How we approach traditional SEO and add GEO
Today, the digital landscape is evolving faster than ever before – and so are users’ search habits. Ranking at the top of organic search is no longer sufficient – competition has moved far beyond traditional SEO. Brand visibility in AI-generated answers is becoming increasingly important.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a new direction in digital marketing that has emerged in response to the transformation of search. The traditional list-of-links model has been gradually shifting toward generative AI responses that deliver information directly to the user.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
In traditional SEO, the primary goal is to achieve high rankings for target queries. GEO works differently: it’s not just about ranking at the top, but about having your content featured in AI-generated answers.
That’s why GEO focuses more on how information is presented – whether it’s clear, well-structured, and demonstrates expertise and trustworthiness to AI systems.
With GEO emerging, is SEO still necessary?
GEO isn’t meant to replace SEO or compete with it directly. Optimization for generative search works hand in hand with traditional SEO practices, strengthening brand visibility in the places where users now most often get answers – directly within AI-powered assistant interfaces.
A simple example: when searching for health insurance, users typically move from Google to company websites, compare offers, and eventually make a decision – this is where SEO is most effective.
With AI, everything happens faster: users receive a summarized answer instantly. If your content is well-structured, it can be used as a source or referenced in that answer. This is where GEO comes into play – making content visible not only to search engines, but also to LLMs.
SEO builds the foundation – technical, semantic, and content-related; while GEO adds a new layer: adapting that foundation to how language models interpret and synthesize information. Together, these approaches create synergy rather than replace one another.
How the Aweb team integrates GEO into traditional SEO strategy
Next, we’ll walk through a case study demonstrating the practical integration of GEO into an existing SEO strategy.
Client
Health insurance broker
Project background and key specifics
- Niche: Health insurance
- Region: United Kingdom
- Primary search engine: Google
- CMS: WordPress
- Promoted by Aweb: 1 year and 9 months
- Testing start date: November 2025
Project and niche specifics at the start of testing
The client’s priority was high-volume branded queries for insurance companies in a highly competitive environment. These queries were dominated by official insurance brand websites with strong domain history, high brand awareness and a significant volume of external trust signals.
Our Objective
Under these conditions, traditional competition for branded SERPs became ineffective and our focus shifted to a more comprehensive approach: working with informational queries, expanding semantic coverage and new visibility formats, including generative responses.
Our objective: create an alternative, scalable channel for website visibility.
Aweb’s approach
SEO optimization as the foundation for sustainable growth
From day one of the project, we took the following key steps:
- technical website audit: identified issues and prepared technical specifications to resolve them;
- assessed the website for compliance with Search Quality Rater Guidelines and E-E-A-T principles, providing recommendations for further refinement;
- analyzed competitors to uncover potential growth areas for the project;
- developed the website’s semantic core, including competitor analysis to define priority areas, planning structure expansion in the future and ensuring comprehensive coverage of relevant search intents in the niche.
- manually worked on meta tags and outlined a copywriting plan;
- continuously worked on improving the website’s backlink profile;
- optimized the Google Business Profile and improved visibility in the Local Pack;
- continuously monitored the website’s technical health and SEO performance.
Consequently, the project started delivering results for less competitive and mid-volume search queries. This confirmed that our team was moving in the right direction with its SEO approach.
Health insurance for autistic children:
LGBTQ+ friendly Health insurance:
Health insurance for high blood pressure:
Over 70s Health insurance:
Meanwhile, high-priority and high-volume queries were still dominated by strong brand websites, which is common in highly competitive niches.
Bupa Health insurance:
Aviva Health insurance:
AXA Health insurance:
At this point, we further analyzed the project’s attribution model, examined user journeys and identified additional conversion-driving channels.
Therefore, we expanded our approach to measuring visibility and uncovered new growth opportunities. While traditional SEO gradually builds authority and visibility, GEO allows us to secure visibility in AI-generative responses and expand into new search scenarios.
GEO optimization as the next stage of search evolution
To generate conversions from priority semantic groups, where fast growth in organic search is limited by high competition, our team started optimizing these pages for visibility in LLM systems. This allowed us to target the same commercial areas using an alternative approach to reaching users – not only through SERP rankings, but also through visibility in AI-generated answers.
To support this, we launched several new initiatives:
1.Optimization of existing branded pages for LLM
We reviewed the meta tags, structure, and content of existing priority pages and outlined technical specifications to optimize them in line with LLM-friendly principles: optimized the title, structured the content with additional H2-H4 headings, and added new text sections, designed for better parsing by language models.
The client’s copywriters adapted the texts into simpler, clearer language, setting specific requirements for sentence length and paragraph structure, eliminating vague wording, and adding statistical data.
An excerpt from the technical specification developed for one of the pages:
Examples of a refined section on the page:
As a result of our optimization efforts, these pages are now cited in LLM-generative responses, including ChatGPT.
2.Development and optimization of pages using a “Medical Insurance + GEO” structure
Sample technical specification for the “Health Insurance in Manchester” page:
3.Development and optimization of pages using a “Health Insurance Type + Insurance Brand” structure
Sample technical specification for the “Health Insurance for Retirees by Bupa in the UK” page:
4.Development and optimization of informational pages designed to increase brand awareness
Example of a page structure:
5.Boosting brand visibility on high-authority forums (e.g., Reddit)
Our team researched relevant discussions on Reddit and posted comments including brand mentions. Language models such as ChatGPT take into account a brand’s reputation on this forum when generating responses.
Example of placement:
6.Writing LLM-friendly outreach articles to drive additional user acquisition
Sample technical specification for an outreach article of this type:
7.Conducting additional experiments to improve the website’s visibility across LLMs
For example, adding a “Summarize this article with ChatGPT” button:
or adding key company facts to the website footer that help shape the brand’s reputation:
Task effectiveness
As a result of the actions taken by our team, newly created and further optimized pages being referenced in ChatGPT.
https://aweb.ua/blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/seo-geo3.png
Results achieved
After about three months implementing this approach, the Aweb team achieved consistent visibility in LLM-generative responses.
From December 27, 2025, to February 27, 2026, 52.4% of 168 sessions resulted in a key event, highlighting the high quality of traffic and a well-targeted audience.
From December 27, 2025, to February 27, 2026, LLM-driven traffic ranked second by the number of conversions, outperforming direct traffic and trailing only Google.
The distribution of conversions is as follows:
- Google — 35.32%;
- LLM (ChatGPT) — 20%;
- Direct — 18.96%.
This indicates that generative channels (GEO) have become a significant acquisition source, accounting for a substantial share of conversions, particularly across priority business segments.
What defines a modern promotion strategy?
In this project, we did not move away from the traditional SEO – on the contrary, we built a foundation for its long-term growth through technical optimization and content. At the same time, we considered time and budget limitations: in a highly competitive niche, SEO requires substantial resources and time to deliver results.
For this specific reason, we integrated GEO into the strategy. While SEO gradually builds momentum, GEO allows for immediate user acquisition in the areas where organic growth will come into play later. As a result:
- SEO gradually builds the website’s authority in organic search;
- GEO helps secure the brand’s presence in LLM-generative responses, including ChatGPT, Gemini, and others.
Following the implementation of this strategy, we achieved:
- consistent visibility across LLM-generative responses;
- 52.4% of all LLM-driven sessions lead to conversions;
- ChatGPT ranks as the second source of conversions after Google.
Therefore, SEO and GEO became complementary parts of a unified strategy aimed at maximizing audience reach and driving results.
Project participants
- Project Optimization Specialist: Anastasiia Hrytsenko
- Project Manager: Oleksandra Nesina
- Reviewer / Project Lead: Nataliia Pronina
