SEO, AEO and GEO: The Organic Playbook I Use With Clients

Most organic strategies start with a tool and a wish list.

Mine starts with the competition.

This is the playbook I ran for a home health tech client this year. Three layers: SEO, AEO and GEO. One goal: get found, get cited, get chosen.

No fluff, just the good stuff.

SEO, AEO and GEO in one sentence each

• SEO (search engine optimization): rank in the regular search results for the terms your buyers use.
• AEO (answer engine optimization): be the page that answers the question, in featured snippets, "People also ask" and AI Overviews.
• GEO (generative engine optimization): be the source ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google's AI Mode cite and recommend.

They aren't three separate projects. They stack. GEO needs SEO and AEO underneath it. Skip the foundation and nothing above it holds.

New to the terms? Start with What is SEO, and Why Should You Care? or the SEO glossary.

Step 1: Study the competitive landscape

Before I write a word, I pull every competitor's organic footprint:

• Which keywords they rank for
• Which of those keywords bring the most volume
• How much organic traffic they get each month, and whether it's growing or shrinking

For this client, I benchmarked six competitors. Their organic traffic ranged from about 150 visits a month to over 21,000. Most were flat or declining.

That's the opening. Competitors who stop investing leave rankings up for grabs.

Step 2: Filter for opportunity keywords

Big keyword lists feel productive. They aren't.

I run every competitor and related keyword through four filters:

1. Relevance. Would a potential customer search this when looking for what you sell?
2. Difficulty of 20 or under. Most SEO tools score difficulty from 1 to 100. Above 20 is a long fight for most sites.
3. Volume of 100 or more. Fewer searches than that a month, and the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
4. No competitor brand names. Ranking for someone else's name rarely converts.

Here's what that looked like:

From 9,155 to 21. That's a plan you can actually execute.

Look at what made the cut, though. Terms like "adherence vs. compliance" and "what is a care partner." Those aren't product searches. They're questions.

Which brings us to AEO.

Step 3: AEO, answer the questions

Google wants to be the most helpful answer on the internet. AI Overviews push that even further.

So the content you want to rank has to be the most helpful answer too.

The AEO blueprint:

1. List the questions your buyers ask. Better yet, get them straight from buyers: sales calls, support tickets, demo notes.
2. Build a page to answer each one. Group closely related questions on the same page.
3. Run the gut check. If you searched this keyword, would this page fully answer your question?

If the answer is "sort of," keep writing.

Step 4: SEO, build every page the same way

Choose the keyword. Choose the page it belongs on. Then make sure the keyword shows up in:

• The URL
• The title tag
• The H1 heading. Word it a little differently from the title to pick up a second variation.
• At least one H2 heading
• At least one image's alt text
• The first or second sentence of the first paragraph

Then the technical basics:

• Depth, not word count. The top results for my client's target terms ran 1,100 to 1,700+ words. Use that as a benchmark for how thoroughly to answer, not a number to hit. Google doesn't reward length. It rewards complete answers.
• Light visuals. Use images and video, but keep them small. WebP for images, Lottie for animations, lazy loading for anything below the fold. Add alt text to every one.
• Human edits. Start from an AI draft if you want. Generic, unedited AI content doesn't earn rankings. Your expertise does.

Two optional steps that make a big difference:

• Track it. Watch each target keyword's position in Google Search Console.
• Send it traffic. Share new pages in email, on LinkedIn and from your other pages. Early visits and internal links help new pages get discovered faster.

More detail in How to Improve Your SEO: The Basics.

Step 5: GEO, make the AI's job easy

For this client, I asked ChatGPT: "What is the best medication management solution?"

Two brands got named. When I looked at their sites, it made sense why.

• Their technical SEO was covered.
• They took an education-first approach. They defined the topic, answered it step by step and added a simple graphic.
• They answered the follow-up questions too, like how to choose a solution.

They made the AI's job simple: clear, well-structured, accurate information it could trust and cite.

The GEO blueprint:

1. Run the SEO and AEO blueprints first. GEO needs both.
2. Think in sequences. Answer the main question. Then the next question a buyer would ask. Then the one after that. Ask yourself the follow-ups, or ask an AI tool the question and note which follow-ups it covers.
3. Don't hand GEO content to a GPT. AI tools are hungry for new, citable information. Content regurgitated from what they already know gives them nothing new to cite.

Why this matters for B2B: How AI Search Changes B2B Marketing (and What Doesn't).

Actionable translation

1. Benchmark your competitors' organic traffic and keywords.
2. Filter to relevant keywords with difficulty of 20 or under and 100+ monthly searches. Cut competitor brand names.
3. Turn the winners into buyer questions. One page per question group.
4. Build every page on the same on-page structure.
5. Answer the follow-up questions, in order, in your own words.
6. Track positions in Search Console and promote every new page.

Get found. Get cited. Get chosen.

Want this playbook run on your market? Book a strategy call.