@gaetano_nyc Β·
Iβve spent the last 18 months doing AI SEO / GEO / AEO for B2B SaaS companies... and here's the 10 biggest things I've learned: 1. Most companies do not have an "AEO problem." Most do not have an unfixable technical SEO problem either. They have a positioning, category alignment, and market validation problem. 2. I've spent too many hours in meetings explaining how the old-world SEO model is dying (clicks and rankings) and the new model is about being selected for AI-powered answer recommendations. 3. Brand selection depends on whether the market, your website, your customers, and third-party sources all tell the same story about why your brand belongs in the answer. This is not about llms.txt or paragraph chunking. 4. Bulldozing your way to the top with listicles and backlinks may help you rank, but not get recommended. Especially if your brand doesn't belong in that category. 5. The best AEO strategy starts with positioning and category alignment. Here is the proper diagnostic framework for: βWhat's our AEO strategy?β Do we have clear product positioning? Do we have messaging that's aligned to the category? Does the website make our category alignment obvious? Do we have a BOFU content strategy aligned with the desired category? Do we have an external authority gap? 6. AI referral traffic is negligible for most B2B SaaS companies. For most of the companies I work with: ChatGPT / Perplexity / Gemini / Claude, etc. is a tiny fraction compared to Google. It's common to see a range of 5% (AI) vs 95% (Google). Why? Because AI SEO eliminates top of funnel, whereas traditional SEO sends mostly informational traffic. 7. Visitor to page conversion rates from AI referral traffic tend to be higher than traditional Google traffic. This is because of personalization, long-tail BOFU intent, and the elimination of TOFU intent. 8. There's a "Dark SEO" funnel emerging where buyers are shortlisting vendor options with AI search, verifying the brands they want to evaluate with Google search, and then converting directly on the website from branded search much later in the buying process. 9. Off-site authority matters, but the GEO vendor claims are getting out of control. I'm skeptical on things like: β90% of AI visibility comes from third-party sources.β etc. Claims like these are confusing and pulled out of context. This causes marketers to have the wrong reactions and think irrationally. 10. Buying AEO tools is not a strategy. I have personally worked with companies that purchased AEO tools with no strategy in-place. The mere fact that a tool was purchased only buys them time with the board... "we're working on it" ... but it's not a real strategy. Bonus: There's a "research" study out there which fits any narrative you want to push. Be wary. And be skeptical.
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