We’re joined by Milena Traikovich, a demand generation expert who specializes in helping businesses navigate the complex world of analytics and performance optimization to nurture high-quality leads. Today, she’s here to unpack a pivotal shift in marketing: the collision of traditional search with the rise of generative AI.
This conversation will explore how the modern buyer’s journey has fundamentally changed, demanding a unified strategy that bridges the gap between being found on Google (SEO) and being quoted by AI (GEO). We’ll delve into the risks of ignoring this new reality, practical steps for creating content that’s built to travel, and how to measure success when traffic is no longer the only metric that matters.
Buyers are now using traditional search to research and AI tools to summarize options, often without clicking a single link. How does this shift from “earning a click” to “earening a quote” change the fundamental goals of a content strategy? Please provide specific examples.
It’s a complete mindset shift from winning traffic to winning influence. For years, the holy grail was getting someone to click on your link. Now, a buyer can Google a question, get a lay of the land, and then immediately ask an AI like ChatGPT to summarize the top three options. In that moment, the buyer forms an opinion and may never visit a single website. If your perspective isn’t in that AI-generated summary, you’ve lost the deal before you even knew you were in the running. The goal is no longer just to be a destination; it’s to be the source. Your content’s primary job is now to be so clear and authoritative that it becomes the explanation AI engines extract and repeat.
You describe a modern buying journey where a customer might Google a question, ask an AI to summarize options, and form an opinion quickly. What’s the biggest risk for a brand that ranks #1 in search but isn’t being quoted in AI-generated answers, and what’s the first step to fix this?
The biggest risk is winning a battle for visibility while losing the war for the customer’s understanding. You can pour resources into ranking first and celebrate the traffic it brings, but that traffic becomes a vanity metric if your core message never makes it into the AI-powered answers that are shaping the buyer’s decision. You effectively become invisible at the most critical moment of consideration. The first step to fixing this isn’t to launch a new “GEO initiative.” It’s to ask a fundamental question about your existing content: “Is this clear enough to be confidently reused?” If an AI can’t summarize what you do and why you matter, you can be sure a buyer under pressure won’t be able to, either.
The instinct for many teams is to create a new GEO initiative with new tools and owners. Why is this often counterproductive, and how can a leader instead unify their SEO and GEO efforts into one system built on a single source-of-truth page? Please outline the key components.
Creating a separate GEO initiative is counterproductive because it treats the symptom, not the cause, and it creates unnecessary silos. What works for search engines and what AI systems look for are fundamentally the same: clear expertise, well-structured information, and credible sources. The solution isn’t a parallel strategy; it’s an integrated one. A leader should start by deciding which topics they are determined to own in their market. For each topic, the team builds a single, definitive “source-of-truth” page. This page becomes the hub, containing the core message, and it’s supported by multiple formats designed to travel—like short articles, FAQs, and comparison tables—that all consistently point back to that one clear explanation.
For content to be easily reused by AI, it needs to be “portable.” Beyond using clear headers and FAQs, what specific structural or formatting choices make a piece of content easy for an AI to quote accurately? Could you share a before-and-after example of making content more portable?
Portability is all about organizing for discovery, not for decoration. It means making your content incredibly easy to scan, summarize, and quote. Specific structures that work wonders are comparison tables that lay out features side-by-side, explicit definition blocks for key terms, and bulleted key takeaway sections. Imagine a “before” piece of content: a typical B2B blog post that’s a dense wall of text, full of clever prose and industry buzzwords. To make it portable, the “after” version would start with a 60-second executive summary. It would break down complex ideas into simple definitions, use a clear comparison table to show how it stacks up against alternatives, and include use-case blocks that speak directly to different buyer roles. It’s not about dumbing the content down; it’s about making its value immediately accessible.
AI systems pull credibility signals from reviews, partner pages, and executive voices, not just a company’s own website. What are some practical steps a brand can take to reinforce its expertise across this wider ecosystem, and how do you start measuring that off-site influence?
Your expertise becomes fragile if it only lives on your own website. To reinforce it, you need to think of your presence as an ecosystem. A practical first step is to actively encourage and feature customer reviews and outcomes, not just as testimonials, but as proof points woven into your content. Another key move is to amplify your founder’s or executives’ voices on other platforms, establishing them as credible sources. You should also strategically pursue mentions and collaborations on partner pages. Measuring this off-site influence starts with looking beyond website traffic. You can start by tracking the growth in branded search volume—are more people searching for you by name? You can also look for an increase in more educated inbound leads who are already familiar with your point of view.
Measuring success seems to be evolving beyond traffic and rankings to include signals like visibility in AI answers, branded search growth, and shorter sales cycles. For a team just starting, which of these “GEO signals” is the most important to track first, and how would you recommend measuring it?
For a team just starting out, the most important GEO signal to track is the growth in branded search. It’s a powerful leading indicator that tells you if understanding of your brand is spreading in the market. While tracking visibility in AI answers is the ultimate goal, it can be difficult to measure consistently at first. Branded search, however, is a direct reflection of whether people are hearing about you—through AI, word-of-mouth, or elsewhere—and are intrigued enough to seek you out directly. You can measure this easily using tools like Google Search Console. Watching that number climb over time is the clearest early sign that your message is resonating and your efforts to build influence are working.
Let’s consider a practical example: a B2B SaaS company wants to create a definitive buyer’s guide for its category. What are the three most critical elements this guide must include to perform well in both traditional search results and as a source for AI-driven explanations?
For a buyer’s guide to dominate in both SEO and GEO, it must be the clearest, most comprehensive explanation online. The first critical element is a 60-second executive summary right at the top, which immediately gives both humans and AI the core takeaway. The second is a detailed comparison table; this structured format is perfect for both search snippets and for an AI to pull from when asked to compare options like “Vanta vs Drata.” Finally, the third element is a robust section of at least 10 real buyer FAQs. This directly answers the specific, long-tail questions people are typing into search engines and asking AI assistants, making your guide the most useful and, therefore, the most repeatable source.
What is your forecast for how the relationship between traditional search engines and generative AI tools will evolve over the next two years for marketers?
My forecast is that the line between them will continue to blur until they are two sides of the same coin for marketers. Search engines are already integrating generative AI directly into their results, and this will only accelerate. The future isn’t about choosing between SEO and GEO; it’s about recognizing that search is evolving into a single, AI-powered “answer engine.” For marketers, this means the game is no longer just about getting found; it’s about being understood and remembered. The teams that will win in the next two years are the ones who stop chasing algorithms and start obsessing over clarity. They will design their content not just for clicks, but to become the definitive explanation that both people and machines trust enough to repeat.
