OPINION: KEY THEMES FROM RECENT GenEO ENGAGEMENTS

Written by: Anthony Ferrier, Managing Director at Choir Digital 

As mentioned in some of our recent posts (here and here), Choir Digital recently launched a new service offering, called Echo, that supports organisations as they seek to enhance their brand / product positions in LLM search results. We reference this practice as GenEO, but others use GEO, AEO, etc. Right off the bat, we’re already working on some excellent client engagements and after a few kick-off sessions, I felt it may be of value to highlight some of the key themes from these sessions.

As always, please note these are personal perspectives, and your input is welcomed in the comments section.

The workings of LLMs is important to understand…

While it’s relatively easy to understand how to use an LLM, to better position your brand within search results it’s important to understand the basics of how and where these tools source information, and present findings. This foundational information is not well understood and ensuring that clients really get to know what the impact will be in changes in data, both within and external to their site, will impact their brand / product positioning within search results.

…And highlight differences with Google search

Back in the halcyon days of 2022, you essentially had a single channel to deal with, when manipulating your content / data to improve search results. In retrospect, it wasn’t that hard to do, resulting in a robust, fragmented and profitable SEO industry.

With GenEO, the landscape is far more complicated, unstable and fundamentally driven by a different set of dynamics. While marketers are often aware of SEO principles / approaches, they need to be aware of the differences, and how they can exploit them to drive sustained impact. 

Pick your winners

When we are talking to clients, they often start by wanting to promote every product, changing all of their website content, to get their brand into every query. Sure, you couuuuuld do that, but the reality is that would be a very complex and expensive process. We are advising companies to pick their winners, and focus on the types of searches that will create the biggest impact to their business, from both a short and medium term.

BTW, another benefit of this approach is that by starting small and learning through the process (with scaled impact over time), efforts are de-risked and a broader investment case can be built over time.

Seek a partner, rather than a platform

Over the past 6-months there are a range of newly launched platforms within this space, that can provide direction on how to improve the placement of your brand or product in search results. But they don’t account for broader business, social or user context, which is where the real magic happens. Further, they are expensive to access and internal teams can struggle to effectively action their recommendations.

Choosing a partner that understands your business objectives and knows what they are doing in this space, will improve the efficiency and impact of your efforts over time.

Avoid perfection, and just get this moving

Given the pace of change, it’s easier than ever not to move forward on AI-driven efforts. I get it, you don’t want to lock yourself into something that is going to be superseded overnight.

But the flip side to that is that others are moving in these environments, and the longer you delay, you have to work harder and invest larger to catch up over time.

So don't overthink it, just get moving and see what works (and alas, what doesn't).

What are your experiences in getting your brands / products better positioned within LLM results?

And I can’t help myself, if you want to talk with us about our Echo offering, contact myself, or the amazing Phoebe Keates to explore your needs.