The main driver behind this, of course, is the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, which have changed the way people find and consume information online. Instead of typing keywords into a search engine, users are now asking their favorite AI chatbot for an answer.

For marketers, this means just making sure your brand is at the top of SERPs is no longer enough. You also want your content represented in AI Overviews or cited in AI-generated answers when users ask related questions.

On its own, good old-fashioned SEO is no longer sufficient for discoverability. You also need to mix in some generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO).

Read on for a breakdown of what these terms mean and how they differ from basic SEO.

Back to Basics: What Is SEO?

At its core, SEO is the process of improving a website so it ranks higher in organic search engine results pages (SERPs). Everyone who’s had a brush with digital marketing knows SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of situation.

Search algorithms evolve constantly, but the core components of SEO have remained fairly consistent. Here are a few of them:

• Technical SEO: Makes sure your site is crawlable, fast, mobile-friendly, and secure.
• Content optimization: Aligns on-page content with user intent and relevant keywords.
• On-page SEO: Improves readability, structure, and overall relevance.
• Backlinks: Earns high-quality inbound links from reputable sources to strengthen your site’s credibility and domain authority.

You can confidently say that most successful websites dominating SERPs right now have been built using smart SEO strategies.

Let’s take NerdWallet as an example. The website made masterful use of SEO techniques to become an authority in financial content. As a result, many relevant inquiries will lead users to one of its pages.

Years of evolving strategies and tools have helped many brands and publishers climb the ranks in similar ways, from simple keyword research tools that help uncover audience intent to more complex platforms like Seobility that offer comprehensive site audits and optimization checks.

Is SEO Dead?

Now that LLMs are wreaking havoc on search habits, does this mean SEO doesn’t matter anymore?

In reality, things started to change a while back. Younger generations, starting with Gen Z, are not big fans of Google Search. Years ago, they started using social media like TikTok or voice assistants like Alexa to find information. LLMs are just the next best thing.

Despite all of this, most brands are not ditching SEO entirely, and for good reasons.

Sure, search is evolving, but search engines are still very much relevant. In fact, Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) are simply new forms of content optimization for different methods of content distribution.

Emerging Terms: What Is GEO & AEO?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) focuses on improving your chances of being referenced, cited, or paraphrased by AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. These models generate responses based on trained and retrieved information from many sources, so content that’s well-structured, credible, and semantically rich is more likely to appear in AI-generated answers.

For example, when users ask ChatGPT about the best debt relief companies in California, brands such as Freedom Debt Relief may surface in the response. It’s an illustration of how visibility in generative engines can reflect effective AI-era optimization.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), by contrast, focuses on earning visibility in direct-answer formats within traditional search engines, such as Google’s featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, or voice assistant results. This requires clear, concise, and structured content that aligns with user questions.

In short, GEO targets AI systems designed to generate, while AEO targets search engines designed to answer. Both rely on trust, clarity, and contextual depth, but GEO extends those principles to the new world of generative search.

How GEO & AEO Work

While AEO has been around for several years, GEO is newer and still rapidly evolving. We don’t yet have defined methods to measure impact or a playbook, but the foundational techniques are rooted in tried-and-true SEO principles.

Early adopters focus on a few key techniques that show promising results, such as:

1. Structured data & schema markup. Marking up your content with schema (like FAQPage, HowTo, or Article) helps machines understand your content contextually. It provides a strong signal for AEO, and may indirectly help GEO by improving how AI systems interpret your content.
2. Semantic clarity & factual precision. AI models and answer engines prefer clear, accurate language. Write your content in a way that’s direct, well-researched, and easy to parse.
3. Authority signals (E-E-A-T). Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness are still essential for high-quality content, whether you’re writing for search engines or AI. The best way to signal authority is by citing credible sources, showing author credentials, and maintaining internal consistency.
4. Structured FAQs. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are a powerful format for AEO. A well-designed FAQ section increases the chances that your content will be picked up by AI overviews or voice search answers.Your FAQ section should first serve the user, and only then try to cater to AI crawlers. For instance, the FAQ section on the Event Ticket Center website is divided into nine categories so that anyone can find their answer within one minute of landing on the page.

GEO & AEO in Action

Here are a few examples that show you GEO and AEO are working for your content and what you should aspire to achieve:

• Your blog post is referenced or summarized in a ChatGPT or Copilot response
• Bing Copilot’s AI is using your product pages to formulate replies
• An informational article you wrote is used as a source in Perplexity’s multi-source summary
• A detailed how-to guide, such as ETC’s “How to Get Super Bowl Tickets in 2025” blog post, is picked up by Google’s AI Overview and cited as a source.

• Your brand is recommended in “near me” or “how to” queries
• Your FAQ page is pulled directly into a Google Assistant response when someone asks a question
• A snippet from your glossary page is used by Alexa to answer a terminology question

SEO vs. GEO vs. AEO: Three Facets of Online Visibility

Many of the techniques used in GEO and AEO, like schema markup, clean structure, and relevant language, depend on well-optimized SEO practices. Without crawlable pages, fast load times, and keyword relevance, there’s nothing for AI or voice assistants to pull from in the first place.

That’s because AI systems don’t invent information out of thin air. Many use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or similar methods to draw on existing content from trusted sources and turn it into natural-sounding answers.

In short, if your content is already ranking well, clearly structured, and properly marked up, you’re giving both AI and answer engines exactly what they need to surface your brand.

SEO, GEO, and AEO work together to make your content more visible online. Search is changing, but these methods can help you stay on top of things and in front of your target audience.

To keep pace with AI-driven discovery, embrace SEO as your foundation, then layer on GEO and AEO to future-proof your strategy and keep your brand discoverable. Start blending all three now for smarter, more sustainable growth.

Ben Kruger is the Chief Marketing Officer at Event Tickets Center, where he oversees all marketing efforts, including paid search, social media, affiliate marketing, and email campaigns. He builds and scales paid media campaigns for growth and retention, leveraging machine learning models and predictive analytics for marketing activations and analysis. Ben has spoken at industry events such as the Coalition for Ticket Fairness Annual Conference.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Do I need to overhaul my SEO strategy to add GEO and AEO?

Not at all. Think of SEO as your foundation for site speed, crawlability, and keyword relevance, and GEO/AEO as layers that build on top. If your SEO is strong, you’re already halfway there.

What types of content perform best in generative search?

Informational, evergreen, and expert-authored content tends to perform best, particularly pages that explain how or why something works, rather than simply selling a product.

How can I tell if my content is appearing in AI results?

You can manually check by prompting ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, or Perplexity with relevant queries to see if your brand or content is mentioned. Tools for tracking GEO visibility are still emerging, but expect more analytics options soon.

The post A Marketer’s Guide to the New Alphabet Soup of Search: SEO vs. AEO vs. GEO appeared first on Contently.

Wait there! Wait right there!

If you sniffed out AI’s trademark tone in the first paragraph, you deserve a gold star. If you didn’t, you need to read through this entire piece.

AI has become central to marketing, and most brands, including their writing teams, have jumped on the bandwagon. Good for productivity? Definitely.

But there’s a catch. AI-generated content is like branded content itself: When it tries too hard to sound human, it’s obvious. AI detection tools aren’t bulletproof, either, as they may flag content inaccurately in either direction, insisting a fully human-written article is AI or vice versa. (Studies have found these tools are nearly useless.)

While AI-generated content may not hurt your SEO or GEO rankings, there’s clear evidence that human audiences find it off-putting. According to research by Data Access Management (DAM) company Bynder, 50% of readers can detect when copy is AI-generated, and 52% find such content less engaging. Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Media Consumer study also found that nearly two-thirds (62%) of users say they’re less likely to trust or engage with social posts if they know AI was involved in their creation.

Source

So if you want to reach real humans with your content, your copy should sound like it came from one.

Here are a few ways to edit your AI content so it sounds less like a corporate-jargon robot and more like an actual person with a point of view.

Common Signs Your Content Sounds Too Much Like AI

AI-generated content is sometimes so obvious you only need a glance to identify it, like when a single article contains 55 em-dashes.

Other times, you might need to read through the lines to identify telltale signs like:

Generic or empty introductions

Nicolas Breedlove, CEO at PlaygroundEquipment.com, shares that one of the easiest giveaways is a lack of real perspective or context. “Earlier versions of AI models, like ChatGPT 3.5, often provide content intros that sound overly rigid and repetitive. Their outputs also lack substance and do not possess the right hook to onboard your readers.”

Compare this generic intro for a travel guide:

To this human-written version:

Your flight is delayed, your bag is overweight, and the hotel just sent an email saying check-in isn’t until 4 pm. Anyone who has ever stepped foot in an airport, bleary-eyed and running on bad coffee and optimism, knows that travel is full of these little headaches. But it doesn’t have to be. This blog will show you how to pack like a pro, skip tourist traps, and save money while still enjoying every stop of your journey.

The second is much more personalized and relatable.

Hedging language

Hedging language includes terms or phrases that weaken the assertiveness of a statement and make it less absolute. While this is great for academic writing, where researchers want to avoid overstating conclusions or implying absolute certainty, using it in your marketing copy can undermine your authority and make your brand sound unsure of itself.

Examples include:

• It is important to note…
• It can be argued…
• Perhaps…
• Maybe…

You might also come across vague phrases like “a number of…” instead of a definite figure.

Claims without evidence

Recent data suggests that even the latest version of ChatGPT (5.0) hallucinates about 1 in 10 times in its outputs. Even domain-specific AI can’t be fully trusted: In one Stanford benchmark, legal models got things wrong in up to one-third of their responses.

In marketing writing, hallucinations might include fabricated quotes (yikes), bogus statistics (oof), or made-up studies (just ask Deloitte why this is problematic.)

So, once you see sentences starting with:

• “Some research shows that…”
• “Studies suggest that…”
• “Experts agree that…”
• “It is widely known that…”

Stop and check whether there’s a real source or data point behind any claims AI churns out. Getting caught in an error is embarrassing, and it can quickly erode audience trust.

Monotonous sentence structures

“You might see tons of formulaic transitions or connectors in a single or consecutive paragraphs, which ends up making the whole block feel flat. This occurs [especially often] when using older LLM versions,” says Jeffrey Zhou, CEO and Founder of Fig Loans.

See this:

AI also loves lists of three (innovate, iterate, and inspire! Create, connect, and convert!). These are fine in moderation, but if you start seeing them in every section or paragraph, use your editorial judgment to gauge if they can be streamlined or phrased differently.

When every sentence length looks just the same or with as slight a variation as possible, raise your whiskers too.

Excessive use of contrastive parallelism

AI content often uses statements like, “While X is true, Y is also important,” or, “It’s not just about sales; it’s about…”

You’ll sometimes see this back-to-back in a piece and it automatically creates a rhythm that feels forced.

Other examples:

• Social media is more than a broadcast tool; it’s a place to build relationships.
• It’s not about working harder; it’s about working smarter.
• It’s less storytelling and more story-selling.
• The question isn’t what can AI do for us — it’s what should we do with AI.

Specific “tells”/phrases AI loves

You can spot AI’s favorite phrases from a mile away — the linguistic equivalent of clip art. Here are a few dead giveaways you’ve probably seen a hundred times:

• Delve
• Fast-paced world
• More than ever
• Rapidly changing landscape
• Picture/imagine this
• The implications are clear
• The takeaway? or, The result?

Spot similar patterns in this blog’s intro:

Source

AI also has an affinity for colons in headlines and subheadlines, so edit excessive instances out to be few and far between. Random bolded text and oddly capitalized phrases are other formatting quirks that make a piece feel more like a machine trying to emphasize importance than a human making a stylistic choice.

Must-Haves on Every Editor’s Anti-AI Checklist

Editing AI-isms out of your content isn’t as simple as recognizing catchphrases and pulling out parallelisms. Here are six things you must look out for before you hit publish.

1. Replace weak verbs and cut filler

AI often uses padded language and limp verbs — phrases like “helps with,” “is aimed at,” “can be used to,” and “serves as.” Beyond being an AI tell, these flabby constructions are simply lazy writing. Savvy editors have been striking these empty phrases from drafts for decades.

Replace these with stronger alternatives and cut out excesses. For instance:

• Helps with → powers
• Is aimed at → delivers
• Works to → improves / strengthens / supports (depending on context)
• Is focused on → prioritizes / advances
• Plays a role in → shapes / influences

It’s also a good idea to cut filler like “in order to,” “as well as,” or “in terms of” that bloats sentences without adding meaning.

2. Add names, numbers, examples

AI-generated text loves to speak in broad claims and sweeping generalities. The fastest way to humanize these eye-glazing paragraphs is to get concrete. Seek out generalisms and personalize them by adding names, proper pronouns, or specific examples where applicable.

Add statistical numerical evidence, case studies, reports, infographics — anything that confirms your claims.

3. Fact-check, fact-check, fact-check

If you’re using tools like Perplexity or ChatGPT, they can be incredibly useful for surfacing quick references. Sometimes, those links will point you in the right direction — but not always. Generative systems are trained to sound confident, not to be correct.

That’s why every fact deserves a manual check. Click through every source to make sure it leads to a real, credible page, ideally from a primary source or recognized publication. Verify numbers by cross-referencing them with the original study or dataset, not just the AI summary. And if you see suspiciously perfect phrasing (like a too-good-to-be-true stat or a quote that sounds like marketing copy), trace it back to its origin.

4. Increase use of expert quotes or original input

Weave expert quotes or insights into your content to make it feel less automated, especially when addressing sensitive topics or offering practical tips that require more than generic advice.

To find sources, you can utilize platforms like HARO (which relaunched earlier in 2025), and social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, as well as professional communities. You can also reference publicly available quotes from credible individuals on reputable third-party publications in your piece, so long as you cite the original source with a link or by name.

5. Insert local or unique details

AI content can feel like it’s addressing everyone and everything. Make it sound more unique by referencing local angles or examples, like those in your industry, geographical location, or relevant events in your niche.

Bring in examples that your audience can easily relate to. For instance, if you’re writing about the state of the SaaS ecosystem, reference a real milestone (e.g., Figma’s acquisition by Adobe) instead of a vague “major tech deal.”

These small touches make your piece feel like it was written by someone who actually has expertise and knows the audience, versus scraped or regurgitated advice from the internet.

6. Adjust transitions to sound natural

Excessive transitions give your piece a pre-scripted, bland tone. Ensure they’re only used when necessary and cut out others. Try to limit formulaic transitions (like “moreover,” “therefore,” or “in addition”) to no more than two every three paragraphs.

You can introduce a mix of pauses, conjunctions, and short sentences to make your transitions sound natural and smooth.

Improving Drafts at the Source

Before using AI to populate your content or refine your paragraphs, you need to condition it to give you drafts that are as human as possible. Here are some tips to make your job easier later on in the process.

Prompt for specific sources, not general summaries

“AI-assisted drafts are only as human-like as the prompts you provide. If you ask ChatGPT to write an overview of ‘Generative Engine Optimization,’ it will likely stitch together generic summaries from its training data,” says Anna Zhang, Head of Marketing at U7BUY. “Instead, prompt it to look at a specific source, reference an example, or cite a particular fact.”

The same principle applies to statistics and case studies used to support claims. Instruct your model to retrieve data only from direct sources, rather than general statistical summaries.

Supply voice samples for tone

Once your prompts are grounded in real sources, the next step is to make sure the voice feels equally grounded in your brand.

“Help AI understand your brand tone both in text and by voice by recording comprehensive samples. You can simply lift your previous podcasts, blog samples, and vlogs (if available) and paste them as training data, provided it doesn’t breach data privacy laws,” advises Leigh McKenzie, community advocate at Traffic Think Tank.

Other representative branded details, such as case studies, positive public reviews, and event highlights, will also help AI create content that adopts your tone, whether playful, like Duolingo, or formal, like Forbes.

Add style rules: concise verbs, active voice, varied rhythm

Create a style guide that details words to avoid, which verbs to use as alternatives, preferred voice patterns, ideal rhythms, and recommended sentence lengths. Then feed it to your AI model and run tests to see how closely it matches your brand style.

The more detailed your style guide is, the better your drafts will align with your brand’s voice from the start. You should also share the guide with your content team so they can better prompt AI models and ensure consistency in their own writing.

Use negative rules: no clichés, no hedging, no generic intros

AI tools like ChatGPT allow you to set guardrails around its output. Head to the personalization box and set negative rules protecting against clichés, hedging phrases, generic introductions, and repetitive phrases.

These settings are not absolute, and the AI model might still bypass them. You may need to paste the rules into the chatbox each time before generating new drafts, but the “personalization” feature acts as reinforcement.

Build a Workflow That Supports Human-First Editing

Good content is a result of a well-functioning content workflow. You can build one by defining clear editorial processes across the outlining, drafting, reviewing, and publishing stages, including specifying who handles editing and compliance.

Your outlining and reviewing stages should emphasize human-first editing, with a particular focus on implementing your checklists and style guides.

You can also adopt AI content platforms offering dedicated human editors, such as Contently, to ensure your drafts are accurate, on-brand, and polished before publication.

AI isn’t going anywhere — but neither is your reader’s instinct for authenticity. Keep that your north star.

Content that clicks with algorithms and audiences. See how Contently can help.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

What’s the best way to make AI-generated content sound human?

Edit for specificity. Add real examples, quotes, and numbers. Vary sentence rhythm, swap out filler verbs, and trim hedging phrases. Be on the lookout for common AI tells and phrases, like “delve” and excessive use of contrastive parallelism or em-dashes.

Should I disclose when AI was used to create content?

Transparency builds trust. If AI helped with research or outlining, it’s fine to say so, especially if a human editor verified and refined the final draft.

How can Contently help with AI-edited content?

Contently pairs AI-assisted tools with a global network of professional editors who ensure every piece sounds human, aligns with your brand, and meets editorial standards before it’s published.

The post How to Edit the AI-isms Out of Your Content (No Detectors Needed) appeared first on Contently.