GEO vs AEO vs SEO: The Author’s Guide to All Three (And Which One to Start With)
By Alexa Bigwarfe
If you’re like me, you may have read this headline and thought… good grief. I just figured out what SEO is and now there’s two more terms? SEO, GEO, AEO. “Are these the same thing? Different things? Do I actually need to care about all three?” AND WHY?? I just want to write my books!
The short answer is yes, they’re different, and yes, you need to care. But not all at once, and being aware of them is the first step. Once you know what we’re talking about, it’s entirely up to you as to if you care about them.
GEO vs AEO vs SEO. I’m going to walk you through what each one actually means, how they relate to each other, and the order I’d recommend an author tackle them. (Again, IF you care about showing up in search engine results and / or AI tools.)
Let’s get to it!
The Three Acronyms Defined
Before we dig in, here are some brief definitions:
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization): getting your content found by traditional search engines like Google.
- GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): getting your content found and indexed by AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode.
- AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): structuring your content so AI tools actually quote it, not just find it.
For anyone looking for more discovery, both on the interwebs or through AI channels, or blogging, or the experts in the crowd who want to be quoted/cited in AI answers, it’s important you take note.
Here’s each one matters.
SEO: The One You Already Sort of Know
SEO has been the dominant conversation in marketing for the last twenty years. The basic idea is simple. When someone types a question into Google, Google’s algorithm decides which web pages to show first. SEO is the practice of making your pages the ones that get shown.
For authors, SEO has always meant things like:
- Writing blog posts that show up when people are searching for those topics
- Writing lists and articles like: The 5 Best Holiday Romance Books of 2025
- Using clear, descriptive titles and headings
- Filling in metadata (title tag, meta description, image alt text)
- Following good SEO protocol (keywords in text, alt images, headlines, linking to other posts, etc)
If you’ve ever used the free YOAST (I love!) or Rank Math (my new favorite tool!) plugins on WordPress and watched it turn from red to yellow to green as you optimized a post, you’ve been doing SEO.
Here’s what’s true about SEO in 2026: it still matters. Google is still the largest single source of search traffic in the world. People still type questions into Google. Google still sends readers to author websites. Don’t throw out SEO with the bathwater.
But it’s no longer the only sheriff in town.
GEO: The Foundation Layer
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. Same family as SEO, but the target is different. Instead of optimizing for Google’s algorithm, you’re optimizing for the AI tools readers are using to find books and all sorts of other information.
Here’s the shift: readers are increasingly skipping Google and going straight to ChatGPT or Claude or Perplexity. Instead of typing “best fantasy romance 2026” into a search bar and scrolling through ten blog posts, they’re asking the AI directly:
“Recommend a fantasy romance with a slow burn, a found family, and a stubborn heroine who softens by the end.”
The AI gives them a specific list of books with reasoning. The reader picks one. Done. Time saved.
If your books and your author presence aren’t findable by those AI tools, you simply won’t appear in those answers. And here’s the kicker: most authors are completely invisible to AI right now. Their websites aren’t crawlable, their content is too thin, their schema isn’t set up, and their book descriptions are written in author-language instead of reader-language. (If this whole paragraph feels like alien language, I’ve got an entire catalog of posts on GEO and AEO plus a free GEO Audit to cover the basics.)
GEO is the work of making sure the AI can find you in the first place. It covers things like:
- Your author website actually exists and has crawlable content on it (ie, there are posts and content available to be indexed)
- AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended) are allowed to index your site
- You have at least a handful of evergreen blog posts that mention your name, your books, and your niche
- Your book descriptions use the language readers actually search with, not the way you talk about your work at a dinner party
- Your name shows up consistently across your website, your Amazon pages, your social profiles, your podcast interviews, and any guest articles
GEO is the foundation. It’s the layer that says, I exist, I’m real, and there’s content out there about me that you can use.
If GEO isn’t in place, nothing else works. The AI can’t quote what it can’t find.
Trust me, I know. I made sure to ask ChatGPT a number of questions I hoped would return info about my expertise and my books but not using names specifically, and I did not get the results I wanted. Which is why I began this entire process of research and content and developing frameworks to help YOU if you want to be found.
AEO: The Layer on Top
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization. This is where it gets a little more sophisticated, and where most authors haven’t caught up yet.
GEO gets you into the index. AEO gets you into the answer.
Here’s the distinction. A reader asks ChatGPT “What’s a good cozy mystery with a bookshop setting?” and the AI now has thousands of indexed pages to draw from. Why does it pick your book? Why does it pick your sentence to quote? Why does it credit you as the source?
Or even better, if you’re a nonfiction author (coach, thought leader, business consultant, etc) and the question is asked: How do I start a daily meditation practice?” and you’ve got content that is friendly to indexing, your information will come back in the search results.
The answer is: because your content was structured in a way that made it easy to extract.
AEO is about writing and structuring content so AI engines can pull specific answers from it. That includes:
- Extractable first paragraphs: answering the question in the first 80 words, not burying the point under three paragraphs of warmup
- Question-structured headings: using actual questions as your H2s and H3s, because AI loves to match its answer to the question shape
- Quote-worthy elements: short, declarative sentences and clean lists that AI can lift cleanly into its output
- A solid schema stack: the right markup so AI knows whether your page is an Article, a FAQ, a HowTo, a Book, an About page, or something else entirely
- Open AI crawler access: which, yes, also sits in GEO territory, but matters here too because AEO depends on the page being readable in the first place
If GEO is the foundation, AEO is the framing. Both layers are required for the house to stand.
GEO vs AEO vs SEO Where They Overlap (And Where They Don’t)
Here’s a way to picture it.
Imagine three concentric circles. The outer circle is SEO, the broadest. The middle circle is GEO, narrower. The inner circle is AEO, the most specific.
SEO is being findable by search engines in general. GEO is being findable by AI specifically. AEO is being quotable by AI in a specific answer.
Some practices serve all three at once. A well-written blog post with clear headings, real reader language, internal links, and good metadata helps SEO, GEO, and AEO simultaneously. That’s why so much of the work compounds.
“But Which One Do I Actually Start With?”
Here’s my recommended order.
Start with GEO. Specifically, run the free GEO Audit for Authors so you can see where you stand. This is the foundation. Skip it and the rest of the work has nothing to stand on.
The GEO Audit walks you through four steps:
- AI discovery test: open ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode and search for yourself. What comes back?
- Author website fundamentals: is the site even there, is it crawlable, does it have content?
- Content quality: are you publishing content the AI can use, or just a “buy my book” page?
- Reader language: are you describing your work the way readers search, or the way you think about it? Are you creating content that people are searching for?
It takes about 20 minutes and gives you a score out of 24, plus a list of what to fix first.
Grab the free GEO Audit for Authors here →
Once you’ve done the foundation work, then move to AEO. That’s the layer that turns your indexed pages into quoted pages. The full system for that is the AEO Author Audit Framework, which I’ve walked through in detail in the pillar post here.
And alongside both? Keep doing solid SEO. Don’t abandon Google. Keep your titles clear, your headings smart, your meta descriptions sharp, your internal links healthy. SEO compounds. It still drives meaningful traffic.
The order, plainly:
- GEO foundation (the audit, then fix what you find)
- AEO structure (the framework, applied to your top pages)
- SEO ongoing (the practice you keep doing forever)
Common Questions
Are GEO and AEO the same thing?
They’re related but distinct. GEO is about being findable by AI. AEO is about being quotable by AI. You need GEO before AEO works, and you need both for your books to actually show up in AI-generated answers.
Is SEO dead?
No. Google still drives massive volumes of traffic. SEO didn’t die. It just got a new sibling. If anything, the work you’ve already done on SEO gives you a head start on GEO and AEO, because all three reward clear writing, smart structure, and real reader language.
Do I need to know any code to do this?
For GEO, almost none. Most of the work is content and audit-level. For AEO, there’s a small technical layer (schema markup) that the free Rank Math plugin handles for you on WordPress. You can do this without being a developer.
How fast will I see results?
GEO foundations show up within a few weeks of being indexed. AEO citations (where AI actually quotes you by name) typically take 60 to 90 days of consistent work. SEO has always been a long game, and that hasn’t changed.
What if I write fiction? Does AI even recommend fiction?
Yes, more than you’d think. Readers ask AI for fiction recommendations constantly. “Books like X”, “slow-burn fantasy romance”, “cozy mysteries with bookshops”, all of it. Fiction authors actually have a strong advantage in AEO because comparison-style questions (“what’s similar to…”) are exactly the kind AI loves to answer.
Three Things to Do Right Now
If you take nothing else from this post, do these three things this week:
1. Search yourself in ChatGPT or Claude today. Type in “Tell me about [your name]” and “Recommend books like [your book title].” Note what comes back. That’s your baseline.
2. Download the GEO Audit. It takes about 20 minutes and tells you exactly where you stand on the foundation. Get it here →
3. Read the first sentence of your book description. Does it sound like something a reader would search for, or like how you talk about your book? If it’s the second one, that’s the first thing to rewrite.
The acronyms will keep multiplying. Marketing always does this. But the core work hasn’t really changed: write content readers actually want, structure it clearly, make sure it’s findable, and keep showing up. Whether the tool checking your work is Google or ChatGPT, the underlying job is the same.
Start with the audit. See where you stand. Take the next step.
You’ve got this.
Alexa Bigwarfe is a book marketing consultant, host of the Women in Publishing Summit, and founder of Write|Publish|Sell. She helps authors build real readerships, not just launch spikes. Explore more book marketing resources at writepublishsell.com/category/market.
