SEO + GEO field guide
SEO and GEO Priorities: What to Fix First
If you are trying to improve both Google rankings and AI-search visibility, you do not need two unrelated content plans. Start with the page a buyer already needs, make sure search systems can access it, then give people a better answer than a generic summary. Here is an order you can actually use.
Published September 17, 2026 · By the AEO Improvement editorial team
1. Choose one real page and one real question
Pick a service, product, or comparison page that matters to your business. Write down the decision a visitor is trying to make. If you have Search Console connected, use the page's existing queries and impressions to distinguish observed demand from a topic you are only guessing about. A prompt simulator can suggest buyer questions, but its prompts are samples, not a record of what customers actually asked an AI assistant.
For a performance marketing agency, the useful question might be: Who manages the campaigns, what platforms are covered, and how will performance be measured? That is more useful than trying to repeat 'best marketing agency' throughout the page.
2. Check whether the page is eligible to be found
Confirm that the page returns successfully, is not blocked by robots.txt or a firewall, has the intended canonical URL, and is eligible for a search snippet. Check the text that appears in the initial HTML or rendered page, not only what you can see after signing in. Then inspect the URL in Search Console when you control the property.
Google says a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode must be indexed and eligible for a Search snippet. Google also says there are no extra technical requirements or special AI markup for those features. Passing these checks creates eligibility, not a promise of indexing, rankings, or citations.
3. Answer the buyer before adding more words
Put a plain answer near the top: what the offer is, who it serves, the main constraint, and the next step. Use headings that match the decisions buyers make. Remove introductions that delay the answer and sections that restate common advice without helping someone choose.
Cyrus Shepard's Zyppy Signal work on Content Effort is a useful lens here: a page shows effort through visible curation, original information, evidence of how work was done, helpful placement, and informed judgment. That is expert guidance, not a confirmed Google scoring formula.
4. Add evidence a reader can inspect
Show a real process, a worked example, a product constraint, a screenshot you own, a documented test, or a first-party observation. Explain when the example applies and where it does not. Do not invent a statistic, imply a client result without permission, or put a fresh date on old analysis without reviewing it.
Zyppy Signal's September 2026 survey of more than 130 experts rated crawl eligibility, question-answer fit, specific facts, and first-party information highly for Google AI visibility. These are practitioners' beliefs about what matters, not a disclosure of Google's ranking systems.
5. Make the next useful page easy to reach
Link the page to a relevant pricing explanation, methodology, example, or comparison. A link should help the reader continue the task, not exist to hit an anchor-text quota. If a related question serves the same visitor decision, improve the existing page first. Create a separate guide only when the intent is different and you have something genuinely useful to add.
Off your site, keep core brand facts consistent in profiles you control and seek legitimate mentions where your audience already learns. Do not buy endorsements or create fake reviews to make a brand look established.
6. Record the change, then watch the right signals
Write down the page, change date, and what you expected to improve. Search Console can show page and query clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position. Controlled keyword tracking can show movement for a chosen location and device. AI prompt tests can show what happened in that sample. Keep these separate because they measure different things.
A ranking or citation change after an edit is an observation, not proof the edit caused it. Check the page again, compare a sensible time window, and keep making useful changes.
Put this to work on one page
Run a baseline audit, choose one relevant SEO or GEO action, and record what you changed. You decide what to publish on your site.
Start a free website auditSources and credit
Expert surveys and correlations are not confirmed ranking factors or promises of results.