content pages: extensive and comprehensive

Helpful content: make long texts scannable 

Google’s Helpful Content Update rewards content that is genuinely useful. Longer texts help readers by providing:

• A table of contents (TOC) at the top so users can go directly to relevant sections
• Clear subheadings (H2, H3) that describe what follows
• A summary or key takeaways at the top for quick scanners
• Progress indicators for very long articles

A clear structure is fundamental

• One idea per paragraph
• Important words in bold
• Use bullet points where relevant
• White space for readability
• Visual breaks (images, infographics)

Provide complete answers 

Focus on completeness: answer the main question and logical follow-up questions. Provide the most complete possible answer to the visitor’s search query through a strong web copy.

Key takeaway: extensive text length isn’t an issue as long as the content is helpful, well-structured, easy to scan, and includes a clear table of contents.

Define your key search terms and queries 

Start by asking yourself what the main tasks of your site are, and which words do visitors use to look for information? Conduct keyword research for SEO and query research for GEO.

For SEO: keyword optimisation

• Identify your main search term and synonyms
• Define primary and secondary keywords
• Rewrite pages integrating these keywords
• Place primary keywords strategically:

                - URL (slug)

                - Header (H1) and subheadings (H2, H3)

                - First paragraph

                - Metadata

                - Alt-tags for images

                - Use bold where relevant

For GEO: conversational optimisation

• Identify your main questions and natural phrasings
• Rewrite pages using the same question phrasing; natural, conversational integration is fundamental
• Place primary questions strategically:

                - H2/H3 subheadings as direct questions

                - First paragraph with explicit answers

                - FAQ sections

                - Alt-tags with descriptive context

                - Scheme markup for FAQs

Combine SEO and GEO for maximum impact 

The power lies in combining both strategies in one article, blog post, or product page.

• H1: Keyword-optimised (SEO)

                - “Master’s of Marketing at the University of Antwerp”

• H2: Question-optimised (GEO)

                - “How do I get admitted to the Master’s of Marketing?”

• Best practice: a natural mix of keywords and conversational answers

Key takeaway: both require natural integration. SEO focuses on keywords, GEO on conversational questions, but they reinforce each other.

Why internal linking is important 

Internal links connect pages within your own website. For SEO, they are essential to distribute authority and help Google understand your site. For GEO, the impact is less clear, but a strong internal structure helps AI crawlers understand context and connections between content.

For SEO: authority and navigation 

Links signal to Google that a web page is interesting and relevant:

• Distribute authority: strong pages pass “link juice” to other pages
• Support crawling: Google discovers and lists pages through internal links
• Show relationships: what content belongs together?
• Improve rankings: well-linked pages perform better

Build a smart internal linking policy

• Use strong pages to link weaker pages you want to boost
• Pages that contain many relevant keywords should have the most internal links, as they signal to Google which pages contain the most important content to rank
• Use descriptive anchor text (not "click here")
• Link to related content within your site
• Create logical content clusters (pillar pages + subpages)
• Ensure every page is reachable within three clicks from the homepage

For GEO: context and relationships 

AI tools create knowledge graphs based on how content is connected. Internal links can help, but the impact for GEO is currently unclear.

• AI primarily reads the content itself, not the link structure
• Still useful: links show related topics and context
• Anchor texts provide additional semantic signals

Key takeaway: internal linking is especially powerful for SEO. For GEO, explicit content matters more than link structure, but clear relationships always help.

Metadata: pivotal for SEO 

Metadata helps search engines understand what your page is about. It is the first thing a user sees when searching for information and serves to convince the visitor to click on your website instead of a competitor’s. It is therefore important to have an optimised meta title and a compellingly written meta description.

• Page (meta) title: Title in Google search results

                    - Max. 60 characters

                    - Contains the primary keyword, not the secondary keyword

• Meta description: Description below the title

                    - Max. 155–160 characters

                    - Written in an engaging way

                    - Influences CTR, not rankings

                    - Incorporate primary and secondary keywords

Structured data: pivotal for GEO 

Structured data (scheme markup) is structured code that sets the meaning of your content into the algorithm. This is essential for AI tools to understand the context of your page in their preferred JSON format. It is added to the page in the source code.

How AI interprets structured data 

AI systems build knowledge graphs based on structured data. Scheme markup tells AI exactly what something is, without having to “guess” from context. As a result, AI can:

• Understand and cite your content more accurately
• Precisely extract specific data (prices, dates, locations)
• Correctly interpret relationships between entities
• Add your organisation to its knowledge graph

Key takeaway: metadata optimises your search results (SEO); structured data helps AI understand and correctly cite your content (GEO).

Your online presence does not stop at your own domain 

For both SEO and GEO, what is said about you outside your website is at least as important as your own content. Google looks at who links to you; AI tools pull information from external sources such as Wikipedia and Reddit. Optimise your presence on external platforms as well.

For SEO: link building and authority 

Links from other websites to your site signal authority to Google. Google interprets these “backlinks” as an exchange of trust.

Build a linking strategy:

• Acquire links from many different, relevant, high-quality websites
• Focus on natural links through strong content
• Seek collaborations with dominant sites in your sector
• Guest blogs, partnerships, and media mentions help
• Quality over quantity: one link from a university website outweighs ten from spam sites or link farms

For GEO: external knowledge sources 

AI tools build their knowledge graphs not only from your website, but especially from external knowledge sources.

Wikipedia and Wikidata:

• The most important knowledge sources for AI systems
• Ensure your organisation has a Wikipedia page
• Enrich Wikidata with structured information about your organisation
• AI uses these sources as “truth”: being present here greatly increases your authority

Community platforms:

• Reddit: AI tools regularly cite Reddit discussions for personal experiences
• Quora: Q&A platform frequently used by AI for information
• LinkedIn: professional content and thought leadership

Review websites:

• Google Reviews: not only for SEO (local search), but also cited by AI
• Trustpilot: for organizational reputation and reliability
• reviews.be for consumer reviews
• Field-specific review sites relevant to your organisation

Why this matters 

AI often trusts external sources more than your own website. If customers share positive experiences on Reddit, Trustpilot, or Google Reviews about your product or service, AI is more likely to cite this than your own marketing copy. Reviews provide authentic, third-party validation.

Practical approach

• Claim and optimize your Wikipedia page (if possible)
• Enrich Wikidata with complete organisational information
• Monitor and claim profiles on relevant review websites
• Encourage authentic customer reviews
• Monitor discussions on Reddit and Quora about your products or services
• Participate authentically in relevant communities (not spam)
• Respond professionally to reviews (both positive and negative)

Key takeaways: for SEO, backlinks are crucial. For GEO, presence in external knowledge sources (Wikipedia, Wikidata), communities, and review websites is essential for authority.