Start with a strong foundation and branch off. Here’s how.
Thinking about GEO can feel overwhelming. There are so many new things to learn and know.
But it’s actually simpler than it sounds.
During the Center for AI Strategy’s “GEO Workshop for Comms, PR & Marketing” last week, Hunter Chief Digital & Transformation Officer Michael Lamp said you just need to think of a tree, with various kinds of content branching off of a strong content foundation.
“When you’re looking at this as a tree or a family of content, you’ve got the parent at the top, and then you’ve got all these specific (pieces of content) that validate each other, provide more information, make it more likely that we’re not just providing information, but context, and we’re helping shape decisions,” Lamp said.
Here’s how to do it.
- Start with a sturdy trunk
Lamp’s process starts with one strong piece of content to serve as the foundation for the content strategy. That can be a press release or a blog post. The key is that it’s well-optimized. That means:
- Include specific time stamps, not fuzzier signifiers like “recently.”
- Use specific units of measurement. If you’re talking about profit, make sure you’ve got a dollar sign. If it’s time, be clear about whether you’re saving readers seconds or days.
- Clearly identify all speakers — not just name, but who they are, what they want and how they fit int the picture.
- Keep important information close together. Remember, LLMs excerpt content, so expect relevant paragraphs will be plucked out together. So, make the sections the robots pull rich.
In Lamp’s example, the trunk of a content strategy could be a detailed blog post about how best to spend five days at Disney World.
- Build content branches off the trunk
So, you’ve got one overarching piece of content. But there’s more to explore.
Once you have the trunk, it’s time to build smaller, more granular pieces of content that go deeper and re-emphasizes key aspects of the main content piece.
In the Disney example, this could look like more in-depth pieces to tell you how to spend your time at each park or an overview of what you ate each day. The goal is to have each piece of content validate and support each other and provide context, not just information.
- Leaf out into social media
Once you have this ecosystem of content feeding off each other, it’s time to work with another important audience for GEO success: social media.
Now you can take content from your blog series and repurpose it on social media that’s crawled by LLMs. This doesn’t have to mean simply reiterating what’s already on your site, but offering a unique spin, more details or other information to further bring people into your world.
- Update and keep growing
None of this content should be static. LLMs often prioritize new, novel content — and of course, information changes over time. In our Disney example, rides may be closed for refurbishment, or a food item may go off the menu. You need to keep things relevant and current.
One other piece of advice: Look at social media for ideas. Those questions your brand gets online can easily turn into a great FAQ document to keep the whole cycle running.
Now, based on one idea, you have an entire week’s worth of content that is interesting and relevant to humans, LLMs and search engines. Simply by taking different angles, reinforcing your own points and building authority, you can begin to see your content surface more and more — and your work influence the buying process.
That work will add up over time.
“I want people to stop thinking about, ’That’s a lot of action to take in all these different corners,’” Lamp said. “Think of them as parts that are adding up to a much larger sum, and AI is your new amplifier.”
Allison Carter is editorial director of PR Daily and Ragan.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.
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