Should I hire separately for GEO?

Rarely. An SEO team with clear structured-data ownership and a weekly prompt-monitoring habit covers GEO well. The gap is usually tooling and measurement, not headcount.

Do AI answers send real traffic?

Cited answers send fewer but notably better-qualified visits, and mentions without links still influence vendor shortlists. Track both alongside classic organic clicks.

SEO vs GEO: what actually changes in your workflow

25 June 20266 min read

SEO and GEO share the same foundation — crawlable pages, correct structured data and genuinely useful content — but differ in target and measurement. SEO optimises for a ranked position and is measured in impressions, clicks and average position. GEO optimises for inclusion in a synthesised answer and is measured in mention rate, citation share and share of voice against competitors.

What stays exactly the same

Technical hygiene does not become optional. If an assistant cannot fetch and parse your page, it cannot quote you. Titles, headings, internal linking, page speed and indexability all still matter, and fixing them serves both surfaces at once.

The four things that change

The differences are concentrated in how you choose targets and how you prove progress.

Targets become questions, not keywords: you track 'which CRM is best for small agencies' rather than 'best CRM'.
Structured data moves from nice-to-have to core deliverable, and it must be validated live on the deployed page.
Entities become an asset class: brand, people and products need consistent, resolvable descriptions.
Reporting adds mention rate and citation share alongside clicks and positions.

Running both without doubling the work

The efficient pattern is one crawl feeding both. A single audit produces the technical fixes SEO needs and the schema and content gaps GEO needs, so one batch of engineering work improves both scoreboards. That is the model Orion is built around: crawl once, validate every signal, and output copy-paste fixes that serve rankings and AI answers together.

Frequently asked

Should I hire separately for GEO?: Rarely. An SEO team with clear structured-data ownership and a weekly prompt-monitoring habit covers GEO well. The gap is usually tooling and measurement, not headcount.
Do AI answers send real traffic?: Cited answers send fewer but notably better-qualified visits, and mentions without links still influence vendor shortlists. Track both alongside classic organic clicks.

Keep reading

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?The technical SEO audit checklist that actually gets shipped E-E-A-T content scoring, explained without the mysticism