From SEO To GEO: What New Zealand Businesses Should Do As AI Reshapes Search

Wednesday, 31 December 2025, 11:18 am
Article: Hugh Grant

New Zealand businesses have spent years learning the rules of search. Publish useful pages, earn links, build authority, and you can show up on Google.

For a long time, this playbook worked well.

AI-generated answers are becoming increasingly common, sitting between customers and the websites they click.

Now, instead of a list of links, users are getting summaries, comparisons, and next-step suggestions. Often without even leaving the results page at all.

This quietly creates a new problem for local businesses: you can be “visible” without getting an actual visit. And if you are not mentioned in the AI-generated answer at all, you may as well not exist for that query.

Research from Pew Research Center found that when an AI summary appears, users click traditional results less often (8% of visits vs 15% when no AI summary appears), and clicks on links inside the AI summary were rare (about 1% of visits to pages with an AI summary). The takeaway is not that SEO is dead but that relying on clicks as the main measure of organic success is becoming risky.

Over the past year, this has become harder and harder to ignore.

What is GEO, and why are people talking about it?

GEO is short for “generative engine optimisation”. In basic terms, it is the practice of improving the likelihood that your business is referenced, cited, or recommended inside AI-generated answers. That can include Google’s AI features, but also other answer engines and assistants that summarise the web.

“Businesses hear the term GEO and assume it’s a totally different discipline,” says Caleb Young, Founder of Impacto Agency. “In reality, it’s an extension of good SEO. The difference is that you’re optimising for comprehension and attribution, not just rankings.”

This matters most for service businesses, local trades, healthcare providers, professional services, and ecommerce brands where the first interaction is often informational. People search things like “best heat pump size for a two-bedroom home” or “how long does a reroof take in Auckland” before they choose who to contact. AI summaries are very good at answering these questions quickly, which reduces the number of sites a user visits. That is convenient for users, but uncomfortable for businesses.

The credibility problem: AI can be wrong

AI answers are not always accurate. They can mix sources, misunderstand context, or state things with confidence that are not true. According to Google’s guidance for site owners, AI features may show content in new ways, which makes it even more important for publishers to focus on clear, helpful content that can be interpreted correctly and quickly.

For businesses, this creates a slightly uncomfortable reality: you are not only competing for visibility, you are competing to be trusted name in someone else’s summary. If your information is unclear or inconsistent, you increase the chance of being ignored or misrepresented, often without anyone noticing.

Four practical moves New Zealand businesses can make now

You do not need to rebuild your entire website to respond to this change. But you do need to tighten the fundamentals so both humans and machines can understand who you are, what you do, where you operate, and why you are credible.

1) Make your expertise obvious

Put real signals of experience on the page. That means naming the people behind the business, explaining credentials where relevant, and showing evidence of work completed. Case studies, before-and-after photos, certifications, and clear service descriptions help.

“AI tools look for signals that the content comes from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about,” Young says. “If your site hides the humans, or everything is vague marketing copy, you’re giving the algorithm nothing solid to hold onto.”

This is especially important in industries built on trust: health, finance, legal, home services, and anything safety-related.

2) Fix the basics: consistent naming, location, and service scope

Many SMEs have messy identity data online. The business name differs across directories, the address is formatted three different ways, service areas are unclear, and the about page reads like it was written for nobody in particular.

From a GEO perspective, consistency helps systems connect the dots. Make sure your business name, address, phone, opening hours, and primary services are aligned across your website, Google Business Profile, and key directories. If you serve specific suburbs or regions, say so clearly.

3) Structure content so it is easy to extract

AI systems are not impressed by clever design. They are impressed by clear information.

That sounds obvious, but it is where a lot of sites still fail.

This shows up often when businesses audit older content that technically ranks well but no longer explains anything clearly.

Use headings that match real questions customers ask. Add short definitions near the top of pages. FAQ sections help too, when they are written properly. Summarise key points in plain language. Where appropriate, add schema markup for things like FAQs, products, reviews, and local business details.

Industry commentary has noted that while Googlebot handles modern web tech well, many AI crawlers and systems still perform best with clean HTML and predictable structure. Even if you never think about bots/crawlers, the same improvements usually make pages easier for people to scan too.

4) Rethink what you measure

If clicks and sessions trend down, it does not automatically mean your marketing is failing. It may mean the search results page is doing more of the answering.

Start watching outcomes more closely: calls, form submissions, bookings, quote requests, and sales. Track branded search demand over time. Pay attention to whether customers mention “I saw you on Google” or repeat phrasing that sounds like an AI summary.

“Traffic is becoming a noisier metric,” says Young. “The businesses that win will be the ones that track leads properly and build content that gets them chosen, even if the customer doesn’t click five different sites first.”

Where agencies are getting stuck

Many marketing teams are still working out how to operationalise AI-driven change. A recent MarTech write-up citing AIDigital’s “State of AI Maturity” described most agencies as still experimenting or building roadmaps, with a smaller portion saying AI is embedded across all teams. In response, concepts such as AI SEO are being used to explain how content is prepared for interpretation and reused by AI-driven search systems, including dedicated AI SEO services that focus on information, structure, and distribution rather than rankings alone.

For business owners, the lesson is simple: do not assume your current provider has this covered. Ask what they are doing differently in response to AI search, how they are handling content quality, and how they are measuring business outcomes beyond rankings.

The point is not to “chase AI”. It’s to be the best answer.

SEO is not going away. But the centre of gravity is shifting from “get the click” to “be the source”. If your website is genuinely useful, clearly written, and supported by real-world credibility, you are giving yourself the best chance to be included in whatever version of search customers use next.

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