How to grow your business with SEO and GEO

SEO and GEO: understand what you want to improve

SEO and GEO share one goal: be found at the right time, by the right people, with an offer they understand. Here is a method to connect visibility to quote requests, signups and sales, even without a marketing team.

This directly concerns the French market. Google announced the launch of AI Overviews and AI Mode in France on July 22, 2026. Generated answers can therefore become part of your prospects’ journey within Google itself. Read Google France’s announcement.

The SEO, or search engine optimization, involves improving your site’s presence in search results. GEO, short for Generative Engine Optimization, refers to work aimed at improving your content’s and brand’s presence in the answers of generative engines and assistants.

These approaches overlap. Google explains that SEO fundamentals remain relevant to its generative features. No special markup is required to appear in them. Read the official guide.

Keep a useful distinction: being cited as a source, being named and being recommended are three different outcomes. An AI can use information from your article without suggesting your product. To explore the basics, see the differences between SEO and GEO.

Why rankings alone are no longer enough to manage growth

A good ranking remains useful. But an answer appearing directly in the search engine may change how many people visit your site.

In its February 4, 2026 study, Ahrefs associates AI Overviews with an average click-through rate around 58% lower for the top position, compared with the estimated level without those overviews. The analysis covers 300,000 keywords and desktop data from December 2023 and December 2025. This does not mean every French site loses 58% of its traffic. Read the study and its methodology.

At the other end of the journey, some AI referrals have strong commercial value. Adobe data from July 2026, reported by Digital Commerce 360 on August 19, shows a 60% higher conversion rate and 53% higher revenue per visit for AI traffic on the US commerce sites studied. These differences apply to that sample and period. View the reported data.

What this means for your business: measure visit quality and its contribution to sales, as well as volume.

1. Start with the offer you want to sell

Before looking for keywords, choose a priority offer and a commercial action: buy, book a demo, request a quote or schedule an appointment.

Then write a simple sentence: ‘I want [type of customer] to find [offer] when looking to solve [problem], then take [action].’

Example: ‘I want small store owners to find my e-commerce website service when comparing ways to sell online, then request a quote.’

Use that sentence to sort topics. A popular article far removed from the offer may take a lot of work for few relevant inquiries. For a service business, think in terms of: visits × inquiry rate × close rate × average sale value.

Fictional simulation over a given period:

• 1,000 visits × 2% inquiries × 25% close rate × €1,200 = €6,000 in expected revenue.
• 500 visits × 5% inquiries × 25% close rate × €1,200 = €7,500 in expected revenue.

Under these assumptions, fewer visits produce more revenue. The calculation illustrates the role of qualification and conversion; it does not predict your results. To judge profitability, also include your margins, time and acquisition costs.

2. Answer the questions that come before a purchase

Start with customer conversations: quote requests, sales calls, incoming messages and recurring objections. Add queries already visible in Search Console and results offered in your market.

To begin, select ten to twenty questions around one offer. Group those relating to the same decision: several wordings can be covered by one good page.

I recommend starting with offer pages and content about choice, price and evidence. Then expand into discovery topics. This lets you build a complete journey before increasing publishing volume.

For example, for a booking SaaS: a page for independent salons, a buying guide, an explained comparison and a detailed demo form a coherent set. Each page answers a different question and links to the next when that helps the reader.

3. Check that your important pages are accessible

Before rewriting your whole site, examine a few pages that matter to revenue. Check their indexing in Search Console, links that help people find them, title clarity and essential content. Also test the mobile experience: reading, navigation and access to the form or purchase.

The Google’s starter guide provides the foundations for this work. You can also see what an automated SEO audit actually checks to know what to expect from a diagnosis.

For AI search, crawlers do not all serve the same role. OpenAI distinguishes OAI-SearchBot, used for search, from GPTBot, which collects content that may be used for training. You can allow the first and block the second. Allowing a crawler makes access possible; it does not guarantee a citation. See OpenAI’s crawlers.

Perplexity says PerplexityBot helps websites appear and be linked in its results. Firewall rules can also block access even if robots.txt allows it. See Perplexity’s documentation.

If you involve a developer, request a targeted check of sales pages and crawlers relevant to your business. Each block should be connected to a URL and a verifiable observation.

4. Publish content that provides evidence or practical help

A page becomes more useful when it helps a prospect make a decision they could not make before reading it. Show a method in practice, compare options using explicit criteria, explain a price or document a result with its conditions.

Google recommends original, reliable content based on identifiable experience or expertise. Read its recommendations on helpful content.

For a page about choosing booking software, here is a possible structure:

1. Introduce selection criteria at the start: team size, appointment volume, payments, reminders and integrations.
2. Explain which users each option suits.
3. Show a real configuration or use case you have verified.
4. State costs, limitations and the verification date.
5. Suggest the relevant next step: test, compare or request a demo.

These elements give readers reasons to choose you and search engines concrete information to interpret. They do not guarantee a ranking.

For a case study, get the client’s permission to publish and state the starting point, actions taken, period and results actually observed. Separate traffic, inquiries and sales. If you do not have revenue data, stick to the data available.

Use AI to organize research, prepare an outline, spot missing questions or produce a first draft. Then verify the facts and add your experience. Google warns that generating many pages without added value may fall under its scaled content abuse policy.

5. Strengthen your business’s credibility in its market

Make your business easy to understand on your site: what you sell, for whom, at what price or according to which criteria, with which limitations and how to contact you.

Then work on places where customers already seek information: industry publications, partners, relevant review platforms, professional communities and demonstration videos.

My advice: choose two or three credible spaces in your field and contribute something useful. A software company can publish a documented integration with a partner. A consultant can present a method in a specialist publication. A local business can improve its listing and collect genuine reviews after providing services.

If you work locally, pay particular attention to your Google Business Profile categories, contact details, hours and information. Google lists relevance, distance and prominence among the main factors for local results. Understand these factors.

Avoid treating every mention as a commercial win. An answer can cite your content and recommend another product. Read what is actually said about your business and observe the inquiries that follow.

6. Give every visit a useful next step

To turn visibility into inquiries, the next step must match what readers want to do. After a buying guide, offer a detailed comparison or demonstration. After a case study, show the relevant offer.

On a service page, explain what happens after contact: information requested, meeting content and possible next steps. Review your pages with these five questions:

• Does the visitor quickly understand who the offer is for?
• Can they see exactly what they get?
• Can they find the price or understand how it is determined?
• Is there evidence relevant to their situation?
• Do they know exactly what will happen after clicking?

A page cited by an AI may receive a reader already familiar with the topic. Make decision information easy to access: product details, terms, availability, demonstration and contact.

You can also offer a genuinely useful tool: a calculator, fill-in template or industry checklist. Choose it based on your offer and customers’ questions. Then assess whether its users become qualified prospects.

7. Measure visibility, visits and business results separately

Build a dashboard that answers three questions: where does your business appear, which visits arrive and what do they produce?

In Google Search Console, track clicks, queries and landing pages. Google announced dedicated reports for generative features on June 3, 2026, then stated worldwide rollout by August 31. These reports describe visibility in Google; they do not by themselves provide revenue from those appearances. Read the announcement and report scope.

In your analytics tool and sales tracking, connect identifiable visits to qualified inquiries, purchases and revenue. A button click is only an intermediate step: check whether the form was submitted and whether the contact led somewhere.

For assistants, keep a small set of questions related to your offer. Repeat observations under comparable conditions and record country, language, date, tool and whether web search is enabled. A single test is a snapshot, not a measure of all your visibility.

Follow our method to measure your brand’s visibility in AI answers and the guide to connect Search Console and GA4.

Finally, add a simple question when someone contacts you: ‘How did you hear about us?’ Someone may discover your name in an AI answer and later visit your site directly. Their reported answer complements analytics, with its own limitations.

8. Start a first 30-day work cycle

Here is a starting pace to adapt to your site and resources. The 30 days are for establishing the method and taking the first actions; they do not guarantee SEO results within that time.

At each cycle, choose a few achievable actions. For each one, record the page, observed problem, fix and check to perform. Then compare consistent periods and consider the sales cycle, seasonality and other site changes.

Common questions about SEO and GEO

Does GEO replace SEO?

Both share much of the work on content, accessibility and helping people understand your offer. Visibility in AI answers adds more places to monitor. Divide your efforts according to your customers’ habits and the results you measure.

Do I need an llms.txt file to appear in AI answers?

Google says it does not need one for its generative features. Its guide also explains that no special markup is required. Start with pages that help your customers and verified obstacles on your site. See Google’s recommendations.

How long does it take to see results?

There is no guaranteed timeframe. Google says some changes may be reflected within hours, while others take several months. The time needed to generate sales also depends on your market and sales cycle. See the SEO Starter Guide.

Where should I start if I have little time?

Choose one offer, one important page and one business metric. Check that the page is accessible, answers essential questions and lets people contact you or buy. Then develop content that helps prospects choose that offer.