Most likely, the person who asked you doesn’t actually know what GEO is. Let’s say it’s a senior board member, so we’re all visualizing the same person, hearing the same intonation. They heard about it at an event, or maybe they saw people squabbling about it on the LinkedIn echo chamber, so now they know just enough to know it’s important, but not enough to speak to it with any level of confidence.

Which puts you in an interesting spot. Because maybe you don’t know either. Maybe you’ve told yourself you’ll dig into it when you have time.

Well, now you’re here. And I’ll guide you through it. After you read this, you’re going to sound super duper smart the next time you’re asked about GEO.

What is GEO?

Definitionally, Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of optimizing your content and digital presence so that AI-powered search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overviews) surface, cite and synthesize your brand when generating responses to user queries.

In human speak, GEO is SEO for AI tools.

It’s possible you’ve heard the term AIO (Artificial Intelligence Optimization), which is the same thing as GEO. Neither are creatively named, but the consensus seems to be that GEO is what we’re going with. As you see in the Google Trends report below, GEO (shown in red) has won the title.

Whereas SEO earns you a position in a ranked list of links, GEO earns you a mention inside the actual answer a person reads within their AI tool of choice.

Instead of a blue underline or a click of a link, your brand is woven into the response as a credible source, or not woven in at all. A growing number of organizations are in the second category and haven’t figured that out yet.

Where Did GEO Come From?

GEO didn’t emerge from a clever agency rebrand or a LinkedIn thought leader in need of content. It emerged from a real and disorienting gap that SEO practitioners began to notice as AI search tools matured and spread.

As ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s generative features began handling a serious volume of informational queries, marketers and SEOs found themselves confronting an uncomfortable reality: strong organic rankings weren’t translating into visibility in AI-generated responses.

A brand could hold a dominant position on page one of Google for a competitive keyword and still be completely absent from the AI answer a prospective customer received about that same category. The usual playbook wasn’t covering the new field.

Researchers at Princeton, Georgia Tech, and IIT Delhi were among the first to formalize what practitioners were already sensing in the field, publishing rigorous academic work that coined the term and began mapping the specific content signals that influence AI citation behavior. The terminology stuck, outlasting the aforementioned AIO, and the practitioner community organized around it, and GEO has been developing as a distinct discipline ever since.

GEO vs. SEO: What’s the Difference?

SEO and GEO share enough surface-level vocabulary that it’s easy to assume they’re the same mannequin, simply sporting different fits. While they’re related disciplines, they possess meaningfully different mechanics, objectives, and success metrics.

SEO optimizes for ranking algorithms that evaluate pages and return an ordered list of results. The user sees that list and decides where to click. GEO optimizes for generative AI systems that read across many sources, synthesize a response, and hand the user an answer. The user reads that answer, often without visiting any website at all. In SEO, winning means a position. In GEO, winning means inclusion in the output.

The practical takeaway is that strategic SEO remains a worthwhile investment and builds real infrastructure that GEO strategy can extend. But organizations treating these disciplines as interchangeable are optimizing for a version of search that handles a shrinking share of the queries that matter most.

Getting back to my hypothetical in the introduction, whoever asked you about GEO is right. You need to have a plan, and that plan cannot be a carbon copy of your SEO strategy.

How Generative Engines Work

Generative AI search tools are trained on vast heaps of text scraped from across the internet. Through that training, they develop a dense web of associations between concepts, entities, claims, and sources. When a user submits a query, the model draws on those learned associations and, increasingly, on live retrieval from current web sources, to synthesize a coherent and authoritative-sounding response. This is why, instead of a list, a user gets an answer.

Take a look at the image above. The same search, one on Google. The other on ChatGPT.

Now here comes the somewhat frustrating part. What determines whose content gets pulled into that answer? We don’t know for certain.

AI tools are less forthcoming with their, for lack of a better phrase, ranking factors than search engines like Google and Yahoo are.

We do know that a combination of impact, answer structure, authority, and citation density is preferred by the tools. However, that knowledge has been gleaned largely by researchers, and not from the engineers of the tools themselves.

This is a marked difference from SEO where Google engineers would regularly provide guidance to SEO practitioners.

Why GEO Matters Right Now

ChatGPT crossed 100 million users faster than any consumer product in recorded history, reaching that milestone in two months. Instagram needed two and a half years. It took Gmail over 5 years. The growth curve of AI search adoption is truly unprecedented. It is, at once, tremendously exciting and horrifying.

A large and growing share of informational queries, the kind that move prospective customers through awareness and into consideration, are now being answered directly by AI tools. Users get a synthesized response and often go no further.

That means a company can maintain a strong, carefully tended organic search presence and still be invisible to a meaningful portion of the audience that matters most to them, simply because their content isn’t being surfaced in AI-generated answers. Scary!

AI tools develop persistent associations between brands and categories over time, as citations reinforce familiarity, which in turn drives further citations. Getting into those patterns early, before a category’s default sources are calcified, is a genuinely time-sensitive advantage – much in the same way that organizations that adopted SEO early still dominate rankings today. 

How to Optimize for GEO

Now you know what GEO is. You have a basic understanding of how it works and how it differs from SEO. You know why it’s important. Now lets get into actionable steps you can take.

1. Start by auditing your existing content for citability

Pull up your highest-value pages and read them with a specific question in mind: does this page make a clear, quotable claim, and is that claim findable within the first two paragraphs? Pages that bury their value proposition under extended setup are the first candidates for revision.

2. Map your content to the questions your audience is actually asking AI tools.

AnswerThePublic, Reddit threads in relevant communities, and direct customer research are all useful here. The goal is to understand the specific, conversational questions your audience is typing into ChatGPT and Perplexity, then build content that answers those questions with genuine depth and specificity.

Another tool is Trakkr, which provides you with some insight into how you’re currently showing up in AI tools. 

3. Establish named, credentialed authorship across your content.

Every substantive piece should carry a named author whose expertise is verifiable and documented externally, on LinkedIn, in published bylines, in speaking appearances, and in press coverage. AI systems factor author authority into citation decisions, and anonymous or generic corporate content loses that signal entirely.

Actively build your off-site footprint. Pitch bylines to credible trade publications and legacy media. Pursue earned media coverage that mentions your organization and your people by name. Seek out podcast appearances, speaking engagements, and partnership content that generate third-party references to your brand. The goal is a diverse, credible web of external mentions that corroborates your own content.

Build an AI presence monitoring practice. Run your most important queries in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews on a regular schedule. Track when your brand is cited, when it isn’t, and which competitors are appearing in your place. Without this feedback loop, you have no way to know whether your investments are working.

Who Needs to Care About GEO

Is GEO relevant to your organization? Most agencies will tell you YES! But in reality, it’s not as important to some organizations as it is to others. It all depends on your buyers’ activity.

The single most useful question to ask is: Does my buyer use search, or something that behaves like search, to research before they make a decision? If the answer is yes, GEO deserves serious attention. If the answer is no or sometimes, it should sit lower on the priority list than the people trying to sell you GEO retainers would prefer.

Organizations that should prioritize GEO now:

Professional services firms, B2B software, and SaaS companies must have a GEO plan. Their prospective buyers shop for their solutions in a comparative manner. Being cited as a credible voice in your category before a buyer ever hits your website is a real and meaningful advantage.

Consumer brands in considered-purchase categories (home improvement, financial products, health and wellness, insurance, higher education) also have strong GEO incentives. These are purchases where buyers spend real time gathering information, and AI tools are increasingly where that process starts.

Content-driven media organizations and publishers have an obvious stake. Being cited is, in many ways, the new being read.

Organizations where GEO is a lower priority:

Local service businesses with hyperlocal demand (plumbers, dentists, dry cleaners) operate in a world where Google Maps and direct referrals still dominate discovery. GEO is unlikely to move the needle for them in the near term.

Businesses driven almost entirely by word-of-mouth and relationship sales, certain enterprise deals, niche professional networks, and family-owned distributors have buyer journeys that don’t run through search of any kind. No amount of AI citation optimization changes that.

Commodity e-commerce competing on price and speed is also a weak fit. When the decision is “who has this item cheapest and fastest,” the buyer isn’t consulting an AI for a synthesized answer about brand authority. They’re checking price and shipping timeline.

The underlying logic is consistent: GEO is valuable in direct proportion to how much your buyer’s decision-making process involves open-ended research. The more research-dependent the journey, the higher the return on getting in front of it.

Go Sound Smart

You now know what GEO is, where it came from, how it works, and what to do about it. That is more than most people in your building can say.

When the board member asks again, you won’t be nodding along, hoping the conversation ends. You’ll have something real to say.

Tunheim works with organizations just like yours. If you want to talk through what a GEO strategy looks like for your brand, let’s get into it.

The post What is GEO? Here is Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Tunheim.

A doozie I’ve noticed lately is a persistent feeling of busyness. Everyone feels swamped! Yet many of them report that lead generation has declined. 

If your growth team feels busier than ever but your sales results are sliding, you are not imagining things. You’re probably stuck on the content treadmill. And for many teams, it’s quietly draining time, energy, and focus without delivering meaningful returns.

The Content Treadmill Is Real

Fueled by AI (more on that later), growth teams are producing more content than at any point in recent memory. Blogs. Social posts. Videos. Thought leadership. Newsletters. Sales decks. The calendar is chock-full, and the workload is burdensome. And yet, the impact often feels empty.

The expectation for publishing content is simple: more! The logic is simple: more content creates more opportunities to be seen. 

And with AI propelling your generation, you have no excuse for not pumping out a high-volume of content. But in practice, the treadmill keeps moving regardless of the content’s performance.

How to solve it:
Pause volume-driven publishing and audit what actually gets used by sales or referenced by buyers. If content is not influencing conversations or decisions, it does not need to exist

Why Publishing More Stopped Working

Despite what self-absorbed “leaders” lusting after engagement on LinkedIn may suggest, content itself is not dead. The problem is not that content no longer matters. 

It’s that the formula for organic performance has become increasingly muddled, shaped by shifting algorithms, fragmented distribution, AI-driven discoverability, and a volume of content that makes it harder for any single message to stand out in a meaningful way.

The signals that once helped teams understand what was working are no longer as dependable as they once were. Algorithms change frequently, platforms reward different behaviors, and what performs well in a feed does not always align with what actually influences a buying decision. As a result, visibility has become less predictable, and consistency alone is no longer a reliable indicator of relevance.

At the same time, the sheer volume of content competing for attention has grown dramatically, even as attention spans have declined. 

Nearly every competitor is publishing at a similar pace, often addressing the same topics with similar language and framing – especially if they’re all generating content using these same repetitive tools. In that environment, producing more content does not necessarily create differentiation. In many cases, it simply increases the likelihood of blending in.

How to solve it:
Shift your content strategy from distribution-first to decision-first. Build fewer assets that map directly to buyer questions, objections, and moments of hesitation rather than chasing algorithmic performance.

The Quiet Erosion of Vanity Metrics

For years, metrics such as impressions, engagement, and page views served as proxies for progress. They were easy to track and presented beautifully on reports. Up and to the right!

In 2026, those metrics have lost much of their meaning.

Leaders no longer perk up when they hear about an increase in website traffic. They want to know about leads and net-new growth. 

The problem with vanity metrics is that they measure activity rather than impact. 

The result is a dangerous illusion of momentum. Teams feel productive, but sales conversations do not get easier. Buyers do not move faster, and decisions still stall. As you chase the vanity metrics, you’re just running in place on the content treadmill.

How to solve it:
Redefine success around the outcomes sales can feel. Measure content by usage, influence, and deal acceleration, not by how often it is viewed or liked.

The AI Flood and the Trust Problem

If you haven’t noticed from the four previous mentions, AI is a major contributor to content treadmill exhaustion. Artificial intelligence has dramatically increased the volume of content in the market while simultaneously decreasing content quality. 

AI-generated content is fine and polished and fast but is it good? 

No. It all reads the same. Down to over-indulgence of em dashes.

Buyers are getting better at recognizing generic language and surface-level insights. Content that feels automated, abstract, or interchangeable is easier than ever to ignore. The problem is not accuracy. It is credibility.

The consensus amongst many of my marketing peers is that AI has lowered the bar for content. But I disagree. AI slop has raised the bar. In a sea of AI-generated content, trust and authenticity are becoming precious commodities. 

And they have always been what actually influences buying decisions.

How to solve it:
Use AI to accelerate production, not to replace perspective. Anchor content in real experiences, real examples, and real points of view that only your team can provide.

Why Authenticity Is, and Always Has Been, a Competitive Advantage

An adage I’ve heard literally hundreds of times throughout my career in marketing, is that ‘content is king’. But that’s not true. Authentic content is king.  

Buyers trust specificity. They respond to real experience and anecdotes, not theoretical best practices. They don’t want to know what you’ve done; they want to know how you’ve done it and what the measurable impact was. 

Content rooted in actual sales conversations, real objections, and lived expertise carries weight in ways generic thought leadership does not.

The most effective content in 2026 will not try to sound impressive. It will aim to be useful. It will reflect how sales teams actually talk. It will address the real trade-offs buyers are wrestling with.

How to solve it:
Build content alongside sales, not in isolation. Let real conversations, objections, and deal dynamics shape what you publish and how you say it.

We’ll Help You Off the Treadmill

The answer to content exhaustion is not to stop creating. It is to stop creating content that exists only to satisfy a cadence.

Getting off the treadmill starts with a shift in your intent. Away from publishing for visibility and toward creating for usefulness for your buyers. Away from content designed to perform in feeds and toward content designed to support real buying moments. Away from measuring success by how much is produced and toward measuring whether the work actually helps someone make a decision.

That often means fewer assets, built with more care, grounded in real conversations, and aligned tightly with how sales teams engage buyers day to day. It means choosing clarity over volume and confidence over reach.

In a market saturated with noise, the teams that win will not be the ones who publish the most. They will be the ones who say something real, say it consistently, and say it in a way that actually helps.

And for exhausted teams feeling stuck on the content treadmill, that shift can feel less like doing more and more like finally getting their footing back. 

Need support? Get in touch with us to schedule a time to discuss your current growth approach, and we can talk through how my team can help.

The post Why the Content Treadmill Is Exhausting Your Team and Limiting Lead Generation appeared first on Tunheim.

The first thing we see is the window. It advertises the shop as Frankies Farm-to-Cup in hand-lettered script. It’s a little smudged in a cute way. Feels earnest. Small batch, local, maybe the barista owns chickens. So far, so good.

We step inside and glance the menu, which is posted on a large sign at the beginning of the line. Proudly Serving Corporate Fuel. Wait, what? Different vibe. Definitely no chickens.

We push down our misgivings and proceed through the line and approach the register. There is a vapid sign inviting customers to sign up for a loyalty punch card. The loyalty club is called Beans With Benefits – suggestive, playful, but at odds with the rest.

We take a breath. We feel the conflict. And we back out before the espresso’s even pulled — opting instead for the corporate chain down the street, where at least the story makes sense.

This is What Fractured Branding Feels Like. 

It’s not that your message is wrong. It’s that it’s three different messages wearing the same shirt. Your ads say you’re clever, your site says you’re tired, and your sales deck says you couldn’t agree on what to say, so you had AI say everything.

And your customers? They feel that. 

How Fractured Branding Begins

Fractured branding is most common with organizations that are scaling or growing through acquisition. Growth triggers change.

This usually leads to one team updating the sales collateral. Another team is taking on the task of updating the homepage. And a third team tackles the landing pages. None of the teams is talking to each other. They’re siloed. 

Now, your company sounds like a bunch of bad musicians who’ve never rehearsed together. Everyone is riffing in different keys, not in a fun jazz way.

And Then the Leaks Begin to Show

• Ad performance dips.
  
• Search traffic wanes.
  
• Social engagement shrinks.
  
• Sales slow not because the product changed, but because the story lost its edge.
  

No one can quite say what you do anymore. Or why you matter.

And you start hearing the most expensive phrase in branding:

“Maybe we need a new logo.”

Here’s the Thing

A new logo won’t fix this. It’s not a cosmetic problem. It’s a foundational problem.

You’ve got a gap between what you think you’re saying and what people actually hear. That gap grows quietly. Then it gets loud.

If you’re nodding right now, you probably already know. You’ve felt the drag — in morale, in meetings, in metrics. You’ve seen your story land with a thud.

This isn’t about ego. It’s about making sure your people aren’t ad-libbing your value prop in every room they enter. It’s about cleaning up the narrative so your next buyer doesn’t need a decoder ring.

A Brand Refresh Isn’t Vanity

A brand refresh is not new wallpaper. It’s new wiring.

• When the brand is sharp, the pitch deck works harder.
• When the pitch deck works harder, the deal closes faster.
• When the deal closes faster, nobody has to pretend they “love the old logo.”

So, Ask Yourself:

• Can every exec describe what you do in one sentence?
• Does the website match the sales deck?
• Did the brand guide retire when skinny jeans did?
• Do your interns know your font? (Do you?)
  

If not, it might be time to update the story before someone else writes it for you.

Because here’s the truth: fractured brands don’t just confuse, they slow organizations down and erode from the inside. And they give competition the only thing they need: an opening.

Need an Outside Eye?

Book a fifteen-minute brand clarity chat. No jargon, no lectures, no mystical archetypes. Just a quick check to see if your story still makes sense.

Or don’t. But if your pitch deck apologizes for your homepage again this quarter, maybe let’s talk over a real cup of coffee.

The post Why Nobody Knows What You Do Anymore: A Story About Fractured Branding appeared first on Tunheim.

Imagine a nonprofit rolling out a bold new mission at an upcoming press conference. The CEO’s speech is polished, her hair looks great, the deck sparkles, reporters tweet sound bites about innovation and the potential impact.

Meanwhile, back in the office, a project manager sends a Slack message to their marketing colleague: “Did anyone know we were doing this?”

Silence. A few confused GIFs ensue. 

Same brand, two stories. Whether you’re a bootstrapped nonprofit, a growing consumer product brand, or an established Fortune 500 company, if you don’t tackle this misalignment head-on, the difference will trickle out into the world and in front of your target audience.

Brand alignment is not marketing fluff. It is the connective tissue between the promises you make in public and the values you live by internally. Let that tissue tear and watch engagement sag, decisions bog down, and reputation wobble.

Why Inside-Outside Alignment Pays Off

Employees Are Your First Storytellers

A Gallup study revealed that only one in four employees feels plugged into their organization’s purpose. If staff cannot explain why you exist, they will not be able to defend you when questions arise with your audience.

How can you determine the level of engagement your team has with your organizational vision? Try an employee survey that has them answer questions in their own words. 

Stakeholders Will Spot the Gaps

Customers, donors, and journalists cross-reference everything. When your website says one thing and frontline teams mumble another, your credibility drops in real time.

Your organization can correct this misalignment by having messaging and positioning crafted and made available to your entire team. Not sure where to start with that? We can help.

Misalignment Slows Progress to a Crawl

The progress of any project stalls when people argue over what the brand really stands for. Anyone who has been involved with a website refresh project can attest. 

Shared language shortens approval cycles and puts campaigns back on rails, chugging along to the next station. 

Three Alignment Checks You Can Run This Week

Okay, so by now, you may have discovered that you might have an issue. Here are a few quick checks you can do to help pinpoint the alignment problems.

1. Leadership Narrative Check
Ask each senior leader to write a 30-word purpose statement. If you get more than two versions, block time for a leadership messaging session. Consistency starts at the top and trickles down.

2. Employee Understanding Check
This one is similar to our earlier recommendation to conduct an employee survey, but it is more active and can be fun. 

At the next all-hands meeting, select three employees from different teams and ask them to describe the brand in their own words. Wide variation is a warning light. If there is misalignment, this exercise also highlights the importance of alignment to your team. 

3. Channel Consistency Check
Scroll through your latest social posts, press releases, job descriptions, and earned media headlines. Make note of buzzwords or claims that surface in only one place. Tailor to the audience, yes, but keep the core promise the same.

Quick-Win Checklist

1. Compare your website’s “About” section to your employee onboarding deck. Rewrite whichever is weaker.
   
2. Replace jargon with verbs real people use. If it would not land at a backyard cookout, cut it.
   
3. Start every campaign brief with a one-sentence brand promise. Make it the ruler for creative review.
   
4. Share small wins across teams. The more sales hears HR language and HR hears the customer’s voice, the faster the messages converge.
   
5. Appoint a “message steward” for the quarter. Empower them to flag drift and suggest fixes.

Clarity inside fuels credibility outside. If the echo in your hallways sounds off-key, we can help you get it tuned in. Get in touch with us today.

The post One Brand, Two Stories? How to Identify if You Have an Internal-External Messaging Gap appeared first on Tunheim.