The Keys To Generative Search Engine Optimization (GEO)
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Welcome to the Voices of Search podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything podcast network. Ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts? Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search podcast, Tyson Stockton.

Hey, what's going on? My name is Tyson from Previsible.io and joining me today is Lisa Kubacki, who's the Senior SEO Content Manager Doc at GetResponse, a leading email marketing platform which offers a comprehensive suite of online marketing tools designed to help businesses grow and succeed.

Yesterday, Lisa and I talked about SEO translation versus SEO localization. Today, we're continuing the conversation and we're going to be discussing the keys to generative search engine optimization. This podcast is also sponsored by Ahrefs.

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So check out Ahrefs Webmaster Tools at ahrefs.com slash AWT. That's A-H-R-E-F-S dot com slash A-W-T. With that, here's my conversation with Lisa, the Senior SEO Content Manager for Doc at GetResponse. Lisa, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you. Happy to be here again and stoked to talk to you about GEO. Yeah, so a new area emerging kind of within it. I think a lot of SEOs are still kind of wondering what levers we have. And, you know, it feels like it is another iteration of like SEO work. So to start us off, like what are some of the considerations for generative search optimization?

Yeah, so as we all know, we live in exciting times as SEOs and content managers with AI overviews and now soon search GPT emerging. And yeah, I think we can all agree that we have to rethink content strategy and SEO.

So yeah, that's what I want to talk about today. Why do I think it's critical to talk about this? Because with these large language models and generative search engines emerging, our old KPIs in SEO don't work anymore. We have to rethink metrics. We have to rethink what we can do to make our content visible because those

AI overviews and so on, they will most likely or are most likely resulting in organic traffic loss. So yeah, the big question here is how can we compensate for that loss?

And from that, too, I guess maybe before we get into the tactics, how should we you mentioned kind of like the measurement and almost like the reporting side, like what recommendations do you have for progressing the way that we're measuring success?

Yeah, so I think instead of looking only at organic traffic as we did before, we have to look at what we and our team call soft metrics. That's like brand power measured by brand mentions and also branded searches and reviews.

Organic clicks for like an exact brand name, for example, and also referral traffic, I think will be more important to SEOs as well as social metrics, because I think also organic social will probably be the new key traffic source for SEOs as well.

Excellent. And I think, you know, if it's in line, like we know that there's more search activity happening, but more of the traffic is also being kind of siphoned up from the larger domains. And so especially for like the smaller websites and players, you know, it's a tighter space that they're operating in. What are kind of some of the tactics that

for us as SEOs and like what things can we take into account in whether it's the website structure or the content itself that we're putting out there? Yeah. So to start off, before we dive into that, there has been a study by the Princeton University actually, and they made

meant to find out what key factors in SEO would play a role to appear in SGE or AI overviews. And the big three they found out were statistics, citations, quotations. So going from or starting from that point,

to compensate for this traffic loss that I mentioned and for dealing with these generative search engines. What you should invest into, I think, is off-page SEO. So of course you should still create content, but you should really think about how to distribute that content. And I'm thinking about getting mentioned online

getting quoted, getting your content shared and just be visible on more platforms than just Google. I think that's really the key that we should invest our resources into because it will not only help you get more traffic, but only

help you like build authority and increase your EAT, which also, as we know, becomes a more important factor nowadays. So statistics, quotations, citations, those are the big three. Got it. And it seems like kind of like the common thread between those, if we're talking, you know, statistics, quotations, it's been, it sounds like it's been more specific. Yeah.

That's like the less general or maybe ambiguous we are in the language that maybe it lacks. Yeah. Some of the specificity for the systems to be kind of, I guess, grabbing onto it. So we're using kind of these, these different elements and you've, you've kind of hit on the importance too, of like branding, right?

in like geo like can you kind of maybe just elaborate a little bit more on the significance of it like from the hell or the strength of a business more people that know my name and are going to come to me the more traffic i'd have but like what other benefits would be from that kind of like building of a brand um from a search perspective

Yeah, sure. So yeah, I think of brand building as the new link building. It's actually a tactic I think all of us should have started like two years ago, maybe. Because I think it's a more everlasting tactic to secure traffic, secure also loyalty of your audience. I always thought of off-page SEO as...

In that sense that I don't think links are really the key to get to your goal. And I always thought that getting your brand mentioned even with or without a link, even with a nofollow link, it's still good, you know? People start to see you, they start to make a connection in their brain if they see your brand name over and over again.

especially if it's in the same context, then they are also starting to think of your brand more often and you will secure yourself more visitors. You will probably also get more direct traffic. And that's why I think brand building is really crucial. Also, I think the user's decision to buy is really influenced by

what they know about your brand, obviously. And by building your brand also socially, really having a footprint as a brand, I think it will become essential in maintaining a stable revenue flow as well.

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I like that call out that you made, kind of that investing and kind of working more in the branding aspect is like the new linking area. And I think even kind of relating that back to the somewhat recent, you know, Google API leaks where we're seeing NavBoost and

those elements are kind of the validation of those elements having an impact. Like branding is going to have that also positive impact on click through rates, time on site, like all the engagement metrics because of that kind of awareness already. So totally agree with kind of like that heightened, you know, significance and maybe it's always been there, but it does feel like it is a little bit greater than,

So from that, we're investing more in our brand. We're kind of having that for the general, like a general strategy area. We're also within pieces like the individual pieces of content using the citations, the quotations, like we're being more specific to it. Anything else that we should be considering kind of in this new space?

Yeah, one big thing about this rise of AI and this AI hype, I think it's also that people are starting to look more for authenticity.

And I don't necessarily think that people find that in Google results anymore. And let's say I'm looking for a review of a product. I'm not going to go into Google and just type in review of whatever. Where am I going to go? I'm going to go through YouTube or TikTok because that's where real people are looking

really reviewing, hopefully, the product. And that's why I also think it really pays off to invest in more video content for your brand. And not just about this authenticity factor that plays a role, but also because, yeah, again, to come back to the branding factor, if people start to see a face,

connected to your brand it becomes more human automatically and i think that's what we need the human touch because i think when chat gpt emerged we all googled or we all wrote about what makes chat gpt's content and texts worse than human texts and it's the human touch that

that is missing and that can't be replaced. So yeah, and I think videos are really, yeah, one of the keys for great content. And it's the way to go for the future, probably.

Totally agree. And I like that in your perspective that you're kind of taking that broad lens approach and seeing how content is more than just the written copy on the page, that it's images, video and looking at that. And also, I agree with you in the sense that it feels like search is becoming a bit more verticalized.

where people are going to go to YouTube for one type of queries. They're going to go to a generative system, whether it's search GPT or whatever it is,

for another type of query and type of information. And we've also been seeing that over the last five plus years, even in like e-commerce queries where there's been numerous studies talking about how people are going and starting their search or their kind of like journey within Amazon rather than

Google. And so we do have this variance and with it kind of adds a bit more complexity to the space that we're in. Any additional kind of final thoughts that you'd want to leave with the listeners on the topic?

Yeah, I think two platforms that one should also start using instead of just the normal like keyword research tools to, yeah, to kind of beat the whole AI search are Google.

Reddit and Quora and such platforms like community platforms, question platforms, because that's where you find what users really want to know.

And you probably won't find the questions that they ask there in keyword research tools, but the questions still exist. And if you create content for those questions, you're really, really close to your target group. And that's what will benefit you in the long run, you know.

So yeah, don't underestimate the power of social media in the times of GEO. Fair. And I mean, I think it's a great call out on Reddit. And it probably also doesn't hurt now that OpenAI and Google are training their systems on those two databases. Exactly.

Well, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast and kind of, you know, hearing your thoughts here on this evolving space. But with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Thanks again to Lisa from GetResponse for joining us. And if you'd like to get in touch with her, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile or in the show notes or go on over and check out her company's website at GetResponse.com.

And

And a special thanks to Ahrefs for sponsoring this podcast. Monitoring your website used to require multiple expensive tools, but that's not the case anymore thanks to Ahrefs because they just launched their Ahrefs Webmaster Tools product, which monitors your SEO health, helps you keep track of your backlinks, and gives you the insight into what keywords are performing for free.

So check out Ahrefs webmaster tools at ahrefs.com slash AWT. That's Ahrefs, A-H-R-E-F-S dot com slash A-W-T. Just

Just one more link in our show notes I'd like to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while you were listening to this podcast, head over to VoicesOfSearch.com where we have summaries of all of our episodes and contact information for our guests. You can also subscribe to our weekly newsletter and you can even send us your topic suggestions or your marketing questions, which we'll answer live on our show. Of course, you can always reach out on social media. Our handle is VoicesOfSearch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or you can contact me directly. My handle is BenJSchapp.

B-E-N-J-S-H-A-P. And if you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insights in your podcast feed, we're going to publish an episode every day during the work week. So hit that subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, remember, the answers are always in the data.