In 2025, Cassie Sonnentag attended Digital Summit in Minneapolis, MN as a recipient of a SMBMad scholarship. Below, Cassie shares her insights and key takeaway from the conference.
SEO to GEO: The Future of Search
At this year’s Digital Summit, one theme was blatantly clear: search is changing. The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini are forcing marketers to rethink how people search and discover information online.
“SEO isn’t dead – it’s evolving,” said Nate Tower, President of Perrill.
That shift is driving a new practice with a very 2025 name: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
What is GEO and why does it matter?
Traditional search engine optimization was about ranking. The goal was straightforward: get people to click on your website. But GEO adds additional complexity.
“The goal of GEO is to be recommended as an option more often,” Tower explained. “We don’t just want to get people to the website. We want to be the trusted resource.”
That’s a big shift. Users searching with large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT aren’t looking for a list of links. They want an answer that is clean and straight to the point. If your brand isn’t showing up in those answers, you’re virtually invisible.
And make no mistake: people are already searching this way and have been for years now. Adobe reports that nearly 8 in 10 users turn to ChatGPT like a search engine.
What does GEO look like in practice?
While SEO is about keywords, GEO is about conversations. Users are typing longer, natural questions into LLMs, such as “Which product is better for small nonprofits, Brand X or Brand Y?”, and expect complete, honest answers.
To show up, your brand needs to have a strong presence across the web beyond your website.
“You can be recommended by ChatGPT without ranking on the first page of Google,” Tower said. “Of course it helps, but what matters is being mentioned substantially in more places.”
That means:
- Creating authoritative, machine-readable content that directly answers questions users are searching in an organized manner
- Asking your own questions and checking what LLMs already say about your brand (and fixing inaccuracies with responses on your website)
- Making sure your content is easy for AI models to crawl for answers
How can I put GEO into practice on my blog?
Mindy Weinstein, CEO of Market MindShift, said to think in entities, not keywords.
“AI doesn’t care about the term – it cares about the broader entity,” she said.
Instead of optimizing only for phrases like “affordable solar panels,” brands need to build authority around entire topics — solar panels, inverters, energy grids and the questions people actually ask about them.
Weinstein offered three actionable plays:
- Answer First
- Write headings that mirror natural prompts (e.g., “How do solar panels work in cloudy weather?”).
- Lead with a clear, concise answer to a common question.
- Support answers with bullets, FAQs and schema markup.
- Expand for Depth
- After a quick summary, add structured sections that cover the topic in detail.
- Prioritize expertise and specificity over fluff; the back story is not nearly as important as the answer when it comes to showing up in AI.
- Multiply Your Content
- Repurpose blog posts into infographics, videos or LinkedIn articles.
- Share across multiple platforms to earn mentions in the places LLMs pull from most.
“Content strategy is no longer just about keywords,” Weinstein said. “It’s about who we want to attract, what they care about and what they think we can do to solve their problem.”
Should I be investing in GEO?
For some businesses, GEO might not be the highest priority yet. Tower noted that Google still drives far more volume — over 8.5 billion searches a day, compared to about 100–200 million daily prompts in ChatGPT.
But the conversion rates are the most telling. Perrill sees a 15% conversion rate from LLMs compared to just 0.87% from organic Google search.
In other words, fewer people may find you through AI tools, but those who do are much more likely to become customers.
If you’re already working on SEO, you’re halfway there. The fundamentals like clear content, technical accessibility and trustworthy information are still, if not even more, relevant. But now the goal is broader: to be recognized as an authority across the entire digital ecosystem, not just in Google rankings.
“You are the expert in your service or product,” Weinstein said. “That’s what you really have to be thinking about when trying to get into these systems.”
The question every brand should ask is simple: What do ChatGPT and other AI tools say about us right now?
And if the answer isn’t what you want it to be, it’s time to start optimizing.
Thank you to Social Media Breakfast Madison for sponsoring my attendance at the 2025 Digital Summit in Minneapolis, Minn. Learn how SMBMad can enhance your learning through scholarships and more at www.SMBMad.org.
