How to keep your SEO skills sharp in an AI-first world
Discovery looks different now. AI is influencing how people find answers, products, and brands – and that shift impacts SEO.
To keep your skills relevant in an increasingly AI-driven world, you need to blend traditional SEO expertise with AI-centered competencies.
The overlap between SEO and GEO skills
SEOs are taking on more GEO responsibilities, thanks to overlapping goals, user behaviors, and skill sets.
Goals
When working in SEO and GEO, you’re likely optimizing for discoverability – that is, making sure your brand appears as an answer or result when users are searching for relevant information, products, or services.
This means that both SEO and GEO focus on improving visibility, increasing relevance, and aligning with user intent.
User behavior
There are clear similarities in user behavior across both types of discovery engines.
In both cases, users are actively looking for something – whether it’s where to buy shoes online, how to compare brands, or which sites are reputable for making a purchase.
They may also be searching for answers to a specific question or trying to get a general overview of a topic.
While there are differences between search engines and LLM platforms, both serve users who are in an active “search” phase, unlike more passive touchpoints such as ads or email marketing.
Skills that overlap
Because the goals and user behavior in LLMs and traditional search engines are similar, there are skills that transfer well between the two.
User intent analysis
In both GEO and SEO, it’s important to understand what your potential audience is using these platforms for.
This means identifying the inputs users provide and the outcomes they hope to achieve. In traditional SEO, we do this through keyword research.
With LLMs, we focus more on prompt topics. While the inputs may differ, the methods for identifying them are similar.
In SEO, we use keyword research tools to find the terms people are searching for, then test those terms to see what results appear and what kind of intent the search engine assigns to each query.
With GEO, the process is much the same. We use software to identify the types of prompts users are entering that return our brand – or our competitors’ – in the results.
We then examine the responses across different LLMs and look for opportunities to improve our online presence so our brand surfaces more effectively.
Content strategy development
LLMs and search engines both prioritize content that is reliable, comprehensive, and accurate when selecting their sources.
Whether you’re creating on-site content to attract organic search traffic or developing off-site content to strengthen your brand’s presence in LLMs, the strategy behind that content is essential.
Fortunately, this is a skill you’ve likely been refining throughout your SEO career.
Technical SEO skills
Just like search engines, LLMs need access to your website’s content.
The technical setup of your site plays a critical role in making that content accessible and understandable.
The same technical SEO skills used to help search bots crawl and interpret your content will continue to be valuable for GEO.
Digital PR skills
Now more than ever, building your brand through digital PR is essential.
Beyond backlinks, how your brand is talked about – and how consistent that messaging is across sources – will matter for GEO.
The skills that made your outreach campaigns successful in traditional SEO will remain vital in this new landscape.
Identifying skills that help with using AI in your SEO workflows
As AI becomes more widely adopted, it’s important to stay current on how it can enhance your SEO workflows.
Automation and efficiency
In the past, SEO automation often required extensive Python skills.
Now, with the rise of AI, many automations are just a few prompts away.
Even if you can “vibe code” your way to building something useful, it’s still essential to understand the limitations and risks of relying on AI for efficiency gains.
The key skill to build here is knowing how to stress-test your automations and understand how they interact with proprietary data.
For example, if you create an automation to streamline your keyword research but don’t test it thoroughly, you might miss critical issues, like it omitting 50% of your keyword data.
Or, if you feed SEO data into an LLM to generate a monthly report, you could inadvertently violate your company’s data security policies.
Prompt engineering
It’s essential to understand how LLMs interpret your inputs and determine the content and format of their outputs.
Prompt engineering is a valuable skill because it helps you structure prompts in ways that produce the level of detail and accuracy you need.
Tool proficiency
Understanding the capabilities and limitations of LLMs is key to using them effectively in your workflows.
Knowing what an LLM can (and can’t) do will save you time by preventing you from chasing outputs it simply can’t deliver.
It will also help you recognize hallucinations and avoid misinterpretations.
Dig deeper: Advanced AI prompt engineering strategies for SEO
GEO-specific skills
Some GEO skills aren’t directly transferable from SEO.
To confidently work across both disciplines, it’s important to understand these GEO-specific capabilities and actively develop them.
Understanding how LLMs work
The mechanics behind LLMs differ significantly from those of search engines, both in:
- How they gather data for their knowledge bases.
- How they identify new information and generate responses.
These systems function differently, and understanding those differences is critical to optimizing for both.
Understanding user behavior in LLMs
User interactions with LLMs aren’t identical to how they use search engines.
Inputs in LLMs tend to be more conversational and specific, and users may have saved history or added context that shapes the query.
This can make each interaction highly unique, even when users are ultimately seeking similar answers.
It’s critical to understand how this impacts prompt analysis and how that process differs from traditional keyword research.
Broad content design
Because of how users interact with LLMs, they may move through the traditional buying journey much faster than through search.
A user might go from describing a problem to discovering solutions, comparing providers, and making a decision – all within minutes, entirely within the LLM.
This means your content strategy must account for every stage of the buying journey – awareness, comparison, purchase, and advocacy – both on and off your site.
That includes making sure your reviews are detailed, comparison articles are accurate, and pricing is current both on your site and across third-party sources.
LLMs draw from many sources, so the risk of misinformation is higher than in traditional SEO, where a brand’s site typically ranks for its own terms.
Consistency of messaging
A key difference lies in how messaging is handled across non-brand websites.
In SEO, the focus has been on avoiding duplication to show unique value.
With LLMs, however, consistency matters more.
While exact duplication isn’t necessary, your core brand message must appear consistently across multiple trusted citation sources so LLMs can accurately reflect it.
Dig deeper: How to integrate GEO with SEO
Staying current in a rapidly evolving industry
Keeping up with the pace of change in SEO and GEO can feel overwhelming, but developing a few intentional habits can make a big difference.
Habitual learning
Build learning into your routine.
That could mean reading one article a day from a trusted source or listening to an SEO/GEO-focused podcast once a week.
Regularly setting aside time to upskill helps ensure you stay ahead of changes without burning out.
Distill information
Right now, simply scrolling through LinkedIn can feel like drinking from a firehose.
Everyone has a hot take on GEO, and there’s no shortage of conflicting advice and debate.
Instead of trying to keep up with everything, curate your inputs. Find a few trusted sources that distill the week’s key conversations.
That way, you’ll engage with vetted, relevant insights during your dedicated learning time without getting buried in noise.
Experimentation mindset
The future of SEO and GEO won’t be static.
The landscape will continue to evolve, and staying effective means staying curious.
SEO has always involved testing strategies to see what works best for a specific site or industry, and that spirit of experimentation remains essential.
Keep an open mind. What works today may not work five years from now, and that’s OK.
Community engagement
Staying sharp also means staying connected.
Go beyond passively scrolling through LinkedIn and engage with the SEO community more intentionally.
Join groups like Women in Tech SEO, attend conferences, and participate in discussions with practitioners you respect.
Building relationships with other SEOs helps you tap into real-world insights and learn which tactics are actually working.
Auditing of workflows
LLM-powered automations continue to open new opportunities for efficiency, but that doesn’t mean your workflows are “done.”
Regularly auditing your processes helps ensure they remain effective, even after AI integration.
There may be more streamlined approaches or new tools better suited for GEO-specific needs.
Staying agile will help you continue to optimize as technology evolves.
Adapting your SEO playbook for the age of LLMs
Think of AI as a collaborator, not a threat. Focus on learning how to use it effectively and keep experimenting.
GEO is a fast-moving offshoot of SEO, and while it represents a significant shift, SEO has never stood still.
You’ve adapted to every change so far.
This shift simply asks for a bit more time, curiosity, and commitment – but it’s still within reach.
