Key Takeaway: Your GEO should build on top of your SEO strategy. Let’s break down what changes and what stays the same.
NB: This is an article from Cogwheel, one of our Expert Partners
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This blog was written as of Jul 16, 2025, and we will try to keep it updated as we learn more.
1. Unique Selling Points and Differentiators
This still matters. Clearly define your unique selling points and differentiators. If you were doing this right for SEO before, this is still important to GEO.
2. Content
Content is still king. Focus on content accuracy across all channels and lean into amenities.
Be specific! Instead of vague content like “convenient to” say “xx blocks/miles from y”. You want to give the LLM the best response to questions people may ask, so it serves up your content and your site as a source, just like with Google PAA (People Also Ask) and rich snippets.
To ensure AI can easily read your content, consider an LLM Site Map for vanity sites and independent hotels. You can also update robots.txt to explicitly allow common AI Crawlers, like this one : https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Razib-Marketing/AI-Search-Resources/refs/heads/main/robots.txt
3. Citations vs Backlinks
Where SEO was all about the backlinks, GEO is all about the citations over backlinks.
Since the anchor text and URL don’t matter as much for GEO, there is even more reason to lean into PR and Influencers.
4. Who is the Source of Truth?
Remember, LLMs have to learn from somewhere!
Top ranked organic pages yield top sources in AI. While Google has been focusing on zero click searches for a while, organic traffic will continue to decrease. While AI is gradually influencing search, we also see search influencing AI.
So, ask various LLMs questions about your hotel. If you don’t like the answer, ask it why it thinks that or where it learned that and its sources, then try to fix the core source, or try to educate the LLM.
5. UCG (User Generated Content)
While reviews themselves didn’t matter in direct ranking for SEO, they certainly mattered when it comes to hotel conversions. But, customer feedback platforms and user generated content definitely influence GEO.
Lots of sources are used like TripAdvisor, Reddit, and social channels to provide answers. Continue to ask guests to leave reviews, without violating any guidelines. Keep up the posts, videos and shorts on social media.
While Reddit is sourced exponentially in AI, there are several lawsuits where Reddit has claimed that Anthropic continues to access its platform after allegedly saying it had blocked its bots from doing so.
