Move to a search everywhere strategy
Your buyers are shortlisting suppliers before they reach your website. They ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for options, see who gets talked about on LinkedIn, read reviews on G2 or Capterra, and only then search Google, often for a name they already picked. Being visible on each of those surfaces puts you on the shortlist where it gets made.
A search everywhere strategy puts your business in front of buyers on each of those surfaces, in each of your languages, from one consistent set of facts. Below: which surfaces matter, what each rewards, and how to run them as one.
Five shifts to know before you plan
- Search is fragmented: buyers bypass Google for AI tools, social feeds and niche platforms.
- AI answers need measuring: generative engine optimization (GEO) tracks whether relevant answers mention or cite your business.
- Vertical search shapes B2B: G2, Capterra and industry directories drive procurement decisions.
- Multilingual means local: each market's content matches how that market searches.
- Clear facts travel well: explicit, sourced claims are easier for buyers and machines to verify than vague marketing prose.
If your other languages lag behind English, our multilingual SEO services build one search everywhere presence across them.
Search now spans more than Google
“Zero-click” searches and AI overviews have reshaped the SERP. Today’s buyers start journeys on LinkedIn, refine queries in Perplexity, and validate vendors on G2. Visibility across all three puts you where a B2B shortlist now gets made.
Modern search often delivers answers before a visit. Success depends on giving buyers consistent, verifiable information wherever they compare options, then measuring which surfaces contribute to discovery, evaluation and enquiries.
Where buyers search in 2026
| Search surface | User intent | Optimization focus |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini) | Synthesised research | Clear claims, sources and repeated prompt checks |
| Social search (LinkedIn, TikTok) | Social proof and trends | Native video and thought leadership |
| Vertical engines (G2, Amazon) | Product comparison | Review management and attributes |
| Traditional search (Google, Bing) | Research, local and navigational queries | Useful pages and technical SEO |
Get recommended by AI assistants with GEO
An AI assistant may name only a small set of suppliers, so inclusion can matter even when it sends no referral click. GEO measures those appearances and improves the public evidence a platform can retrieve and corroborate.
Clear, crawlable pages with specific claims and named sources give retrieval systems material they can inspect. They do not guarantee a citation. See our GEO framework for a measurement-led approach.
Use tables and lists when they make a comparison easier to understand, and attach explicit data points to their sources. Citation frequency is a useful visibility measure, but it serves a different purpose from links and should be reported separately.
AI assistants account for about 0.5% of total visits, according to Kevin Indig's analysis of Similarweb monthly estimates for 10,000 domains in each of the US and France, from September 2023 to August 2026. The author notes that the samples do not represent the entire national web.
Source: Kevin Indig, "Organic traffic is down, but it's not all AI", Growth Memo, 26 October 2026
For two agency perspectives on the developing field, see the GEO round-ups from First Page Sage and Go Fish Digital. Treat their recommendations as practitioner views and test them against your own prompt set.
Social platforms as vertical search engines
If your buyers search LinkedIn or YouTube before Google, your profile there is the first impression you give them, so make it a full one. LinkedIn is now a primary B2B search engine: optimize your profile with industry keywords to appear in internal searches. Similarly, TikTok and YouTube serve “how-to” queries, especially for complex topics like EUDR compliance or SaaS demos.
Captions, titles and on-screen text help people and platform search understand the subject. Measure profile views, qualified visits and enquiries before treating reach as commercial value.
Show up on B2B vertical platforms
- LinkedIn: Embed keywords in headline and About section.
- G2/Capterra: Ask verified customers for honest reviews without scripting the wording.
- YouTube: Use “how-to” titles, timestamps, and detailed descriptions.
- TikTok: Pair trending audio with clear on-screen text.
- Directories: Keep the company name, category, website and contact details accurate.
Write for how each language market searches
Your German buyers search in their own way, so a page written for German search is the one they find. Dutch, Spanish and German users search differently, even within Europe. Apply multilingual SEO best practices to align with local intent.
Technical execution matters: use hreflang where equivalent language or regional pages exist, and choose a domain structure the team can maintain. Country-code domains can send a strong country signal but are not required for every international strategy. The BeTranslated network uses a local domain per market.
For AI, local expertise is essential. Firms like Delaguía y Luzón publish in several languages, with legally precise, regionally relevant content that earns visibility well beyond Valencia.
If you want your other language versions pulling their weight, talk to us about your multilingual SEO strategy.
Write content machines can parse and quote
A clear page is easier for people and machines to interpret. Use descriptive headings, explicit data and valid schema markup that matches visible content. Follow a technical SEO audit checklist to keep important pages crawlable and canonical.
Implement Organization or Product schema only where it accurately describes the visible page. Google stopped showing FAQ rich results on 7 May 2026, so use FAQPage only when the page contains genuine visible questions and answers.
Structured data helps eligible search features and disambiguates page content, but Google does not present it as a guarantee of inclusion in AI answers.
Format affects extraction: tables and bullet points are easier to extract than dense paragraphs, for AI and human readers alike.
Our working rule: make important claims explicit, cite the source beside them and use schema only when it validates and matches the visible page.
In an analysis of 193,507 answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews, pages with a table had 69% higher odds of being cited, pages with an FAQ section 26% and pages with a list 22%. The study states that these are associations and cannot prove that any trait causes a citation.
Run every surface from one plan
Running selected surfaces from one framework keeps facts consistent and makes production easier to govern. Integrate SEO, GEO, social and website localization around one source brief. Adapt a research piece into a LinkedIn carousel, a video and a public question-and-answer section where each format fits its audience.
Track new KPIs alongside your conversion tracking: AI citation share, social mentions, and vertical directory referrals. Tools like Semrush now support these metrics, but manual audits remain critical to assess how AI perceives your brand.
The goal is useful coverage rather than omnipresence. Choose the surfaces your buyers use, keep the underlying facts consistent and stop investing where visibility does not contribute to qualified demand. Businesses such as Bemelman Spuiterij in the Netherlands and TX International Freight in the US illustrate why the useful mix depends on the market, service and buying journey.
Frequently asked questions
How is GEO different from SEO?
SEO improves eligible pages for traditional search and the people using it. GEO measures and improves how a brand appears in relevant AI answers. The disciplines overlap in crawlability, useful content, clear claims and credible sources.
Will GEO replace SEO?
They coexist. Prioritise each according to where buyers research and what the available measurement shows.
How long does it take to appear in ChatGPT or Gemini?
There is no dependable publication-to-citation timetable. Retrieval systems may discover a crawlable page quickly or may never cite it. Recheck a fixed set of prompts over time and record the answer, cited sources, date, location and account state.
Can we measure GEO performance?
Track citations and mentions for a fixed prompt set, referral traffic where it is available, branded search and enquiries. Keep the prompt, platform, date and market with every observation so changes can be compared.
Do we need separate GEO and SEO content?
Usually one useful public page can serve both. Use a clear heading hierarchy, sources and tables where they improve comprehension. Add structured data only when it accurately describes visible content.
Is a search everywhere strategy expensive?
Cost depends on how many markets and surfaces are selected. Start with the few places buyers already use, set a baseline and expand only when the evidence justifies it.
Get cited where your buyers search
Visibility in AI answers, search results and vertical platforms comes from different systems. Treat each as a measurable route to discovery rather than assuming one tactic controls them all.
Request a GEO audit to record how selected AI platforms currently describe and source your brand, then decide which gaps are worth addressing.
See how our AI consulting works
Still exploring? Read our guide on the future of SEO.
