Practical GEO methods
Where Should GEO Begin? Start with Customer Questions and One Review Cycle
Real questions, a baseline, one useful article, and a review: a practical first GEO cycle.
Your first GEO project does not need to cover every platform. I recommend completing a small cycle: identify real questions, record a baseline, improve one important piece of content, and review what happened.
Turn broad keywords into real questions
Review sales emails, demonstrations, and customer feedback. Record the original wording, situation, constraints, and frequency. Remove personal and confidential details before using the material.
AI can help group similar questions. A person still needs to verify that the needs are real and decide which matter most to the business.
Record the current answers
Choose representative questions and note the platform, interface, date, and exact wording. Start a new conversation for each question and save complete answers and visible citations. Repeat important questions and retain the wording for later comparisons.
Separate observation from interpretation. An AI answer citing a competitor’s explanation is an observation. Deciding that your site needs a similar explanation is a hypothesis—and you should first check whether you already provide it.
Prioritize business relevance and evidence
A manageable first round might have two priority topics and one reserve. Start where business relevance and available evidence are both strong. Gather materials first when the evidence is incomplete.
Define the reader, main question, evidence, owner, and planned publication date. Improve an existing page when it already covers the need instead of creating several near-duplicates.
Finish the whole publishing job
Answer the question, explain the criteria and steps, show evidence and conditions, and offer a relevant next step. Check accuracy, usability, and repetition before publishing.
After publication, check readable text, references, buttons, and mobile presentation. Record the author, date, and version. Keep a complete guide on your website and discuss individual questions on social platforms.
Use the review to choose one next action
Track brand mentions, factual accuracy, cited pages, and user actions separately. Keep sample counts and original responses alongside any percentage.
Choose one main change for the next cycle and record why you made it. Preserve earlier versions. Answers fluctuate, and a change occurring after an edit does not establish that the edit caused it.
One question set, one useful article, and one review will give you a clearer next step than simply publishing more.
Adapted from Pretty’s original notes.
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