SEO isn’t dead, but GEO is how your brand will be found in an AI-first world
In 2025, most digital journeys no longer begin with a search box — they start with a question. Whether it’s a CFO asking ChatGPT, “What are the top financial forecasting tools for mid-market companies?” or a consumer telling Perplexity, “Find me the best compact dishwasher under $500,” generative engines are now gatekeepers to your brand.
This shift demands a new kind of visibility strategy: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
For B2B SaaS and e-commerce, this is more than a trend — it’s an existential shift in how buyers discover, compare, and trust solutions.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of improving your brand’s discoverability and favorability in AI-generated search results, rather than just traditional SERP rankings.
It’s about being the answer — not just being listed.
Unlike classic SEO, which relies on crawlers indexing pages and ranking links, GEO focuses on how LLMs (large language models) like GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, and others generate answers based on your digital footprint, structured content, reputation, and semantic signals.
Why GEO Matters to B2B SaaS
In B2B SaaS, purchase cycles are long, buying committees are complex, and trust is everything.
Now, decision-makers are turning to generative engines for:
Product comparisons: “What’s better for customer success, Gainsight or Totango?”
Use case validation: “Best SaaS tools for onboarding remote teams”
Peer insight: “What CRM do most Series B startups use?”
These aren’t keyword queries — they’re natural language prompts. GEO ensures your product gets mentioned in the right context, with the right framing, at the moment of AI-generated intent.
Why GEO Matters to E-Commerce
For DTC and marketplace brands, GEO means earning AI-powered product placement without paying for it.
LLMs pull from:
Product descriptions and schema markup
Customer reviews
Buying guides and comparison tables
Affiliate content and editorial summaries
GEO helps you optimize the data and language that LLMs ingest so your product becomes the default recommendation for a shopper’s query — especially in visual-forward, voice-driven, or answer-first interfaces.
GEO vs SEO: A Quick Breakdown
| SEO | GEO |
|---|---|
| Optimizes for bots crawling and ranking pages | Optimizes for LLMs generating answers |
| Focuses on links, keywords, page speed | Focuses on entities, facts, language models |
| Visibility on Google SERPs | Visibility in AI answers, summaries, and citations |
| Click-through driven | Mention and authority driven |
In SaaS and e-commerce, you don’t need to win the click — you need to win the mention.