SEO vs GEO: What Brands Get Wrong When Hiring an Agency for AI Search

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-15

Hiring an SEO agency used to feel like a fairly contained decision. You check the case studies, look at ranking history, agree on a reporting cadence, and sign. Simple enough. That decision has gotten a lot messier. AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews now sit alongside — and increasingly in front of — the traditional results page. The skill set that earns you a spot in one doesn't automatically earn you a spot in the other. You can hire a perfectly competent SEO team and still be completely invisible in the answer an AI assistant gives a buyer researching your exact category. That's why more procurement conversations now name generative engine optimization (GEO) agency capability as a separate line item. They're not assuming any SEO vendor can just bolt AI-visibility work onto an existing retainer. The two disciplines share a foundation — a crawlable, well-structured, credible website. But they're measured differently, reported differently, and often need different specialists to execute well. Treating them as identical is one of the most common ways brands end up disappointed six months into a contract. ### The Real Difference Between SEO and GEO Traditional SEO is still mostly about earning a ranking position and a click. Backlinks, on-page relevance, and technical health decide who shows up in the ten blue links. GEO is about earning a citation inside an answer the user never has to click through. That's decided by entity authority, structured data, and independent mentions the AI system trusts. The overlap in the middle is where most of your actual budget should go. Content that's genuinely well-sourced and clearly structured tends to perform in both systems at once. That's exactly what a competent combined agency should be optimizing for, rather than treating as two separate deliverables. ### What to Evaluate Before You Sign A few questions tend to separate agencies with real GEO capability from ones that have simply relabeled an existing service. - **Documented proof in both channels.** Ask for actual ranking data alongside specific, verifiable examples of the agency's content being cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews — not just a claim of "AI SEO" on the services page. A screenshot of a single citation isn't a track record. Ask how many clients, and over what period. - **A technical foundation, not just content tricks.** The strongest GEO work is usually built on the same technical rigor as strong SEO — crawlability, site architecture, structured data. If an agency can't speak to your site's technical health, its GEO plan is likely just content rewrites. - **A real measurement method.** Standard rank trackers don't capture whether a brand was cited inside an AI answer. Ask exactly how the agency tracks citation frequency and "share of voice" across AI platforms, how often that gets reported, and what a baseline audit looks like before work starts. - **Transparent, scoped pricing.** Mid-market GEO retainers typically run anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000 per month, so ask what's actually included at each tier — audits, content production, digital PR, ongoing monitoring — rather than accepting a vague monthly number. - **Fit with your industry.** Some agencies specialize by vertical, client size, or number of markets served. A firm built for enterprise technical SEO audits isn't necessarily the right fit for a regional service business, and vice versa. > "The brands that win in AI search aren't the ones with the biggest SEO budget. They're the ones who treat GEO as a distinct discipline with its own metrics and its own specialists." ### Questions Worth Asking Before you sign anything, get specific. Ask for a sample AI-visibility scorecard. Ask how they define a "citation" versus a "mention." Ask what happens when an AI platform changes its algorithm — because they will. The agencies that can answer those questions clearly are the ones worth your money. The ones that can't are probably just selling you the same old SEO retainer with a new label. AI search isn't a fad. It's where a growing share of buyer research already happens. Treating it as an afterthought is a choice — just not a smart one.