What's the difference between SEO and AI SEO?

It's permanent. ChatGPT gets 100+ million users monthly. Perplexity is growing 20% month-over-month. When people ask these AI tools questions, they cite sources — or they don't cite you at all. Traditional SEO gets you Google rankings. AI SEO gets you cited by AI models when people ask questions in your niche. Miss this, and you're invisible to a massive chunk of search traffic. The good news? Most sites aren't optimizing for AI yet. Get ahead now while it's still easy.

No, but ignoring AI search will kill your traffic growth. People still Google things. But they're also asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude. If your content isn't optimized for both, you're missing half the opportunity.

## The Search Shift Is Already Here Your customers aren't googling anymore. They're asking ChatGPT "What's the best analytics tool for small SaaS companies?" or telling Claude "Find me three marketing automation platforms under $200/month." ## Revenue Impact **Direct pipeline hits** When AI doesn't know you exist, you lose qualified prospects before they even reach your funnel. A prospect asks for recommendations, gets three competitors, never discovers you. **Category positioning** AI models form opinions about market leaders based on training data. If you're absent from quality content discussing your space, you're invisible in the consideration set. **Cost efficiency** One piece of GEO-optimized content can field thousands of prospect questions. Your FAQ page working 24/7 as a sales rep. ## User Experience Wins Prospects get instant, contextual answers instead of sorting through SEO spam. When AI cites your content, it's usually the most relevant snippet - not keyword-stuffed fluff. ## Brand Protection Play Your competitors are already optimizing for AI citations. Every month you wait, they build stronger association with key terms in your space. ## The Measurable Stakes Track these metrics: - AI citation frequency (mentions in ChatGPT/Claude responses) - Referral traffic from AI platforms - Brand recall in AI-generated competitor comparisons ## Your 48-Hour Move Search "[your category] + tools + recommendations" in three AI platforms. Screenshot what comes back. That's your baseline. Missing from results? You've got a GEO problem that's costing you deals right now.