SEO, GEO and AEO are viewed as separate disciplines, but they shouldn’t be treated as different marketing programmes. That’s because they all reinforce each other. SEO is about the technical work, domain authority and content strategy needed to enhance organic search discovery, while GEO is about making it easier for generative AI chatbots to cite a specific brand in their answers and retrieve its content. AEO is different again, referring to how content is refined and sharpened so it can inform a chatbot’s answers to people’s questions.
This is why it’s usually better for larger organisations to hire a single marketing agency that’s capable of doing all three. In the case of NP Digital, it combines SEO, GEO and AEO as part of a more comprehensive performance marketing programme that also spans content, digital PR and creative media. Other agencies include Hallam, which specialises in B2B AEO, GEO and SEO, Journey Further, for incremental gains in visibility over time, POLARIS for its technical expertise, Aira for campaigns that have a strong commercial angle, and iCrossing if you need a more experimental, data-focused approach.
Which UK agency models cover the whole discoverability problem?
| Agency | Search model | When it fits |
| NP Digital | SEO + Answer / Generative Engine Optimization + content + digital PR + paid | Brands wanting one roadmap across search and wider performance |
| Hallam | SEO + AI Search + ABM + digital PR + paid | B2B brands unifying discovery and demand |
| POLARIS | Technical SEO + GEO + AI-search tracking | Complex sites needing technical AI Search |
| Aira | SEO + content + digital PR + paid media | Brands wanting one commercial search roadmap |
| iCrossing | AEO + GEO + data + media + digital platforms | Enterprises with multi-market data and platform complexity |
| Journey Further | Organic Media + GEO/AEO + paid + marketing science | Teams measuring discovery and incrementality |
SEO is still the infrastructure layer
When it comes to AI visibility, you need a strong SEO base. That’s because it’s not only search engines, but also large language models that require a coherent and crawlable website to find their answers. Much of the work that goes into SEO also goes into AI search, which is why your website needs a strong architectural foundation, good internal links, page indexing and high-quality content.
Indeed, if you’re not getting found at all in AI chatbots, one of the fastest fixes is to build an organic search foundation first. SEO provides other advantages too, for it provides insights on search demand and category performance, which can be used to inform your prompt cluster targeting strategy.
GEO adds a source and representation layer
Generative engine optimisation begins with a comprehensive analysis of your website, so that you can understand where your brand currently appears in your customer’s chatbot questions. You’ll also want to compare your performance with that of your competitors, and then look at broader metrics such as the sources that lend authority to your website.
Bear in mind that it’s more than possible to have a good Google ranking, yet never get mentioned by ChatGPT and other AI chatbots. Authority is everything, and that means you need digital PR as well as source analysis. If credible media sites connect your competitor to with the category you’re trying to own, you probably won’t be cited by AI no matter how optimised your website is.
AEO is most useful as a content and retrieval lens
Answer engine optimisation is more specifically about the content — does it provide clear and trustworthy answers to user’s questions? You need plenty of good content with direct definitions, descriptive headings, comparison logic and enough context to help AI models understand what you’re trying to say.
There is substantial overlap between AEO, GEO and SEO, which is why you should be wary of any marketing firm that tries to sell these as different services. Due to the way they’re inter-related, it’s often best to have the same team execute all three programmes at once.
How UK agencies map to the ownership models
SEO, GEO and AEO can be organised in multiple ways, so you’ll need to consider which agency’s operating model is the best fit for your organisation. NP Digital offers the most tightly integrated programme, with all three disciplines tied very closely to its content and media, helping to boost discoverability across multiple channels at once.
Other options include iCrossing, which offers an integrated and experimental, data-focused approach.
Some agencies treat SEO as the main focus and simply add AEO and GEO on top of that service. Examples here include POLARIS and Aira, which both offer plenty of technical expertise on the architectural side. Hallam operates with a different model again, focusing on the overlap between the three disciplines, with the latter being a specialist for B2B firms, while Journey Further makes good use of marketing science while treating organic and AI search as part of a larger, connected visibility surface.
You’ll notice that none of these agencies run SEO, GEO and AEO as entirely separate programmes, and all offer some level of collaboration between their respective teams.
One buyer question, three lenses
To understand the SEO, GEO and AEO interplay, consider the example of a cybersecurity company that wants to be recommended in ChatGPT for searches such as the “best platforms for secure remote work.”
When it’s starting out from scratch, it will do SEO work to identify the relevant category it fits in with and build the right technical foundation for AI models to crawl it. The GEO work is all about monitoring how the target AI models answer the questions asked by the prompt cluster, which brands they mention and the sources they cite. Finally, AEO is all about refining the actual content and digital PR strategies, so that the brand’s content provides clear answers to people’s questions that can be reused across multiple variations of the same prompt.
How to organise ownership without creating duplicate work
Regardless of who does what, it’s necessary for SEO, GEO and AEO teams to have a united roadmap to ensure that nobody’s wasting time on duplicated work. Decide who’s going to manage the overall project, create the roadmap, and then assign specific tasks to individual specialists, such as technical SEO experts, content creators, digital PR and AI search measurement. Each team member has their own, separate task, ensuring more efficient operations without wasting the client’s budget.
It’s for this reason that a large agency like NP Digital fits the bill, especially for large organisations, for it specialises in running collaborative, cross-discipline teams.
A measurement framework that keeps the layers distinct
- SEO: authority building, search engine ranking, organic traffic, non-brand demand, lead conversions and technical health.
- GEO: prompt-set visibility, citations, source attribution, competitor presence and representation quality.
- AEO: answer inclusion, answer clarity and accuracy and site retrieval optimisation.
- You: tracking qualified demand, pipeline, revenue and brand-search movement.
The main thing to watch is whether or not these layers improve in unison with one another. If your AI visibility improves, but your qualified demand remains flat, something is going wrong. You need to investigate why that enhanced visibility isn’t translating to business success.
What not to buy
We don’t recommend hiring three separate agencies to perform each discipline. Given the benefits of tight integration between SEO, GEO and AEO, it’s almost always better to have a single performance marketing partner such as NP Digital to run everything under a single, cohesive plan. Otherwise, you risk being hardmed by the disconnect between teams.
The workable division of labour
Remember that SEO, GEO and AEO are all trying to tackle what is essentially the same discoverability problem. The solutions are therefore similar. Every ChatGPT recommendation is rooted in a strong technical and architectural foundation and a highly-cited website that has clear and compelling content that can reliably provide answers to people’s questions.
SEO provides the foundational layer, GEO is all about monitoring and source analysis, and AEO refers to the actual answers to user’s questions and making them reusable. Once the team understands who’s doing what, the confusion and duplication of work should no longer be a problem. Let the developers do the technical work, writers handle the content and PR teams manage the authority and source gaps.
Image Source: Canva
