Hey friend,

How’s it going? 🌻

Let's start with the #4 edition of the Content Marketing Challenges series: SEO, GEO - what to care about and what not to care about!

And one confession before that! I was and still am pretty clueless about what works in AI search. Whatever strategies and resources I will share are based on practical experiments and newsletters from people I look up to.

FYI: I will be adding a tag with each pointer to help you note if it's an old SEO trick, a fresh GEO trick, or a mix. Let's go!

Stay Tuned For Next Ones....

#1 Track visibility by topic (not one big score)​
​Tag: New GEO
Don’t obsess over a single “visibility %”. Break it down by themes/use cases so you know where AI engines cite you vs. ignore you. When I tested AEO tools like Scrunch and Profound, the only dashboards that felt actionable were the ones that forced me to choose which topic to fix first.

#2 Pick “money prompts” only (skip informational prompts)​
​Tag: New GEO
Track prompts that trigger tool recommendations (best tools, alternatives, comparisons). Don’t track “What is X?” prompts that rarely cite brands. This is the fastest way to avoid wasting weeks measuring prompts that will never impact the pipeline.

#3 Write prompts manually (tools won’t do it for you)​
​Tag: New GEO
Auto-prompts are often branded or too generic. You need to refine the prompts so they sound more like real buyer language and scenarios. In my own experiments, prompt design changed the output more than the tool’s UI did—so the “work” is still strategic.

#4 Treat third-party mentions like “modern credibility signals”​
​Tag: Mix (Old SEO + New GEO)
Build presence where AI engines already “trust” information—reviews, communities, analyst-like pages, earned media. Even when your own site is strong, AI answers often cite other places—so you need credibility beyond your domain.

#5 BOFU content is your AI-search backbone​
​Tag: Mix (Old SEO + New GEO)
Invest in pages that map to decisions: comparisons, alternatives, “best X,” use-case pages, feature pages, pricing-adjacent explainers. This is the overlap zone where SEO already drove pipeline—and now it’s also where AI recommendations happen.

📚 There is an entire chapter on AI workflows in my BOFU Content e-book! Check it out here!​

#6 Make content “extractable”: TL; DRs, tables, clean sections​
​Tag: Mix (Old SEO + New GEO)
Write for skimming and reuse: crisp subheads, summaries, structured tables, clear steps, fewer fluff paragraphs.
I’ve seen AI engines (and humans) pick up clearer, more structured sections more consistently.

#7 Use schema as a structure layer (FAQ / HowTo / Product)​
​Tag: Mix (Old SEO + New GEO)
Schema won’t “magic” you into answers, but it improves clarity and consistency for machines parsing your pages.
It’s one of the few improvements that’s relatively low-effort and doesn’t require rewriting the whole article.

#8 Technical SEO is still the entry ticket​
​Tag: Old SEO (still critical)
Fix the boring stuff: 5XX/404s, canonicals, crawl issues, indexing hygiene—because if pages can’t be reliably accessed, nothing else matters. Before I even think “GEO,” I make sure the site isn’t leaking authority through avoidable tech debt.

#9 Backlinks still matter, but prioritize contextual + reputable​
​Tag: Old SEO → useful in GEO too
Don’t chase volume. Chase mentions/links that appear naturally in relevant discussions and credible publications.
I’m treating this as “distribution + trust,” not just ranking fuel.

#10 Use tools as direction, not truth​
​Tag: New GEO
Tools help you see patterns faster (topic visibility, competitor share, citations, AI traffic), but they don’t replace strategy—and they don’t remove manual analysis. I’ve been researching and testing these tools, and the consistent takeaway is: tools are a framework, not autopilot.

🗃️ More resources for content marketers on GEO

• ​An Unbiased Review of Profound: Is It Worth Your Time and Money?​
• ​An Honest Review of Scrunch: Is It Worth Your Time?​
• ​The Content Marketer’s Reality Check Survey 2025​

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Onwards and upwards,

Sreyashi

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