By Connor Griffiths, Account Director at The Flywheelers
In line with the hyper-speed timescales that have become standard for AI disruption and uptake, Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) has gone from a niche to one of marketing’s hottest topics.
In the AI era, traditional referral traffic is declining as users change their search habits, increasingly turning to tools like Google AI Mode, Chat GPT and Copilot to find information.
This marks a meaningful shift in how people engage with brands online and is something that companies should be prepared to respond to.
How AI search engines rank brands
It’s worth first stating how AI search results benefit some brands over others.
The Large Language Models (LLMs) behind AI search engines often mention brands in response to user queries like “What’s the best software for X purpose” or “What are the biggest competitors of Y company”.
Their responses draw on their training data, but also live indexes and APIs, to predict likely word sequences that make up the answer to a prompt. So, if a prompt is linked to the ‘5G’, for example, the AI will name-check brands that have relevant web brand mentions alongside 5G developments.
GEO is the process of taking measures to build visibility and trust in a brand in the eyes of AI models. When it comes to the latest thinking on what works, SUSO Digital’s Cara Corbett put GEO success into three buckets in a recent presentation to the Flywheelers team:
- On page: Ensuring owned website content is designed to answer natural-language queries that can be easily understood by AI models
- Off-page: Mentions on authoritative sites are a key factor in how AI models determine which brands and sources to reference in responses
- Technical: How website backends are set up to support AI accessibility
The technical element isn’t dissimilar to traditional SEO and its emphasis on fast, crawlable websites for better outcomes. The importance of off-page mentions and on-page content, however, is new, with a growing body of research pointing to the massive influence of off-page mentions specifically.
Off-page visibility is a difference maker
MuckRack’s latest Generative Pulse report analysed 1,000,000 links cited by LLMs to understand the prominence of earned VS owned media in responses. The findings were eye-opening. More than 95% of links cited by LLMs are non-paid content, with 27% linking to journalistic content.
When it comes to search factors, a recent study from Ahrefs analysed 75,000 brands to see which factors influence brand mentions in AI overviews. Brand web mentions (mentions of the brand name anywhere across the web) showed the highest correlation with brand visibility in AI overviews. The correlation of backlinks, long coveted in traditional SEO, was minor in comparison.
These two studies speak to the massive role that earned media plays in AI visibility, and it would be remiss for marketers to ignore the findings.
PR’s power in the age of AI search
With journalistic content now one of the most trusted and referenced sources of LLMs, brands need a consistent PR programme to stay relevant in the era of AI search. Dated media coverage won’t cut it. MuckRack’s analysis found that LLMs have a strong bias towards citing media articles published in the last 12 months.
A well-executed PR programme keeps your brand in the conversation, both in the media and in the AI algorithm shaping how people discover information. To boost discoverability, brands should align their messaging and spokespeople with key topics shaping their sector, using a mix of approaches, such as:
- Expert commentary: Reporters need third-party expertise on the topics they’re covering, such as AI, presenting an opportunity for brands to share expertise and secure inclusion in articles
- Contributed content: Placing contributed opinion articles and Q&As with media titles
- Interviews: From podcasts to regular CEO interview slots, there’s a range of interview opportunities for brands to land coverage and profile their people in the process
- Customer case studies: Many journalists are interested in real-world use cases of a brand’s product or service, so customer case studies are a route to coverage
The likelihood of a brand receiving organic mentions, by journalists or surfaced in AI-generated content, increases significantly when PR is sustained and proactive. By consistently securing coverage aligned with priority topics, brands can become synonymous with the conversations that matter in their sector.
These proactive tactics can help build relationships with journalists who shape media narrative while simultaneously feeding the GEO machine, boosting your brand’s presence in AI-powered search results and enhancing discoverability across channels.
If you’d like to hear more about how we can drive an increase in earned mentions for your brand, get in touch at [email protected].
