SEO has evolved to the point where there is a new subtype of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) known as GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). While it may seem like one more acronym in an already crowded digital dictionary, the addition of AI to online search results has grown beyond traditional SEO marketing practices.
While both SEO and GEO are ways to optimize your financial advisor website to become more visible in online searches, there are some major differences worth reviewing.
SEO is based on keywords and phrases because they are the original ways users search for online content. And while SEO has had to evolve to keep up with the advancements in technology and how people search, the impact of AI has changed the game.
As the world’s de-facto search engine (92% market share), Google has been at the helm of pushing AI-led search to the forefront. While AI has been in the background longer than most users realize, Google’s rollout of Semantic Search was perhaps what got everyone’s attention. By factoring in user intent in their search results, Google forced websites to adapt their SEO practices to stay visible.
Now Google is taking its search services a step further with SGE (Search Generative Experience). So much so that “SEO” has become an umbrella term for all types of online search optimizations before the GEO subtype came into existence. GEO is the term for optimizing not just for overall search, but for generative (AI) based search specifically.
As the definitions above show, GEO is not replacing SEO. It’s an extension of traditional SEO practices to incorporate AI’s role in search. Specifically, how AI algorithms take in and process content compared to humans. Financial advisor websites need to incorporate principles of both SEO and GEO to remain viable in online search results.
In some ways, your financial advisor website has two different audiences: AI (machines) and human beings. This is because while AI is responsible for delivering the search results, the user who initiated that search is the ultimate recipient of the content.
But to get that content in front of the end user, it must be optimized to appeal to the AI algorithms in the form of GEO. That means your financial advisor content needs to be written for both AI and a human audience. Here are some GEO strategies for financial advisor websites that can work with existing SEO strategies to facilitate a hybrid SEO/GEO foundation.
Whether optimized for AI or humans, your financial advisor website content needs to be high quality to get noticed. One big way that Google determines the quality of your content on your financial advisor website is through E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) rankings.
The important thing to note with E-E-A-T is that, unlike most Google processes, humans play a direct role in determining these rankings. Once these quality raters have determined the rankings, it’s up to Google’s algorithms (using AI) to ultimately deliver search results.
This is a prime example of how important it is for financial advisor websites to incorporate SEO and GEO principles to appeal to both the AI and human aspects of producing online search results.
One of the reasons AI has become so prevalent so quickly is because it’s so accessible to everyone. From ChatGPT to Google’s Gemini platform, generative AI tools are seemingly everywhere. While it’s not recommended to use AI to create all or even most of your financial advisor content, it can be a great resource for researching topics.
This can be in the form of generating topical ideas and writing prompts, developing outlines, sourcing quotes, and helping to determine what type of content to create. From there, financial advisors can use their own knowledge and experience to generate truly unique financial advisor content that will have just enough of an AI influence to help with GEO.
Even if the content on your financial advisor website is relatively new, it’s worth reviewing and optimizing for GEO. Even a few small tweaks can make a big difference when considering AI-led search results as well. The good news is that no matter how many ways search practices grow and evolve, good content is still good content. The key is to know how to highlight and present it in a way that works best for the ways users are currently searching for it.
While AI and GEO are the latest in online search trends, they are in no way going to be the last. When it comes to big changes to online search, being the last to know can hurt your financial advisor website’s chances of being shown in relevant search results. By keeping up with the latest search trends and Google’s platform rollouts, financial advisors can be prepared for big or small changes and have time to adapt, instead of scrambling to keep up after the fact.
Bonus: The Birth of the “Zero Click” Search
The incorporation of AI in online search results has created a new phenomenon known as zero-click searches. In some online search results, Google’s SGE returns a snippet or summary of the result rather than the traditional list of links to the top-ranking websites for that query.
However, Google’s aim to make searching as effortless as possible for the user has created a challenge for websites that rely on clicks from online searches: the zero-click search. If the user is satisfied with the results in the summary, they don’t have to click on any of the search results to find what they were looking for.
While these types of searches resulting in no website traffic can be concerning for any website owner, financial advisor websites can take advantage of this new practice. These summaries are often best utilized for more simple search topics, with a common response from many sources. Because financial advisory topics are often more involved and can be explained in a number of ways, financial advisor websites with relevant and unique content can still stand out from the rest.