SEO, AEO & GEO
Getting found isn't a trick. It's being worth finding.
Search engines and AI tools are both answering one question — who should we send this person to? So we focus on two things that answer it: relevance, whether you genuinely help, and authority, whether you're credible enough to believe.
The conviction
Most SEO chases the algorithm. We build what it's looking for.
If it helps a real human being, it usually works. That's our conviction — and we see it work over and over.
Google's documentation is enormous. We read it. You can too if you're curious — here is the link to Google's documentation. But we read it as description, not instruction.
Google, Bing, Social Media ... every one of those systems is an attempt — imperfect, revised constantly, occasionally even wrong — to approximate the judgment of a thoughtful person. The algorithm is a machine guessing what a careful human would recommend. The shortest path was never reverse-engineering the guess. It's being the thing the guess is looking for. If a page genuinely helps the person who found it, it tends to get found again.
The vocabulary
The names keep changing. The work doesn't.
Three acronyms get sold as three disciplines. They're really just three places the same question gets asked — and answered by the same qualities.
SEO
Search engine optimization
Earning your place in the results people scroll — Google, Bing, and the maps and local results.
AEO
Answer engine optimization
Being the source an AI tool reaches for when it answers — ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Overviews.
GEO
Generative engine optimization
What AI says about you — whether it knows you, includes you in the recommendation, and describes you accurately.
Two buckets
Relevance and authority.
Think about how you decide whether to trust a contractor like a plumber. You ask two questions without noticing you're asking them: do they do the thing I need, and should I believe them?
That's it. It's how people have judged credibility for as long as there have been people, and it's what every search engine and AI tool is approximating — guessing at a scale no person could manage, using signals that can be measured.
Relevance
Do they do the thing I need?
Answers the question that was actually asked — not the adjacent one that's easier to write
Specific enough to prove you know it: real numbers, real names, real detail
To the point, because respecting someone's time is part of helping them
Structured so the answer is findable, not buried three scrolls down
Useful first — and where it fits, worth being moved by
Authority
Should I believe them?
Years in business, and visible evidence of those years
Reviews — and just as much, how you answer them
Reputation — who mentions you, links to you, sends people your way
Consistency — the same name, address, and phone everywhere you appear
Real people with real names attached to real work
We're not interested in theatrics.
Nearly everything sold as SEO is a tactic aimed at one bucket while quietly draining the other. Bought links are authority theater. Content published on a schedule to hit a word count is relevance theater. Both get found out — sometimes by the algorithm, always by the customer.
What the work actually looks like.
The conviction is simple. The execution is specific.
Answers to real questions.
We start with what your customers actually ask — on calls, in emails, in the forms nobody reads twice — and answer it in the open, where people and machines can both find it.
Structure a machine can read.
One h1. Headings that describe what's under them. Semantic markup, sensible URLs, and internal links that reflect how the content actually relates.
Schema, done properly.
Telling search engines and AI tools plainly what your business is, what you offer, where you are, and what people have said about you.
Speed, clarity, accessibility.
Fast pages, honest alt text, keyboard navigation, readable contrast. Respect for your visitor and technical performance turn out to be the same list.
A clear path for AI crawlers.
Robots directives that let the right tools in, and an llms.txt that hands them a plain-language map of who you are. Small file, outsized effect.
Reputation, tended.
Reviews asked for at the right moment, answered like a person wrote them, and listings kept consistent. Authority you earn holds up better than authority you buy.
Honestly —
Shortcuts aren't clever. They're expensive.
We don't buy links, publish filler to fill a calendar, or promise a number-one ranking that nobody outside of Google controls. Not because we're precious about it — because every shortcut has an expiration date, and the cleanup always costs more than the campaign did. If you're looking for someone to game it, we're not your people. If you want to be genuinely worth recommending, that we can do.
Build and host
It's how we build and why we host.
Structure, speed, schema, and clarity aren't sprinkled on afterward — they're decisions made during the build and kept healthy by the hosting. There's a site built right, and a team keeping it that way.
Questions, answered.
▸What's the difference between SEO, AEO, and GEO?
Mostly the surface, not the substance. SEO is about ranking in a list of results. AEO is about being the source an AI assistant cites when it answers a question directly. GEO is a newer term for earning a mention inside a generated response — in practice, very close to AEO. All three reward the same things: clear answers, honest structure, and a business people have reason to trust.
▸Do I need a separate strategy for AI search?
▸How long does this take?
▸Do you guarantee first-page rankings?
▸What is schema markup, and does my business need it?
▸Do we need a blog?
▸How much do reviews actually matter?
▸What is llms.txt?
▸How do you measure it?
Let's make you easier to find.
This work usually begins inside the First 90 Days — because before we can make you findable, we need to know what your customers are actually looking for. Tell us about your business and the people you serve.
Let's connect