“In early 2025, it became obvious. Impressions were holding or growing, but clicks were dropping, especially on informational queries. Google tools such as Search Console made it pretty clear. Once AI Overviews expanded, it accelerated quickly.”
From SEO to GEO: Adapting Your Content Strategy for AI-Powered Search
Is SEO broken or dead? No, but ranking first no longer guarantees traffic.
As AI assistants and AI-generated answers change how people discover information, marketers now need to optimize not only for rankings, but also for being understood, trusted, and cited by AI systems. That is where Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) comes in.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring content so AI systems can understand, trust, and surface it in generated answers.
This shift is redefining what it means to be visible online, not just in how content is found, but in how it is selected and surfaced by AI.
To understand how this is playing out in practice, we asked our partner digital agencies what they are seeing, what they are changing, and what they would recommend to teams just getting started.
Key takeaways
SEO still matters, but it no longer guarantees clicks.
AI search is turning some discovery journeys into zero-click experiences.
GEO builds on SEO by improving trust, structure, authority, and machine readability.
Marketing teams should track AI visibility, not just rankings and traffic.
When ranking stopped meaning traffic
Search engine optimization was built on a relatively stable premise: create good content targeting the right keywords, structure it well, earn links and authority, and search engines would bring users to your site. For years, the path from query to click was direct.
That path is no longer direct. In early 2025, something shifted.
Search impressions held steady or even grew, but clicks dropped. Marketing managers started asking why top-ranking pages were bringing less traffic. The answer wasn’t a penalty or a technical issue. User behavior had changed. A growing share of people started using AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini for queries they would have typed into a search bar two years ago, from product comparisons and how-to questions to vendor research and category explanations.
AI-generated answers also started appearing directly in search results. When a summary answers the question on the page, many users stop there. The answer is delivered without a click.
Our partner agencies saw this shift happening in real time and the pattern was consistent.
“I first started noticing AI search affecting organic traffic back in mid 2025. It was after I saw a large statistic from HubSpot on how their own organic traffic had been reduced significantly, and one of the contributing factors was AI and the idea of zero click search. I remember it because it was at a conference and the audience in the room reacted in a significant way to that statistic. I came back to the office and did some research, and sure enough many of our clients were reporting dashboards were showing a decline. This was also true of my own agency’s website traffic.”
“We saw early signs about a year ago, but significant impact began around six months ago. A visible drop in traffic started to show in GA 4 without direct noticeable failures.”
“Over the past 18 months or so, we noticed it when organic traffic stopped being only about human visits. Rankings and impressions were largely stable, but more of our content was clearly being consumed by machines, including crawlers, AI systems and assistants, rather than driving direct clicks. That content was still being surfaced and used, just increasingly via AI‑generated answers instead of traditional page visits.”
This is the new reality of search. Visibility and traffic are no longer the same metric. Rankings and clicks are no longer the same outcome. And as Liam points out, not all consumption is human anymore. Content is increasingly consumed by AI systems and crawlers, not just by people clicking through. SEO, the discipline that marketers have spent years building, is still essential. However, now it has an additional layer that most teams are still figuring out.
That layer is Generative Engine Optimization. Where SEO optimizes for ranking in search results, GEO optimizes for being cited, referenced, or surfaced as a trusted source by AI systems.
Rethinking content strategy for AI search
Knowing something has changed and knowing what to do about it are two different things. The agencies that moved earliest didn't wait for a definitive playbook but they started adjusting based on what they were observing. The changes weren't dramatic rewrites of everything they knew. They made deliberate shifts in emphasis, priority, and process.
“With the rise of AI-generated search results the game changed. AI takes different things into account than traditional SEO. It focuses more on trust, credibility, and measurable leadership. Rather than focusing only on on-site structure and technical SEO details, GEO also looks beyond your platform to sources such as Reddit to confirm credibility. Within our own platform we started changing content to be more conversational rather than just focus on having the best SEO structure for your headlines etc.”
“Our agency has changed quite a bit of our approach to our content strategy as a result of AI search. We now treat Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) as a first-class requirement for content that gets created and published, with as much importance as SEO. We have changed our internal workflows to review a new piece of content to ensure it rates well for factors like clear positioning and expertise, highly structured answers and not just marketing copy, authority signals, clarity, and credibility. We’re also adding clear and concise questions and answers and key takeaway summaries in a way that never did before. It’s not only about new fresh content either. We are also putting our lenses on older existing content to make sure it is accurate and as updated as it can be. With AI being able to consume everything at a higher rate, it’s important to consider existing content as well. It’s a tough task, and we are not perfect yet, but slowly working through it.”
“We’ve moved away from generic informational content and focused more on: - high-intent and location-based queries, - real experience content (case studies, jobs, pricing). But importantly, AI has reinforced fundamentals, not replaced them. The sites that rank well are still the ones getting picked up by AI. Where it’s evolved is in execution detail. We’re putting more focus on: - structured data and schema - strong author profiles and E-E-A-T signals - keeping content fresh and updated - clearer internal linking and entity signals We’re also auditing differently now. It’s not just about ranking, it’s about being understood and trusted by LLMs.”
“Over the last 12 months we’ve put a much stronger focus on structured data and Schema.org implementations. Alongside this, we’ve evolved our content services to produce SEO and GEO content designed for both human readers and machine consumption. The goal is to make intent, context and authority explicit so content can be reliably understood and surfaced by AI systems as well as search engines.”
The adjustments point to the same underlying shift: SEO optimized for algorithms; GEO optimizes for trust.
Search engines ranked pages based on technical signals and link authority. AI systems surface content based on whether they can confidently stand behind it as a credible answer.
That changes what good content looks like in practice. Structured data and schema markup help AI systems parse and categorize your content accurately. Strong author profiles and clear EEAT signals (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, trustworthiness) tell both search engines and AI platforms that your content comes from a credible source. Conversational formats that directly answer questions perform better in AI retrieval than keyword-dense copy written for crawlers. And off-site presence matters more than it used to: being mentioned, cited, and referenced across the web signals to AI systems that your brand is a recognized authority in its space.
The fundamentals of SEO haven't been discarded. They've been extended to include how AI systems interpret, trust, and surface content. Technical hygiene, site structure, and quality content are still the foundation. GEO builds on top of that foundation by adding a layer of credibility signals that AI systems use to decide whose voice to amplify.
How to explain why SEO rankings no longer guarantee traffic
Organizations that have invested years in SEO need to understand that the discipline hasn’t failed them. The search journey has changed.
A simple way to explain it is: “We’re not necessarily losing visibility. We’re losing clicks because answers are happening earlier in the journey.”
Users are increasingly getting what they need directly from AI-generated summaries or assistants before they ever reach a website. That means a page can still rank highly, appear in search results, or even be used as a source by AI systems—and yet receive fewer clicks than it would have in the past.
This is exactly what agencies are seeing in conversations with clients.
“We’ve had plenty of conversations around how classic SEO rankings are not the only game in town any longer. It takes more than just one conversation but explaining the trends around zero-click behavior, AI Search, and how GEO is exploding is worth it. I think the hardest part right now is combating a lot of false information and opinions around how SEO is dead and doesn’t matter, only GEO does. That is just not true. You have to have good SEO to do well in GEO. In our view, they work hand in hand. And to do that, you need a good content management system, like Xperience by Kentico to power it all.”
“The hardest part is explaining that rankings don’t equal traffic anymore. You can still be “#1” and get fewer clicks. What I don’t have a clear answer for yet is how much of this is permanent vs where things settle.”
“One of the hardest things to explain is that not all “traffic” is human anymore, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Increasingly, content is being consumed by machines and AI systems as well as people. The challenge is helping clients understand that catering for those systems now matters just as much as traditional users, and that this shift requires a different way of thinking rather than a problem to fix.”
Across agencies, the message is consistent. Visibility hasn’t disappeared, but it’s being redistributed. Rankings, impressions, AI citations, and brand mentions are all part of the picture now—not just clicks.
That’s why SEO and GEO are not competing priorities. Strong technical SEO, high-quality content, and domain authority remain the foundation for visibility in any form of search. GEO builds on that foundation by ensuring content is structured, credible, and clear enough for AI systems to confidently understand and surface it.
What makes this shift challenging is that there are still open questions. How much of the traffic decline is permanent? Where will user behavior stabilize over the next few years? No one has definitive answers yet.
What is clear, however, is that the brands investing in authority, trust, structured content, and clear expertise today are positioning themselves well regardless of how the landscape evolves.
What marketing managers should do right now
The instinct when facing a shift like this is to wait for clearer data, for a proven playbook, for consensus on what GEO really means in practice. That instinct is understandable. It’s also risky.
The teams moving fastest right now aren’t operating with complete certainty. They’re making deliberate bets based on what they’re observing and adjusting as they go. And when you compare how different agencies are approaching this, the advice is remarkably consistent.
“Start by reframing visibility. Today’s audience includes humans and machines, and both matter. Invest in clear, well‑structured content, strong Schema.org markup and platforms that support reuse and governance. If your content is easy for people to understand and for machines to interpret, you’re in a strong position as AI‑driven discovery continues to evolve.”
“Don’t rely on SEO alone anymore. Focus on: building a brand people search for, owning high-intent keywords, diversifying channels. And don’t overthink “AI optimisation.” Nail the fundamentals: good technical SEO, strong structure, clear authority. Then layer in things like schema, authorship, and fresh content. We’re also spending more time improving off-site signals. Looking at where clients are mentioned across the web and upgrading those references, because LLMs don’t just look at your site, they look at the whole ecosystem.”
“The best advice I could give right now to a marketing manager or CMO would be to start tracking your overall AI Search performance, brand mentions, citation counts, the best- and worst-performing prompts that matter to your brand, and which AI search tools surface your brand and which do not. Then apply the best practices of SEO and GEO to your key landing pages, pillar pages and blog posts and watch the results. Make it measurable, and over time improve your content operations to improve.”
Across these perspectives, a clear pattern emerges. This isn’t about replacing SEO. It’s about extending it and making it measurable in a new environment.
For marketing managers getting started, that translates into a few practical steps:
Audit your existing content for AI readability.
Prioritize clarity, structure, and direct answers. Make it easy for both humans and machines to extract meaning.Add structured formats to key pages.
Use FAQs, summaries, and clear headings. Implement schema markup to help AI systems interpret your content.Strengthen authority and trust signals.
Highlight authorship, expertise, and keep content accurate and up to date. AI systems favor credible, well-maintained sources.Track visibility beyond traffic.
Monitor brand mentions, citations, and presence in AI tools alongside traditional metrics like rankings and clicks.Expand your presence beyond your own site.
Invest in off-site signals like mentions, partnerships, and content across platforms to reinforce credibility in the broader ecosystem.
The goal isn’t to have a perfect GEO strategy from day one. It’s to start treating AI visibility as something you can influence, measure, and improve over time.
If you want to go deeper on what that looks like in practice, our colleague Katherine Harrison covers the specifics in The Rise of GEO: What Marketers Need to Know.
Because the biggest risk right now isn’t getting it wrong. It’s waiting too long to start.
The SEO-GEO playbook is being written in real time
Search has always evolved. What's different this time is the speed and the scope. It's not one platform changing one signal. It's the entire premise of how content gets found shifting underneath everyone's feet at once.
The playbook for navigating this doesn't exist yet in any complete form. What exists instead are teams experimenting, learning, and adapting in real time. The most valuable insights aren’t coming from static frameworks. They’re coming from practitioners actively working through this shift with clients.
A few principles are already becoming clear:
SEO is still the foundation.
GEO builds on top of it, not instead of it. Without strong technical SEO, quality content, and domain authority, there’s nothing for AI systems to trust or surface.Visibility and traffic are no longer the same thing.
Ranking first doesn’t guarantee a visit. Start measuring AI visibility alongside traditional metrics.Trust is the new ranking factor.
Structured data, clear authorship, EEAT signals, and off-site credibility influence whether AI systems choose your content.Your audience now includes machines.
Content is being consumed, interpreted, and reused by AI systems, not just read by humans. Optimize for both.You don’t need perfect clarity to move forward.
The teams gaining an advantage are the ones testing, learning, and iterating, and not waiting for certainty.
The shift from SEO to GEO isn’t a replacement. It’s an expansion of what visibility means. The brands that recognize that early and adapt accordingly will be the ones shaping how they’re discovered in the next generation of search.
At Kentico, we've been thinking about this too. In the April refresh of Xperience by Kentico, we released the SEO & GEO Specialist agent as part of our AIRA Agentic Marketing Suite, a tool designed to help marketing teams turn these principles into actionable content improvements.
If you're working through this in your own organization, we'd like to hear from you. Share your experience in the comments section.
Martina Škantárová
Martina is a Product Manager at Kentico, leading the development of Digital Commerce and Content Management capabilities in Xperience by Kentico. She is passionate about building purposeful products that empower users and deliver real-world value.