The Good Ole Days
Search and discovery used to be simple.
Someone typed words.
Google coughed up answers.
Marketers nodded like we understood why.
Then the industry got hit with acronym inflation. SEO. AEO. GEO. SGE. AI Overviews. Search Journeys. Entity Optimization. Intent Signals. All of it swirling around like a bowl of alphabet soup someone threw into a ceiling fan.
Clients ask us all the time.
“Which one matters?”
The real answer. Yes.
So let's decode the mess without the usual jargon.
No mystique. No wizard hat.
Just what each thing is and when it actually matters.
SEO
The old faithful. Search Engine Optimization.
The search mechanic that has survived every Google mood swing since 1998.
Think of SEO as your website’s hygiene.
Clean structure. Clear content. Pages that load without groaning.
Google likes that.
At its core, SEO is about two jobs.
Help search engines understand what you do.
Help humans stay long enough to care.
SEO still matters because everything else builds on top of it. Ignore it and the rest of this alphabet becomes cosplay.
AEO
AEO stands for Answer Engine Optimization.
The cool new kid with an AI backpack.
This is all about feeding large language models the right signals so you show up when someone asks an AI tool a question.
ChatGPT. Gemini. Perplexity. Even AI Overviews.
AEO plays by slightly different rules.
It wants clarity over clever.
It wants structured content.
It wants you to sound like an authority, not an essay generator.
AEO is the future of top-of-funnel discovery. Brands that nail it now will coast for the next twelve months while everyone else panics.
GEO
Generative Engine Optimization.
Think AEO but with the AI hallucination filter on.
Your job is to make the model’s “best guess” include you.
Every time.
This is where your brand presence becomes training data. The more signals you create across the internet, the more the machines think you matter.
Signals like:
Consistent content across channels
High-trust backlinks
Clear product explanations
Brand mentions across the web
Clean metadata
Thought leadership (hi, that’s this blog)
GEO is about being unavoidable.
EIEIO
This one’s mine.
And before you ask, yes, I did commit to the bit.
EIEIO stands for Everything In Every Input, Obviously.
Because here’s my take.
Search isn’t a single channel anymore.
It isn’t ten blue links.
It isn’t one algorithm.
Search is wherever someone asks a question.
That might be an AI model.
A search bar.
A social feed.
A chatbot.
A Gen Z group chat titled “do we trust Yelp anymore.”
Marketing has shifted from keyword strategy to presence strategy. If you’re not a consistent signal across every input, you disappear.
EIEIO is the mindset shift.
Be everywhere your audience asks questions.
Answer clearly.
Signal authority.
Stay top of mind.
So what do you actually do with all this?
Simple. Treat your search ecosystem like a team.
SEO handles your foundation.
AEO handles your answers.
GEO handles your discoverability.
EIEIO binds it into a system.
And that system compounds.
Month over month.
Quarter over quarter.
Year over year.
Search is no longer a tactic.
It’s an engine.
And engines create healthy pipelines.
Engines win.
What’s next?
I’ll break each of these down in separate 101 guides next. You’ll be able to find them linked below or here depending on when/where you see this.
SEO 101.
AEO 101.
GEO 101.
EIEIO 101.
Maybe even a “please stop inventing acronyms” bonus chapter.
If you want your brand to show up in 2026, this is where you start.
