Does optimizing for GEO really make sense?

Many stores are tying to make Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) work.

The first problem is that the traffic is basically non-existent. Sure some are reporting gains but for the rest of the stores, even 1% of traffic becomes newsworthy.

Why?

If I told you I paid some teenagers to cold call every business in the area and they got me 1% more traffic, no one would care.

Same as if I paid half my marketing budget to run an ad campaign that got me a 1% boost.

AI has this "trendiness" associated with it that makes everyone throw business/common sense out the window.

I personally have had success getting traffic and sales from ChatGPT and other LLMs. Not because of any GEO work, I've put ZERO effort into LLMs.

You want the secret?

It's because for nearly a decade we've been creating content for our customers.

You know, that content marketing thing that was pronounced dead along with email marketing time and time again?

As it turns out, AIs require content to work. So all of that content we created, they "borrowed" and now they dribble out some traffic to us in return.

So if you're spending money on GEO right now, in 2026, and if you do everything right you might get 1% more traffic over the next few years. Unless the rules change in that time and your goalposts get moved.

Or you can take that money and time and invest it into something that will help you now, tomorrow, and in ten years:

Create content that provides value.

Not spam. Not lukewarm AI slop. Not ten articles by next week.

Create. Quality. Helpful. Content. Again. And again.

Repeat that over and over and you'll catch the next wave of whatever Internet marketing thing comes along.

Fads and trends will come and go. Today it's LLMs. Yesterday it was NFTs, crypto, and the blockchain. Before that was the cloud, viral content, and user-generated content. Before that was webrings, Digg, P2P, and Slashdot.

They all leave their trace but countless hours have been wasted trying to capture them. All while content has been chugging along. The Internet is literally a machine to let people search for, find, and consume content. Use that to your benefit.

Note: I used the term GEO but that's often used interchangeable with Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Artificial Intelligence Optimization (AIO), or whatever other acronyms people want to create. They all mean the same and the advice is the same.