Since our September 2025 article on the rise of AI and generative search, and how great user experience benefits it, the debate over whether GEO and AEO are trends or permanent shifts has ended; the landscape has fundamentally changed.
The way people find answers has moved from traditional search engine result lists to AI-generated summaries at the top of search pages, and directly into conversational platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. This transition marks a shift from quantity to quality; while total click volume may be lower, the intent behind these AI-driven interactions is significantly higher, providing more valuable, high-conversion opportunities for brands.
SEO remains a vital part of your marketing strategy, but it must now work alongside GEO and AEO. To help you navigate this evolution, we are moving beyond theory to provide actionable steps your content team can implement today to establish your brand as a trusted source for AI-generated responses.
Understanding AI terminology: What does GEO and AEO mean?
As AI continues to reshape how we find information, you’ll encounter two key terms: AEO and GEO. While they are often used interchangeably, understanding their subtle differences helps you prepare your content for a new era of search, trust-building, and conversion.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) is primarily about being the ‘quick answer’. It focuses on making your content easy for AI tools to extract as a direct, standalone quote – perfect for voice searches or featured snippets.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) takes a broader view. It’s all about building enough authority and credibility so that when an AI model builds a complex response, it chooses to cite you as one of its trusted sources.
These are not competing disciplines; they are integrated layers of the same goal: making your brand easier to find, understand, and trust. At Jask, we use GEO as our primary term for this strategy, as it encompasses the full spectrum of AEO tactics required to succeed in today’s AI-driven landscape.
Practical GEO and AEO steps for content authors and marketing teams
Successful GEO and AEO requires a partnership between content creation and technical execution. While your development team will handle the deeper, code-level refinements (some of which we’ll cover in our next article), the main driver of AI trust building and citation remains the quality, structure, and supporting media in your published output.
This is a complex discipline with lots to consider, but you don’t need to master every item at once. The following steps focus on the main actionable changes that content authors and marketing teams can implement immediately within any modern CMS, such as WordPress:
Adopt an “answer-first” structure when authoring content
Just like humans, AI models typically look for the most direct answer following a relevant heading. Instead of writing long, winding introductions, try using question-based headings (e.g., “What are the benefits of User Research to a website?”) followed immediately by a concise, direct answer. This contributes to a high-confidence signal for AI to extract your content as a snippet or spoken response.
Use natural, descriptive headings
Avoid vague headings like “Services” or “More Info”. Instead, describe exactly what the section contains and use clear, accessible, correctly ordered headings (H2, H3 etc) to format the headings. Think of your headings as a map for an AI crawler; the clearer the map, the easier it is for the system to find and quote the right passage. This also significantly improves accessibility for screen readers and other assistive technologies.
Write descriptive link text
When linking to other pages on your site, try to avoid link text that says “click here” or “read more.” Use natural language descriptive text that explains where the link leads or its clear purpose. This helps AI platforms understand the topical relationship between your content, which is a big contributor for building the expertise signals that prove you are an authority in your field.
Write outcome-led meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are embedded in your page’s code, and have long been a priority for SEO. They appear as the excerpt beneath search engine results. There’s never been a better time to review these to ensure they go beyond a basic summary of the page, and are not stuffed with irrelevant keywords. Consider approaches where you briefly summarise important content, and communicate what the AI (and human user) will achieve by clicking. Direct, outcome-based language works well – for example, “Secure an expert UX specialist in under 24 hours” rather than “Information about our UX services”. Keep these concise and front-load the most essential information while respecting best practice character limits.
Provide textual context for all media
AI platforms process text much more efficiently than raw images, video, audio or complex documents. To encourage your media to be digested by AI, provide natural-language alt text for images and include full, plain-text transcripts for any video or podcast content. For video, always use accessible subtitle files (like .srt or .vtt) rather than text in the actual video (which is invisible to AI and screen readers). This allows AI to read your spoken words directly, significantly increasing your chances of being featured in an AI-generated answer.
Ensure consistent brand and author signals
To build trust, AI models cross-reference your website with external sources like LinkedIn, Wikipedia, industry directories and potentially other sources to verify you are a legitimate organisation and should be trusted as an authority. If your business name, contact details, or author profiles vary across the web, it can seriously erode your credibility to AI. Ensure your brand and key experts are presented identically, both on your site and across all external platforms.
Do not try to trick AI
Just like the early days of SEO, there’s a temptation to ‘game’ AI through repetitive patterns, keyword-heavy text, or an emerging trend of trying to manipulate AI agents with hidden messages to alter their behaviour. However, modern AI platforms rely on semantic reasoning; they can identify when content lacks depth or is designed solely to trigger a specific response. Attempting to bypass these systems can result in your content being devalued or ignored entirely. The most effective way to optimise for AI is to write high-quality, substance-driven content that serves a human reader first.
What’s next for your GEO and AEO optimisation?
While content authoring is a vital part of this strategy, even the best material risks remaining almost invisible to AI models without the right technical foundation and supporting code working in the background of your website. Our next article details the most effective specific code-level elements your team should prioritise.
Are you ready to engineer your site for GEO and AEO?
At Jask, we help brands bridge the gap between content strategy and technical execution through expert audits, strategic consultation, and advanced WordPress development. Let’s discuss how we can help you build a platform that attracts both human readers and AI citations.