SEO, AEO, GEO & AIO

Search optimisation is now four jobs, not one. Classic SEO still matters — but a meaningful share of high-intent queries now happen inside AI assistants, generative search and answer engines that don't always send clicks. The work is to be cited, not just ranked. We run all four — SEO, AEO, GEO and AIO — as one programme under brand and policy guardrails, with senior strategists owning the editorial and entity decisions.

What each acronym actually means

Why this matters now

Search has fragmented. Search Engine Land has tracked 20-40% drops in organic clicks for informational queries across multiple verticals through 2024-2025 — the AI assistant intermediates the click. The traffic is still happening; it just doesn't always reach your site directly.

Three responses to this:

1. Optimise for the surfaces where users now arrive — AI assistants, answer boxes, generative search results — by being the cited source in the synthesis.
2. Reallocate content investment toward decision-stage and bottom-funnel pages (where AI search is less disintermediating) and away from informational top-of-funnel content (where it is).
3. Strengthen brand and direct/branded search demand so the traffic AI search creates flows to your branded queries rather than to competitors.

Doing one without the others is incomplete. The programme runs all three.

How the work runs

What we publish vs what we don't

The March 2026 Google update on scaled content abuse made the right side of this table actively penalised. We've been operating on the left side from the beginning — see our AI marketing readiness playbook for the broader principle.

How performance is measured

Search programmes don't have a single ROAS number — they have leading indicators that compound into commercial outcome over a 6-18 month horizon. We track:

• Classic SEO: Search Console impressions + clicks + average position by topic cluster, organic share of total traffic, ranking trend on commercial-intent queries
• AEO: featured snippet appearance rate on target queries, voice assistant answer rate where measurable
• GEO: appearance rate in Google AI Overviews and Bing Copilot results, citation share within AI synthesis
• AIO: brand mention volume and sentiment in AI assistant responses (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini), citation share when users ask category questions
• Commercial: organic-attributed pipeline, organic-attributed revenue, blended ROAS contribution from organic

The dashboard surfaces all of these in one view, updated continuously. Senior strategists review monthly to make the editorial and entity decisions the programme's trajectory needs.

What it costs

Search programmes are typically priced as a fixed monthly retainer rather than a percentage of media (since there's no media spend to scale against). Pricing varies by content velocity and the depth of technical work needed:

• Maintenance / consolidation programmes (existing content, optimisation focus): from £4,500/month
• Growth programmes (active content production at 2-4 pieces/week, technical work, entity building): £8,000-£18,000/month
• Brand-authority programmes (extensive original research, multi-author editorial team, citation outreach, AI-surface visibility work): £15,000-£35,000/month

Use the cost calculator below to compare against your current setup — or against the cost of paid search at the same monthly investment level.

Where this service wins

• Businesses building 12-24 month brand authority — search compounds; the work done in month 3 pays out in month 18
• Sectors where considered-purchase decisions involve research (B2B services, SaaS, healthcare, financial services, professional services)
• Brands with substantive expertise to publish — original frameworks, proprietary data, named expert voices that AI assistants can cite
• Operations where direct/branded search already gets meaningful traffic (suggests there's brand demand to capture in AI assistant answers too)

Where it doesn't fit

• Businesses needing immediate quarter-over-quarter pipeline — search investment doesn't replace paid acquisition for short-cycle outcome
• Brands with no expertise to publish or no original perspective on their category — content velocity alone doesn't earn citations
• Operations unwilling to invest in named-author E-E-A-T (real bylines, real bios, verifiable identity) — anonymous content is structurally disadvantaged in 2026

Read deeper on this

• What is an AI-powered marketing agency? — the pillar definition that positions search inside the wider model.
• AI marketing readiness: the complete operational playbook — the foundations work that needs to be in place before search investment compounds.
• Why your CAC is climbing — and what to do about it — the AI search disintermediation force that makes this work essential.

Sources and further reading

• Search Engine Land — coverage of AI search — ongoing coverage of AI search impact and best practice.
• Google — Search Central documentation — Google's official guidance on technical SEO, structured data and content quality.
• McKinsey — The state of AI — research on AI's impact on consumer information-seeking behaviour.