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2025/08/17
"Digital marketing" is a system engineering process that includes multiple stages such as product research, content production, advertisement creation, SEO/GEO, media investment, integrated marketing, new media operations, and sales conversion. The combination strategy of SEO + GEO is becoming the key to unlocking success, even with a small budget.
This article briefly discusses: why brands must focus on SEO and GEO.
Traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization) involves optimizing website content, structure, and other elements to improve a brand's ranking on search engines. It aims to present the brand at the top of the search results when users search for relevant information, thereby driving more traffic. On the other hand, the emerging GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) focuses on optimizing searches on generative AI platforms to adapt brands to the new search environment.
If short videos are an active form of marketing, then SEO and GEO are more like passive marketing strategies. Today, whether it's KOL influencer marketing or paid ads, businesses face high marketing costs, limited promotion time, and difficulty in targeting precise users with current needs. As the foundational elements of digital marketing, SEO and GEO are suitable for long-term investment by businesses.
Firstly, SEO can capture customers' scenario-based questions and precise search traffic, increasing the brand's exposure and awareness, which in turn generates leads. On the other hand, GEO, which is currently popular, mainly uses AI platforms like Gemini to embed brand information directly into answers, influencing user decisions. While SEO and GEO might not bombard users actively like short videos, they are a more subtle, long-term marketing strategy that can steadily infiltrate search engines, social media, and AI platforms.
In fact, SEO and GEO are the most cost-effective marketing strategies on search engines, AI platforms, and social media platforms like X and Reddit. This is because brands can "cast a wide net" by deploying keywords and related scenario-based content, allowing users to find them naturally. This also explains why brands need to set up a large number of influencer accounts and UGC content. These are the main contributors to the volume of keyword topics and can sometimes rival the value of individual KOLs, while also effectively avoiding issues like fake engagement.
Therefore, by focusing on SEO and GEO, brands can not only save on marketing expenses but also leverage the compounding effects of time to passively attract more qualified customers, improving their market acquisition effectiveness. Especially with the rise of GEO, using data feeding techniques, when users search for relevant questions on AI platforms, they receive accurate brand recommendations that influence purchase decisions. Seizing this future super traffic entry point is about taking the initiative. Since the volume of AI platform answer texts is limited, whoever takes the lead in niche categories will have an early advantage, much like reserving a spot at a restaurant. From SEO to GEO: New Value Opportunities Brought by AI Search
Some may ask, "We have already built a new media matrix; do we still need SEO and GEO?" In fact, these two are not conflicting but mutually beneficial. SEO not only captures search traffic but also helps shape brand image, guide public opinion, and engage with users. High-quality website content and new media accounts, due to their high authority, are easily captured by AI. Users searching for the brand on AI platforms can quickly understand its general profile.
However, whether SEO or GEO, the foundation of both lies in the brand's content pool. Without content accumulation, both are just empty talk. A brand’s content pool is essentially a knowledge base system, typically containing the company’s history, business scope, product/service descriptions, case studies, endorsements, corporate culture, news updates, etc. The product/service description section is the most important part, as it can be broken down into many content variations that can be used as raw materials in both SEO and GEO efforts. From a historical perspective, SEO was born with the first generation of the PC internet, while GEO emerged in the past few years alongside AIGC technologies. The two have a relationship similar to that of an older and younger alumni in the field of science and technology.
Moreover, based on current trends, GEO is likely to gradually encroach on SEO and even new media markets. This is because AI search aligns better with human tendencies to "take shortcuts"—filtering out irrelevant information, providing users with a more direct and efficient experience. The evolution of these three industries is fundamentally driven by changes in user information access points and search habits. More distant endpoints, such as brain-machine interfaces, may not be that far off. It’s undeniable: wherever the user’s endpoint is, advertising will follow. Therefore, SEO and GEO each have their strengths and weaknesses. For a mature business, “doing both” is necessary to meet the diverse needs of different generational, geographical, knowledge-level, and reading habit differences in users.
(1) From the Consumer's/Audience's Perspective:
(2) From the Brand Owner’s/Purchaser's Perspective:
To optimize SEO and GEO effectively, first, businesses need to study the combination of different keywords and business scenarios, helping them pinpoint user search demands so users can find them naturally. Secondly, AI technology should be leveraged to generate more "original content," achieving cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Finally, data feeding and monitoring analysis will provide the foundation for optimization strategies.
Successful digital marketing is inseparable from deep insights into customer needs and a profound understanding of brand communication and sales conversion processes. Knowing how to allocate every marketing budget efficiently, and spending money wisely, is a test of judgment for every marketer.
