SEO. Is It Rapidly Being Replaced By GEO?

What if one day you as a business owner, your website was showing, the next day it's not. Well, it's not quite that drastic yet, but it is coming. Hi, my name is Jeff Harrison, a company called Swing Point Media and today on the Local Voice, I want to talk to you about SEO and geo. Now for some of those people who haven't heard of the term or the, the acronym geo, it's generative engine, optim, and just like search engine optimization, we have to be aware of what is going on so we can make sure that we're ready to make sure our content, our answers are in front of our audience. So again, we have a chance of being seen. Now.

This is disrupting or there's definitely a shake up in the SEO world or quite frankly, content marketing world because typically when content is created, it has been created in such a way that hey, make sure the keywords are in there and that they, they occur frequently enough and that there is some authority, we call it E, E A T, expertise, experience, authority and trust. And so that involves maybe writing some content that has a story, an example, answering questions, FAQs and things that, well, this is all important, but what's happening is there's a term called zero click and let me give an example, let me share my screen, I'm going to pull something up.

And I just want to give you an example of this. I put in and this I'm using Microsoft, Bing, it doesn't matter who we use, but you can. This just happens to be the one I put in there. It says, why is my air conditioning blowing warm air? Well, unlike traditional search with SEO, what would happen, it was normally you would see like 10 different examples here. Well, there are 10 different resources. Well, here's the cool thing. Now what happens as, as someone who is seeking that answer. I get an answer. I get one answer. And as it was explained that it's searching the entire Internet, it's creating a piece of content that says, hey, I'm taking all these answers and I'm giving you the best based on who you are. What does that mean? Well, that means fewer and fewer of us are actually clicking past this. And one of the things that comes out of this when we talk about content is.

Well, there's a reference here. Like, you know, maybe as early as six months ago there were tests and what would happen is it would give an answer. Then down below it say, okay, here's all the resources for that article in hopes that what would happen is I, after reading this, I'd Say, well, who said this? And so what would happen is I would now, why is my air conditioning blowing hot air? Five common fixes. And I would click on that and it would take me to their website. But here's what's happening in reality is fewer and fewer of us are actually doing it because it says, hey, incorrect thermostat setting. It didn't just say that, it said, hey, this is one of the simplest solutions to check your thermostat. So I'd like, okay, I'm going to go check my thermostat. I don't really need to go to somebody's website to figure out, well, should I actually contact that? Or read further on how to check my thermostat? Now, I don't want to oversimplify it because sometimes there are results that say, okay, do this. Here's a little explanation that I knew I do need more of. And I may click into that, but when I don't click into that and I don't go to that contributor's website, if you will, they call that zero click, because I did a search, but I didn't click and go to someone's website for more information. So in this case, it gives me my typical information. Incorrect thermostat settings, low refrigerant levels, dirty or clogged filters. And each one of these is. It's citing. Where did it come from? And it's like, why is American Indian blowing hot air? 5 Comments. So it's that same one again. Why is it same one? So why is it that this particular.

Blog post, and it's a blog post, why did it get recognized so much? Well, there could be a few reasons, but here's what I want to share with you today is TR is writing or making content. And I'm talking about written content. I'm talking about video content, I'm talking about podcasts, I'm talking about social media. It's different now because if AI is searching the web and it's looking for things, it has to know what it's saying. So there are things called structured data. And let's say, for instance, when you put a blog post, or let's just keep it real simple. We've all seen this. We have an image, and that image says IMG_5436. Well, if you have those kind of images, let's say, say let's imagine this is right here, this thumbnail that is an image. Let's just imagine there's an image there and it has IMG_3546 well, guess what? It doesn't know what it means and we've talked about it forever to make sure to, hey, let's make sure that we tell the, the search engines, in particular the AI search engines, what exactly that is. So we'd want to put that under there of saying, why is my AC blowing hot air or warm air? And then maybe put the, the website address in there, something to signify exactly what it is. But what we're talking about with structured data is we want to know, hey, what is the title? What are the keywords? What is this about? Why should someone look for it? And you can have, you know, these, you can have things put on your website to help you with the structured data. So when you put a blog on there, it's basically fill in the blanks and answer these questions. The cool thing about that is then when the engines are, are crawling, your website, if you will, it will see this plugin and it will know what this is about and then it will go deeper and it will read your article. But here's what happens. If your articles are not set up in a way to help the AI search engines find your content, then guess what? You won't be, you won't be in any of these resources. And the chances of you getting any.

Traffic goes way down. Now there are some other resources down here. Here's one.

Here'S another one. Here's another one. You can view them all. But at the end of the day, what's going to happen is I'm going to find out these things, I'm going to try all the things and I'm going to say, well, you know what, I can't really, I looked at my filters, I did my thermostat, I don't know if the dirty block condenser, I'm going to open it up and I'm going to go maybe clean it off. I'm not going to do the electrical issues. Filter, frozen evaporator coils, that's easy to detect. It's like, hey, they're either frozen or they're not compress ratios. So it really, if, if I've done all those things and I don't know how to check those other items because that really does take a technician, then what am I going to do? I'm going to call a professional, which is what it says here. It says to call.

When to call a professional.

So what would that mean now? I'd have to go a little further and I'D have to say, I'd have to say something like.

H Vac repair near me or put in the city, maybe I'll put in. I live.

And let's see what happens now. What happens is we get some traditional looking search, right? But now if I went over here and I said all this is, all this looks more traditional, right? But then if I go search over here, it's going to pull this in and it's just going to give me one answer. Let's see what it does. Actually, it gives me a few answers because it's now again searching the web and it's saying Hides Air conditioning, Esser Air conditioning, DMD Mechanical air conditioned heating, air experts and air conditioning heating General air condition and plumbing Air plus Air. There you are. That's, that's what we have. So if you don't put content on your website and you don't optimize it for the AI search engines, guess what? You may not be showing up. And all of a sudden the traffic. Because if I look over here and say, okay, here's Hides. Okay here. Now these are, these are still sponsored. So I say AC Repair. We've got, let's see, let's go down here.

And we have speedy AC. Oh, this is a co pilot answer. Okay, 10 best. Heating, air conditioning, air conditioning, electricity.

So it looks like our answers are up here. So we have.

Right Time, Riverside, H Vac. We have Roku Air and Heating. Roku Air and Heating. Yep. Never heard of them.

Indio, we have AC Repair, La Quinta, Champion, H Vac.

H Vac Repair. This is just a guide. That's just a. So it's very different from what it used to be. We have some over here. Speedy ac. And again, these are the co pilot answers. And then you have the map over here. My point being is the landscape has changed. If you're not ready for it, it can really make a difference. So let's just talk about what actual the SEO and geo. SEO stands for Search Engine optimization. That typically is driven by keywords. So keywords and backlinks. And the more, the more authority you have on keywords and backlinks, the higher you're probably going to show up in the search. And of course you're putting good content out there. Whereas when it talks about AI search, AI Driven search. I'm just going to read this. AI Driven Search optimization leverages artificial intelligence to analyze vast amounts of data, predict user behavior and generate content that meets user intent. So stop there for a second. So it's almost like this if I'm asking, hey, do you know what time it is?

I'm asking that because, yeah, maybe I have something pressing. I need to be an appointment at a certain time and I need to see how much time we have.

And if I ask a question, something like, you know, let's say on this air conditioning thing and I put in there, how much does it cost to have my air conditioning serviced?

AI has a predictability to say, hey, what is the intent of that person? Well, if I'm asking pricing, what does that typically mean? I'm getting near a decision and I'm probably now more, I'm going to say closer to that point where I'm going to hire someone to do whatever it is, whether it's a, you know, in this case it's H Vac, it could be landscaping, it could be a dentist, whatever that is. When I start asking those questions that ask about like reviews, pricing, comparison, FAQs, these are more signals of what the intent to make a buying decision. So let's unpack that for a second and let's talk about as an example, if I'm going to, if I'm going to start creating content that is more geo generative, engine optimized, I need to make sure I'm aware of that. Now one of the things that I've noticed in my research and again, it's, it's changing every day. Okay, so the landscape is changing every day. So this, this is as of May 30, 2025, is we're finding the articles. Not as long we find them more. Starting out with a nice summary. Hey, this is what you can expect. Then breaking it down into headlines. It's only talking about solving one problem. There's not many problems. It usually has some FAQs in there. It might be associating, maybe there's some, some review information in there or a testimonial and then a simple or a very, very clear call to action. That's what we're talking about. Conversely, if we're talking about search engine optimization, it may be a little different. I'm making sure that I'm putting in there H Vac repair, heating air condition repair, air conditioning repair, air conditioner repair near me, air conditioner repair, La Quinta air conditioning repair, Coachella Valley. I'm making sure some of these keywords are in there so that if someone puts any of those combinations into the search engine, there's a chance I may show up. And can you see the difference there? One is it's solving and We've been doing this at Swingpo Media for many years. We write or create content solving the customer's problem questions or answering the customer's questions, solving their problems with the content. And we do, we typically choose one thing. So as example, if I were writing that article for.

You know, why is American issue blowing warm air? I would probably write on those same five or six points and I would create an article around that and I would probably tie in something that says, as an example, one of our clients last week called and said, hey, my air conditioner is blowing warm air. And we went through the list, I had them on the phone and during that time we found out that they had one of. They had someone come in that was a new housekeeper and she had moved the couch in front of the intake for the air conditioner. So it's like choking it off. Once they removed or moved the couch away from the intake, all of a sudden the airflow was better. It wasn't being choked off anymore and it had cold air. So that's one reason why you want to check. Can you see the difference of the flavor there? I mean, I'm going to a little bit more in depth. This gives that position what we call ea eeat expertise, authority.

And experience. Like, hey, we've had that happen before. We have the expertise to fix it. We're authority in what we do. And you can trust us because our customers called us and we said, hey, they're taken care of. If you have any other problems, make sure to give us a call. And you could go right down through the line checking dirty air filters. You know, one of the things, and you can say something like, hey, one of the things we recommend depending on where you live. But if in the, in the Coachella Valley where we get some dusty air, if you live by yourself or it's you and your, you and your spouse, there's only a couple of you and you have no children, no pets. You can probably go 60 to 90 days without replacing that. But what I recommend is when you put a new filter in there, put a date on it, and go no more than 90 days. But now, if you have children and pets, that might be something we call a 30 day filter. And you might check that. But the nice thing about it is, is, is when you open it up and you look at it and you can't see through it, there's no light coming through or it's obvious it's dirty, you need to change that. Well, this again can restrict the airflow and cause your machine to work really hard and not convert the warm air into there. And that could be a reason for that. In other words, each one of these has a reason and a story behind it. It's giving expertise and authority and something you can trust with somebody. You can go through all of that. The one thing that we're not doing and we're with geo, is we're not stuffing keywords in there. We're more likely we're saying, hey, what are the actual words being used by the customers that they're putting into the search engines? That's what we want. So even though I in SEO, if I put in there, why is my AC blowing cold air? Well, it might be AC and repair, and that's what triggered that article to come up first. And I'm going to call traditional SEO search. But in generative search, it will take and it'll analyze that entire question, go out and search that vast sums of data, put together the answers, compile them, and then deliver them to me. And most of the time, as I said in the beginning, I'm going to watch, I'm going to read that probably need to get what I need, and I'm going to go see if I can fix it myself. If I can't, then I'm going to say, okay, now I need somebody. I've already checked these things. I'm going to need somebody to do the other part in my specific city.

That's how search is going to happen. Now here's the thing I want you to be aware of.

It's not an either or, it's an and. So as, as content is created, it's important to have a little bit of both in there. I'm not saying, hey, take out all the keywords. And I've never been a keyword stuffer where I just put the keywords in there and it doesn't read properly. Just like an AI, if you create content, it has to be readable and understandable by a human being. It's not just for the engines, but we are now writing for the search engines. But the difference is we're writing in such a way that it's easy for them to find us. So I think you've gotten the point. SEO vs Geo, is it being replaced? I say it's rapidly happening. And you can look that up on the Internet. There are a lot of, there, there are a lot of sources that say this integration is happening rapidly. And you shouldn't just say, okay, I'm giving up on SEO. No, SEO is not dead. It's still there. But when you see massive search engines like Google, like Bing, like Micro, like Microsoft, that what's going to happen is they are using generative AI. They're using the AI results. Why? Well, because that's what we want. That's what we want. As business owners, we have to continually figure out, hey, what is the best way to get in front of my customer? If you want more information on that, I've created another, another short segment on how to adapt in an ever changing marketing environment. And it's up here. You can kind of look at it. When it, when it pops up, you can click on that. It's not a very long video, but it's an idea that we're working on that I think is going to be really, I'm going to say, I'm going to say revolutionary, but it is going to provide you with a unique way to reach out and have conversations with your ideal audience.

These particular items aren't yet searchable unless you do this one thing, and I recommend it in this video if you do this, not only is it AI searchable, SEO searchable, but it's more of a way to build long term trust with your ideal clients. Hey, thanks for joining me again. My name is Jeff Harrison. A company called Swingpoint Media. We are a digital marketing agency and we leverage the power of AI to help you, our local business customers, get more customers. Thank you. Have a great day.