Google is no longer the only place people search. Here are the six optimisation strategies that decide whether your business gets found — what each one means, which platforms it works on, and which you should start with.
For about twenty years, "getting found online" meant one thing: rank on Google. That single assumption shaped how every business spent its marketing budget. It is no longer true, and the change happened faster than most companies adjusted to.
People now search inside ChatGPT, on Instagram, through Siri, and on YouTube. Each of those surfaces decides what to show using entirely different rules, and none of them work the way a search engine results page works. Six distinct optimisation strategies have grown up around that fragmentation. Most businesses know one of them.
Why one strategy turned into six
Two shifts caused this, and understanding them makes the rest of the article obvious.
The first was the zero-click answer. Google began answering questions directly on the results page — featured snippets, knowledge panels, local packs. Voice assistants took this further: ask Siri for the nearest pharmacy and it reads out one answer. No list, no click, no website visit. Suddenly ranking well was not the same as being found, because there was nothing to click.
The second was generative AI. When someone asks ChatGPT or Gemini for a recommendation, the model does not return ten links. It composes an answer and mentions a handful of names. Being one of those names is worth more than a first-page ranking, and it is earned in a completely different way — through content depth and citation, not keywords and backlinks.
Each new surface did not replace the last. They stacked. That is why you now need six strategies instead of one, and why they have to be sequenced rather than attempted all at once.
The six strategies, and what each one actually requires
Listed oldest to newest, because each depends on the ones before it.
1. SEO — Search Engine Optimization
When you Google something and click a result, that is SEO. It runs on keywords, site speed and links from trusted sites.
It is the foundation of the building — everything else is built on top. Skip it and none of the other five will work, and the reason is mechanical rather than philosophical: AI systems and voice assistants discover content through the same crawled, indexed web that search engines use. A model cannot cite a page it never found. An assistant cannot read out an answer that was never indexed. If your site is slow, blocked, or structurally unreadable, the newer strategies have nothing to work with.
The work involved: crawlable site architecture, one clear page per topic, fast Core Web Vitals, schema markup, an XML sitemap, and content that answers a real query rather than decorating a keyword.
How you know it is working: impressions and average position in Google Search Console, moving over weeks rather than days.
Works on: Google, Bing, Yahoo. Who needs it: everyone, no exceptions.
2. AEO — Answer Engine Optimization
Someone asks Siri "best bakery near me" and gets a direct answer without opening a website. AEO is how your business becomes that answer.
The mechanics are less mysterious than they sound. Answer engines look for content already shaped like an answer: a clear question, followed by a direct response in the first sentence or two, in plain language. That is why FAQ sections punch so far above their weight — they are the only part of a typical website written in that shape.
What actually gets picked up: answer the question in the first 40–50 words, before any caveats. Use the question as the heading, phrased the way a person would say it out loud ("How much does a website cost?" rather than "Website pricing"). Mark it up with FAQPage schema so the structure is explicit. Keep one question to one answer.
The trade-off nobody mentions: winning a zero-click answer often means no visit. You gain the brand mention and lose the session. For a local business being named as the answer is the whole point; for a publisher selling ad impressions it is a genuine loss.
Works on: Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, featured snippets. Who needs it: local businesses, restaurants, clinics.
3. GEO — Generative Engine Optimization
Ask ChatGPT "what's the best project tool?" and some brands get mentioned. Most do not. GEO is how you earn that mention, and it costs nothing but content.
The model reads your content, forms a view on whether it can be trusted, and then recommends you inside its answers. What it rewards is very different from what classic SEO rewards. Keyword density is irrelevant. What matters is whether a passage can be lifted out and stand on its own as a correct, specific, attributable statement.
What that means in practice: write in extractable passages — a claim, then the evidence, in a single self-contained paragraph. Be specific enough to be checkable ("4 to 6 weeks for a standard business website" beats "fast turnaround"). Cover a topic completely rather than publishing five thin posts around it. Say the quiet parts: limitations, trade-offs and when your approach is the wrong one. Models weight balanced sources more heavily than promotional ones.
How you know it is working: ask the models directly. Query ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude for the phrases a customer would use, and note whether you appear. Repeat monthly. It is crude, but it is the only honest measurement available right now.
Works on: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude. Who needs it: SaaS, coaches, agencies, e-commerce.
4. LLMO — Large Language Model Optimization
Here is the distinction that matters most, and the one most often collapsed: GEO means AI finds you when asked. LLMO means AI already knows who you are.
It is the difference between a restaurant your friend just knows is great and one they had to look up. The first is recall; the second is retrieval. Recall comes from being written about, referenced and quoted across the wider web, consistently enough that your name and your subject become associated in the model's weights.
That is why LLMO cannot be bought or rushed. It is built through original research, real data and content other people cite — the things that make other sites mention you without being asked. Slowest of the six to build, and the only one a competitor cannot copy in a quarter.
Realistic expectation: this is a multi-year play, and for most small businesses it is a by-product of doing GEO well for long enough rather than a separate project.
Who needs it: brands, thought leaders, publishers.
5. AIO — AI Optimization
AEO, GEO and LLMO are three separate strategies. AIO says: run all three from one plan.
The value here is organisational rather than technical. Treat every AI surface as its own project and you end up with a team rewriting the same content four times for four platforms, never finishing any of them. AIO is the recognition that the underlying requirements overlap almost completely — clear structure, extractable passages, genuine depth, consistent facts about who you are.
Write once against those requirements and you are simultaneously serving voice assistants, generative engines and model memory. That is the whole idea: one content plan that works across every AI platform, the way a single content plan already works across Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Who needs it: brands planning for the next five years.
6. SXO — Search Experience Optimization
You rank number one. Someone clicks. Your site is slow. They leave in three seconds. SEO got them there; SXO makes them stay.
This is the one businesses skip, and it is the one that costs them money directly. Every other strategy on this list spends effort getting a person to your page. SXO decides whether that effort converts into anything.
What it covers: load speed and Core Web Vitals, a layout that puts the answer where the eye lands, navigation that does not require a decision, mobile-first design, and a path to enquiry that takes one step rather than four. Traffic with no conversions is just an expensive vanity number.
There is a feedback loop worth knowing about: the behavioural signals SXO improves — people staying, scrolling, not bouncing straight back — are signals search engines themselves use. Fixing SXO tends to lift SEO as a side effect.
Who needs it: online stores, service businesses, SaaS.
A realistic sequence, not a checklist
Nobody does six at once. This is the order that actually works, with roughly what each stage costs in effort.
Stage one — fix the foundation (weeks 1–4). Technical SEO and SXO together, because they share the same fixes. Speed, mobile layout, crawlability, clean URLs, schema, sitemap. Unglamorous, and everything downstream depends on it.
Stage two — become the answer (weeks 4–8). Add AEO. Write a real FAQ for each core service, in the phrasing customers use, with FAQPage schema. This is the highest return per hour of work on the entire list.
Stage three — earn the citation (ongoing, months 2–12). GEO. One genuinely deep piece per topic beats ten shallow ones. Publish the specifics competitors keep vague — prices, timelines, what you will not do.
Stage four — compound it (year 2 onward). LLMO, as the accumulated result of stage three, plus original data nobody else has. Run the whole thing under one AIO plan so you are not repeating work.
The four mistakes we see most
Chasing GEO on a broken foundation. Businesses publish AI-targeted content on a site that loads in nine seconds and has no schema. The model never reliably reads it. Fix the foundation first.
Mistaking volume for depth. Twenty 400-word posts perform worse for AI citation than three 1,500-word ones. Generative engines are looking for the most complete treatment of a topic, not the most frequent.
Writing for the model instead of the reader. Keyword-stuffed, AI-shaped filler is easy to detect and increasingly discounted. Every strategy here is downstream of content a human would actually want to read.
Ignoring SXO because the traffic graph looks healthy. Rising sessions with flat enquiries is not a success story. It is a conversion problem being funded by a marketing budget.
Where to start, based on your situation
- No online presence yet → Start with SEO
- Already ranking on Google → Add AEO + GEO
- Want AI to know your brand → Work on LLMO
- Getting traffic but no sales → Fix with SXO
- Want to be visible across all AI search → Adopt the AIO mindset
The part that does not change
Underneath all six strategies sit the same two requirements: a technically sound website, and content worth citing. Every acronym on this list is a different way of rewarding those two things.
That is genuinely good news, because it means the work is cumulative rather than fragmented. A fast, well-structured site with honest, specific, complete content will be found by Google, read aloud by Siri, cited by ChatGPT and remembered by the models — without six separate budgets.
The groundwork sits in website development: speed, structure, schema and the crawlability everything else is built on. The content depth is the part that takes time, and there is no shortcut for it.
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