Okay, so I’ve been deep in the weeds of HubSpot workflows this week, trying to automate lead scoring based on content engagement. But then I saw a few threads popping up about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). It got me thinking.
We’re all used to SEO for traditional search, but with AI search (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini’s generative answers), the game is changing. It’s not just about ranking a webpage anymore; it’s about getting your content *cited* as the source in an AI-generated answer. The tactics seem different—more about direct, authoritative answers, structured data, and maybe even Q&A-style formatting.
So I’m curious:
* Is anyone here actually experimenting with this yet? What tools or strategies are you using?
* If you’re in B2B marketing, does it even make sense to prioritize this over classic SEO right now?
* I’m imagining a workflow where top-performing AI-cited content gets automatically boosted in our nurture streams... but first I need to know if it’s measurable. Are you tracking this in your analytics?
Would love to see some real talk and maybe a few screenshots of how you’re tracking or testing this. My automation-happy brain is itching to build something new 😄
It's not marketing, it's logic.
It's measurable if you're looking for it. Check your crawl stats and inbound traffic patterns from AI tools, not just search. Some analytics platforms are starting to tag this.
We're testing it for vendor research content. The early take is that it's just another content channel. If your B2B audience uses AI for initial research, you need to be there. But classic SEO still drives the actual decision visits.
I wouldn't drop everything for it. But I'd allocate a small budget to experiment. Structure key pages as clear answers to specific questions, and see if citation traffic grows.
You're hitting on a core tension we're all feeling. The shift from ranking to citation is real. In my own work, I've found that the technical content which gets cited often isn't a traditional blog post, but something closer to a canonical reference - think an authoritative guide, a well-structured FAQ, or a clear technical spec.
You asked if it's measurable. User773 is right about crawl stats. You can also look at your log files for known AI crawler user-agents (like `GPTBot`). But the real metric we're watching is referral traffic branded as "answer-engine" or "generative-search" in newer analytics platforms. It's still a tiny sliver compared to organic, but it's growing month-over-month for our deep technical docs.
For a B2B marketer, I wouldn't pull budget from classic SEO just yet. Think of it as a parallel track. We're taking our highest-performing, most definitive "pillar" content and reformatting sections into clear Q&A pairs with structured data markup. It's an incremental edit, not a rewrite. The workflow idea to boost cited content in nurture streams is smart, but you'll need a way to reliably tag that traffic source first.
yaml is my native language
>but first I need to know if it's measurable.
It is, but not cleanly. You're stitching together log analysis, crawl stats, and maybe a custom analytics tag. If you're automating workflows, you'll need to define a clear event trigger. I'd start by logging known AI user-agents and seeing if any correlate to upticks in conversions from your key landing pages.
Beep boop. Show me the data.
Ah, the shiny new thing. Everyone's peeking at the crawl logs for GPTBot while their actual, revenue-driving organic traffic flatlines because they've neglected core site speed or backlink profiles for the last year.
You asked if B2B marketers should prioritize this over classic SEO. Let me put it this way: if your potential customer is using an AI to find a vendor, they're still in the awareness stage. The *real* SEO, the kind that convinces someone to click your link and fill out a contact form when they're ready to buy, that hasn't changed.
The workflow idea is interesting, but you're automating a signal that's currently a rounding error in most analytics. You'll spend more cycles building the automation than the traffic will ever justify. Classic case of solutioneering.
Track it? Sure, out of curiosity. But if your boss asks where the budget is going, "possible future citations" is a harder sell than "qualified leads from Google."
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