Why GEO is the New SEO and How Sitecore Search Gives You the Edge

As organizations race to capture attention in the age of AI, a new frontier is emerging: Generative Experience Optimization (GEO). Unlike traditional SEO, which focuses on ranking in browser-based search engines, GEO is about optimizing your content for AI-powered assistants and interfaces like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and even Google’s AI Overviews.

Why Content Must Evolve for GEO

The search game has changed. With Google’s Generative Answers (AI Overviews) now rolling out globally, users are more likely than ever to get the information they need directly on the search results page, skipping traditional click-through behavior altogether.

A recent study by Bain & Company found that on 40% of searches, 80% of users don’t click any links. As AI-generated summaries become more prevalent, sites that rely on organic traffic, particularly content-rich, information-oriented sites, are seeing traffic declines of 20% or more. This is no longer a future scenario. It’s here, and it's reshaping how content must be structured, published, and optimized.

Source: Bain & Company

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s own Gemini don’t engage with websites the way humans do. They don’t scan headlines, navigate menus, or interpret visual layouts. Instead, they ingest content, often at scale, and distill it into digestible summaries. As a result, the traditional approach of creating long-form, all-in-one pages filled with nuanced messaging often fails to make an impression on these systems. What performs better is content that’s clear, direct, and structured with intention.

FAQ-style content, in particular, offers a distinct advantage. It breaks information into focused, self-contained chunks, making it easier for AI systems to parse and repurpose. Answers written in plain language and formatted in a way that clearly maps questions to responses are far more likely to be surfaced by generative engines. Add semantic context through Schema markup, and you’re no longer just publishing content, you’re publishing data that AI can use effectively.

Sitecore Search and the Rise of Generative Answers

Within the Sitecore ecosystem, one of the most forward-looking innovations is the Generative Answers capability within Sitecore Search. Instead of returning a list of links, Sitecore Search can now generate a fully written answer drawn from your indexed content. For instance, if you visit sitecore.com and search for “What is Content Hub?”, you’ll see an AI-generated explanation instead of just a traditional list of search results.

Screenshot from Sitecore.com

What powers this experience is a layer of AI that analyzes your content and automatically generates a rich set of question-and-answer pairs. These are stored in the Sitecore Search console, where they can be curated and refined. Marketers and administrators have the ability to review each generated answer, improve or rewrite it if needed, or add entirely new Q&As to fill gaps. This turns what would otherwise be a static, AI-driven feature into something dynamic and fully within your editorial control.

Sitecore Search Console for Questions and Answers

From Search Answers to GEO-Optimized Content

While these Q&As were designed to enhance search experiences, their value doesn’t stop there. I recently extended the Sitecore Search SDK to generate topical FAQ pages directly from this content. With just a few lines of custom logic, it’s possible to create rich, organized pages that group related questions by topic and display the AI-curated answers alongside them.

Screenshot from Sitecore.com

These pages are incredibly well-suited to the GEO landscape. They’re lightweight, purpose-built, and precisely structured in a way that allows LLMs to extract answers easily. Because they’re generated from validated content and reviewed by your team, they also maintain brand accuracy and editorial quality, something many AI-driven experiences struggle with.

Boosting GEO with Schema Markup

To further support indexing and visibility, I also implemented FAQPage Schema using structured JSON-LD markup. This layer of semantic data makes it even easier for search engines, both traditional and generative, to understand the purpose and structure of the content on each page. It’s a critical enabler that ensures AI systems know not only what the content says, but also how it’s meant to be used.

Inspecting the Structured Data Output

This step transforms each FAQ page into a high-signal source for platforms like Google’s AI Overviews or ChatGPT’s web-browsing plugins. You’re no longer hoping your content is interpreted correctly. You’re giving AI the structure it needs to respond confidently, using your voice.

Low effort, high impact with AI

Perhaps the most powerful part of this solution is its simplicity. Everything I described is powered by AI and requires minimal manual effort to maintain. As new content is created or updated within your Sitecore ecosystem, Sitecore Search continues to generate fresh Q&As automatically. You can periodically review and curate them, but the system does the heavy lifting.

The FAQ pages update dynamically based on your inputs, and the schema remains consistent. Over time, this creates a self-sustaining pipeline of AI-optimized content that stays aligned with your site’s evolution and maintains visibility in emerging AI-first interfaces.

What’s next?

In a world where fewer people are clicking links, and more answers are being delivered by machines, this is how you stay relevant, visible, and useful. If you're interested in getting this up and running on your own site, we’d be happy to walk you through the approach. With just a few tweaks to the Sitecore Search SDK and some lightweight page templates, you can start generating high-value, AI-optimized content in a matter of days, not months. Reach out if you want to see the code, discuss the setup, or explore how this could fit into your existing Sitecore implementation.