Do You Actually Need a GEO Agency Or Can Your SEO Team Handle Generative Search?

The way people search for answers has evolved. They no longer depend on Google search results to get answers. Most of them now search for answers on Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Hence, you don’t need just Search Engine Optimization(SEO); you also need to include Generative Engine Optimization(GEO) that will make your content cited by these AI tools.

The question now is, do you need a GEO agency to handle this optimization for you, or can an SEO agency handle it for you?

Can Your SEO Team Handle Generative Search?

Yes, they can, but that is, if and only if they have adapted to GEO and its concepts. 

GEO has a lot of differences from SEO, and sadly, most teams have not adapted. They are still stuck on the SEO tools and concepts they have always been familiar with.

For example, SEO focuses on making your content rank high on search result pages, but GEO focuses on making your content cited and mentioned in AI responses.

This difference influences the approach used in both cases. In SEO, the goal is to create good content that can take up a top keyword position that searchers can click on and generate traffic. 

Meanwhile, in GEO, the aim isn’t clicks or traffic. The goal is to create well-explained and factual content that AI models can trust, easily summarize, and use in their responses, no matter its position on search result pages. 

Due to the variation in how these optimizations are handled, it will be difficult for a traditional SEO agency to handle generative search.

The truth is, hiring an SEO team to carry out GEO for your site is a good idea because proper knowledge of traditional SEO concepts + GEO concepts can play a key role in helping them get your content cited by these AI tools.

However, before you hire an SEO team for GEO services, make sure you enquire about their knowledge of optimizing markup schema and structuring content in a way that it can be readable by AI models and included in AI overview snippets and direct responses.

Do You Actually Need a GEO Agency?

Yes, you do. These days, most people prefer to get their answers from Generative AI tools, so you need to ensure your content is appearing in AI search results so you don’t miss out on the large chunk of visibility that you could be getting. 

Do you know that currently, over 24% of people who search for answers on Google focus on just the AI summary and do not care to check the search results, not even the top-ranking site? 

This means even if your site is doing everything right, in terms of SEO, if your content is not optimized for AI, you are still missing out on a lot of traffic on keywords you are highly ranked for on Google.

In addition to that, more than 30% of internet users now start their search on AI tools before deciding whether to look for these answers on search engines or not.

So, let’s imagine you sell electronic appliances in Lagos. Ask yourself, if a prospect goes to ChatGPT and asks, “What is the best electronic appliance store in Lagos?”, will your brand show up in the responses?

If your answer is no, then your brand definitely needs a GEO agency.

Final Thoughts

SEO is important, but you can’t rely solely on it to give your brand adequate visibility. You need GEO services as well.

The question now is whether the agency that is offering you SEO services can offer GEO services as well.

If they can, good. You can hire them to handle it for you. If they can’t, find a GEO agency that can.