SEO, AEO and GEO: what they mean for a small business

Three short names for three places a customer can find you. They overlap a lot, and most of the work is the same work. Here is each one without the jargon.

SEO: search engine optimisation

Where: Google’s list of results and Google Maps.

Someone types “roof repair” and their town, and chooses from the businesses and pages that come up. SEO is the work of making your site easy for Google to read, quick on a phone, and clear about what you do and where. For a local business, your Google Business Profile and your reviews matter as much as the site.

AEO: answer engine optimisation

Where: Google’s AI Overview, the answer boxes above the results, and voice assistants.

More and more searches now show a written answer first, with a few sources beside it. The customer may never scroll to the list. AEO is the work of being one of those sources: pages that answer real questions plainly, facts that match everywhere (name, address, phone, hours, prices, service area), and structured data that tells a machine what your business is.

GEO: generative engine optimisation

Where: AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity.

Here there is no list at all. Someone asks “who should I call to clear out my mother’s house in Tampa?” and the assistant names two or three businesses. GEO is the work of being one of the names: being described the same way across the web, being mentioned on the sites assistants read, and having an accurate profile where an assistant offers one, such as ChatGPT Business Hub.

Do you need all three?

Mostly it is one job done properly. A site that is fast, readable and specific helps in all three places. What changes is what you measure:

• SEO: where you show up on Google and Maps for the searches your customers make.
• AEO: whether Google’s AI Overview mentions or cites you for those searches.
• GEO: whether assistants name you when asked who to hire, and who they name instead.

Nobody can promise a position in any of them, and answers from AI change from one run to the next. What can be done honestly is to fix what is in the way, then check again and show what changed.

What SEO Zion does in each

• SEO, live: a website check, a weekly fix plan in plain English, fixes done by us on Growth and Premium, tracking on Google and Maps, and an in-depth competitor analysis.
• AEO, live: a check of whether Google’s AI Overview mentions your business, and whether your site gives it the facts it needs.
• GEO, live: your ChatGPT Business Hub profile set up and looked after, for the kinds of business ChatGPT covers today, and a waiting list for the rest.
• GEO, coming soon: regular checks of what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity say when asked about your trade and town.