Welcome to the new world of marketing and public relations. Out with tradition and in with…machines?
We’ve had a few tongue-in-cheek posts here about using Artificial Intelligence for good and not evil. And we have also had some fun with it, at least when we decided to generate really absurd images.
But AI is everywhere AND it’s taking the jobs away from marketers and PR pros. Right?
Not…exactly.
Something New to Learn
Remember keyword stuffing? Trying to outfox the Google machines?
Search Engine Optimization, it seems, was the way to go for the longest time: you want to “rank highly in search engines” so you configure your pages in such a way that it’s easy to show up for certain terms. You write your blog posts in the same way: hoping to be seen as a thought leader by sounding smart, but not sounding like you’re obviously TRYING to sound smart. Art AND science.
SEO was both easy — Don’t overdo it. Act naturally. Write like you talk. But also understand what keywords you need to rank for and be able to talk about SERPs. — and hard — Why do the keywords always change? Why are these consultants so expensive? Why does Google always change the rules? What about Bing? — but it was something that you had to do. And often you had to put in a lot of effort to get tiny results.
Marketers could do it, though: smart and savvy PR people could either add SEO to their toolkit or outsource it to a firm that they trusted.
BUT…AI…changed the game. It’s not about search engines but generative engines. SEO now works side by side with GEO.
Generative Engine Optimization Defined
GEO is the process of maximizing your content so it is found by the AI-driven tools — like Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot — so that your service shows up AND helps to explain what people need to know about the subject.
The point now is that you don’t go to Google as much as Google sends its AI search capabilities straight to your computer or phone. And you don’t hit up Bing as much as Microsoft’s Copilot AI machine tells you what’s happening. And so on…
So…what’s a marketer to do? I have three ideas for you:
1. Start at the Finish Line
In a post last week on the blog — you can check it out here; scroll all the way down for the bullet points that would call a meeting a success — we talked about starting at the finish line when you have a meeting.
Same process here: if you start at the finish line, you have already accomplished what you set out to do. The question is, what are you setting out to do?
Let’s say you’re an insurance company and you want to get the prospect aware of your policies for D&O and E&O coverage. As opposed to just coming out and saying “Call XYZ Insurance for the Best D&O and E&O policies” you have to explain what they are. So, yes, that means you’ll probably have to spell out D&O (“Directors & Officers”) and E&O (“Errors and Omissions”) and showcase not necessarily why XYZ is the best but what these things do for a company.
That might even have to include boilerplate language that’s typical of each coverage; because, let’s face it, that’s already out there.
Which brings us to point two:
2. It’s About Thought Leadership…NOT Keyword Leadership
Let’s continue with our insurance example…A “keyword leader” isn’t a thing.
A “thought leader,” however, is a thing. So considering the fact that your company has this particular expertise, you’re going to want to do a lot more than just keyword-stuffing.
Think about it this way: you’re an insurance leader and you’re asked to talk about D&O and E&O insurance at a conference. You have a set amount of time and you have key messages you want to get out there. Put those to paper and that’s your thought leadership.
More conversational — of course you have to have the boilerplate language in point one above — and make it like you’re trying to answer the question on the mind of the audience.
3. Write Better Content
Here’s the “DUH” moment that a lot of people miss. This particular post was created entirely by hand. It looks like it was written by a person because it was…get this…written by a person.
AI is getting better at creating content that sounds natural, but it’s not there yet. It has to rely on the content that’s out there so that the large language models can learn what sounds sensible and what sounds stilted and computer-generated.
Sure, it’s easy to go to any of the AI platforms and just ask for content about a subject, but, if it’s a subject your business cares about, it’s going to be better long-term for you to create the content you want to see.
The Oversimplified Bottom Line
SEO: Keywords. Lots of keywords. Lots of work. World is changing, though.
GEO: Write longer form content that sounds like it’s from a human. Take your time and make it good, and write like the thought leader you are on the subject you understand.
