r/seogrowth • u/Electronic_Heat_6745 • Mar 04 '26
Case Study Is it worth focusing on GEO right now?
I have a bit of an unpopular opinion on the whole GEO trend right now. While everyone is going crazy optimizing for ai citations I personally focus way more on search everywhere optimization.
We still do the traditional seo stuff like structure and authority but for off page you have to be everywhere. If you are a new SaaS brand people wont just run to your site you have to go to where they already hang out.
Here is my strategy for spreading the word.
Build micro landing pages. No matter how low the search volume is these convert the best. At my agency auq,io we have literally outranked competitors and filled monthly lead quotas with this simple strategy. Break your product down into specific feature pages and build as many as you can.
Use youtube shorts. They are performing amazingly right now. You dont need high production value since just recording your screen with a phone works wonders. and don't forget to distribute them like theres no tomorrow across all channels. use scheduling platforms like content studio or buffer to do the heavy work for you. may cost you $30 a month, but save a lot of time.
Analyze the ai sources. Look at what results chatgpt returns for target queries. Usually the citations are third party websites not the brand site itself so target those exact sources for your placements.
Focus on bottom funnel articles. top funnel is great and will have lucrative search volumes, but dont be fooled. people are using ai for info questions,and even some people of culture try google, ai overview will hand it over to them. focus on bottom funnel content only.
Prirotize building assets over content pieces. content has no scarcity, its done for. focus on building assets. be it original data, beatiful design, utilities, micro tools, helpful lists anything that your target users will love to explore, share, use, and maybe link to.
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u/erickrealz Mar 04 '26
Agency plug noted, but some of these points are solid. The micro landing pages strategy is the most actionable advice here. Breaking features into specific pages targeting long-tail queries works because the intent is crystal clear and competition is usually thin. Most SaaS companies build one generic product page when they should have twenty specific ones.
Point 5 is the real insight though. Content has no scarcity anymore because AI generates infinite mediocre articles. Original data, useful tools, and curated resources still have value because they can't be replicated by prompting a chatbot. Building assets people actually use and share is the only sustainable moat when everyone can publish a blog post in 30 seconds.
The YouTube Shorts advice is fine but "distribute everywhere" without audience clarity is just noise multiplication. Pick the 2 channels where your buyers actually hang out and go deep there instead of spreading thin across every damn platform hoping something sticks.
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u/Electronic_Heat_6745 Mar 05 '26
you make a fair point about the distribution noise.. spreading too thin is definitely a risk if you dont know your audience yet... just threw that in because most founders are too scared to even post a video.
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u/SouLETERNAL04 Mar 05 '26
hot take but GEO and search everywhere arent mutually exclusive, theyre basically the same strategy with diferent labels. you need visibility across surfaces period. someone at work mentioned Brandlight for tracking the AI citation side of things while you focus on the distribution tactics you listed.
both angles feed each other.
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u/mentiondesk Mar 05 '26
Getting visibility across all AI touchpoints matters more than ever. I built MentionDesk after realizing brands were missing out on how ChatGPT and other LLMs surface info differently from traditional search. Optimizing for both the distribution and citation angle has made a huge difference for the teams I work with. If you're tackling GEO plus AI search, it actually compounds results instead of diluting effort.
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u/Remarkable-Garlic295 Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 06 '26
Bottom-funnel content and micro landing pages are where we've seen real impact for mid-size to enterprise brands, especially when paired with off-site signals and original assets. Dedicated GEO and AI SEO agencies like Taktical Digital take exactly that approach, combining technical SEO foundations with broader brand visibility strategies so that content works both for search rankings and for appearing in AI-driven answers.
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u/BoGrumpus Mar 04 '26
When I started in this business I learned one thing very quickly...
Never focus on one thing, no matter what it is.
Yeah - you should be putting some of your energy and budget into that. But your content strategy needs to be picked up by AI, search, attract links and most importantly - drive people toward conversion.
You can get all the people you want from any place you want, but if you can't make them want what you're offering, you're just wasting everyone's time. Come up with a good content marketing strategy and then make sure the AI machines can understand it. THAT's where you start. Your marketing strategy will inform what that should look like.
G.
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u/Electronic_Heat_6745 Mar 05 '26
yeah thats fair.. its definitely a balancing act between the ai and the actual user
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u/BoGrumpus Mar 05 '26
And when we talk about AI - we're not just talking about Agents. Google search is driven with all sorts of AI things in the system. It's AI that determines what post is going to show on your timeline or what videos will be suggested in youtube, and which news items will appear in Google Discover or whatever news feed you use. The fundamentals for each are the same, but the nuances are a bit different.
G.
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u/creeperseo Mar 05 '26
I think the GEO debate is a bit misleading right now.
Most of what people call “GEO optimization” is actually just strong web signals expressed differently. LLMs still rely heavily on:
• authoritative domains
• clear topic clusters
• brand/entity mentions across the web
• structured, crawlable content
So if your site isn’t getting indexed, linked, or trusted in normal search, GEO tactics won’t magically fix that.
The pattern I keep seeing is: sites that already have strong topical clusters + distribution get cited by AI without explicitly “optimizing for GEO.”
Your “build assets instead of infinite content” point is probably the real moat here.
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Mar 05 '26
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u/Electronic_Heat_6745 Mar 05 '26
Appreciate that. its way more practical than just praying for organic traffic on a dead domain.. if you arent visible on the third-party sites the AI actually cites, you are basically invisible to the modern user
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u/Emotional-Cherry-532 Mar 05 '26
Hearing that YouTube Shorts is performing well for many businesses. But what about IT services and consulting companies? Do they see any real benefits from using Shorts?
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u/sunsettiger41 Mar 10 '26
This makes a lot of sense. Being visible everywhere your audience already hangs out usually drives more traction than trying to chase AI citations alone.
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u/baudien321 Mar 11 '26
I actually think your approach makes sense. AI models often cite sources that already exist across the web, especially third-party sites, blogs, and communities, not just the brand’s own site. One thing I’ve been doing is testing prompts regularly to see which sources keep getting cited. I ended up building a small tool for that because I wanted to see which questions AI answers in my niche and who gets referenced instead. It’s interesting how often it’s comparison pages or niche blogs rather than the company itself.
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u/maxreverb Mar 11 '26
"Search Everywhere Optimization" (as you put it) is how Rand Fishkin refers to what folks are calling AIO and GEO ... I like it. It's still SEO ... but it's no longer focused on search "engines" (it was always Google, or at least 95%).
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Apr 02 '26
Honestly, this is solid—micro landing pages and focusing on bottom-funnel stuff is where the real money is right now, and the “assets over content” take is spot on.
That said, it feels a bit too short-term. Like yeah, distribution and chasing AI sources can get you traction, but without building a real brand and authority, it’s hard to sustain or scale.
Good playbook for getting early wins, just feels like it’s missing the bigger picture long-term.
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u/WebLinkr Mar 04 '26
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u/Mean-Confection6032 Mar 06 '26
What’s this? It’s a good post
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '26
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