How AEO/GEO Differs from SEO (and Whether It Matters)

Does AEO/GEO Matter More or Less than SEO?

It’s easy to find many deeply unhelpful statistics about the changing state of developer marketing. For instance, 33% of internet users reportedly discover new brands via internet search, yet Google AI overviews have apparently reduced clicks to top search results by 58%.

So what does any of that even mean?

Has SEO become worthless for startups? Has visibility in AI overviews (known as AI overview optimization, or AIO) or in LLM results, also known as generative engine optimization (GEO) or Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) replaced it as the most important way to sell developer tools?

Developer content expert Adam DuVander suggests that the numbers and rankings don’t necessarily correlate to value for your startup, especially if you haven’t positioned your company correctly. While he built the website LLMRank.fyi to help founders get a point-in-time sense of their visibility in LLMs, he argues that before even looking at rankings, founders should focus on strategy first.

Understanding What LLM Rankings Are (and Aren’t)

DuVander suggests that the website is the result of work he was already doing with his clients, startups that are, unsurprisingly, concerned about how highly they rank in LLM responses when users ask about products in their space. “We can see how these [rankings] change and when they don't. And I think both of those are interesting.”

The content expert also cautions against overindexing on any single data point, as LLM results are still mercurial and non-deterministic. “I heard a story of a startup on a retreat, where the team all opened up their laptops and typed in queries about their product into their favorite LLM, all writing different prompts from their individual points of view. And of course, they all ended up with different answers there.”

“As much as we all wish that a developer would type in the words that are in the H1 on our homepage, they often don't. (That's a whole other topic, because you should be able to use your website’s H1 to speak to that developer audience.) But the ‘good news,’ if you can call it that, is that [LLM visibility] is on a long timeframe. If you’ve worked in SEO, you’re used to long timeframes, but this is potentially longer.”

The content expert suggests that while LLM visibility takes time, it may be a good idea to start looking into the topic, but not to simply index on how highly their own products rank. Comparing differentials against competitors, particularly between different types of prompts, can highlight opportunities for improvement.

“The more interesting questions are: Where are you ranked above the companies that you consider to be your competitors? And where are they ranked above you? If you look back at the language for those, you can start to see narratives or gaps. Maybe this [prompt] was about a particular feature or a use case, and you're doing ‘better’ there.”

“That means that you likely have put in some effort there, possibly from content on your site. It might be outreach to devs, or devs who are talking about you positively in this area. And then there are prompts where you don't show up at all: Potential areas to fill with the same sorts of activity that you're already doing.”

Are LLMs simply a new marketing channel? “From the standpoint of: ‘We know that devs are using this to ask these questions, get recommendations, and potentially make decisions, all before they see your website, if they ever do, sure. But everything that goes into that recommendation are all the other channels that you already are working on: Your blog, documentation, and work in the community. What your DevRel team is putting out on GitHub. All these things are already existing channels, and this is a way to pull those together.”

“[LLM visibility] is on a long timeframe. If you’ve worked in SEO, you’re used to long timeframes, but this is potentially longer.” - Adam DuVander, Founder/EveryDeveloper

Why Positioning May Matter More to LLMs than Search

DuVander points out the differential between scouring for keywords, the way SEO experts did with Google, and using LLM prompts. “I've seen some AEO/GEO dashboards that just include SEO keywords. But thinking like a developer, not like a marketer or an SEO, and using [developers’] words, you should think about the use cases you have. I really think this is an opportunity to look at your positioning and make sure it's super clear.”

“I think it's okay if you don't show up at all in some of those searches that aren't right in the wheelhouse of a tightly positioned startup for the ‘ideal dev.’ Some of that basic work of knowing who that ‘ideal dev’ is is in the minds of the founders a lot of times, but especially as the team grows...that can shift as the product changes. You should be asking: Are we still as focused on that ideal dev as we could be?”

The content expert also notes what appears to be a semantic difference between SEO and AEO/GEO. In SEO, traditionally, the goal was to rank highly for a core keyword, which would then generally ensure ranking for any derivative sub-keywords. Ranking #1 for the term “data pipelines” would generally mean you would tend to rank well for associated keywords like “data sources” or “data ingestion.”

“That seems to be less of the case for AEO/GEO, since context is so important to an LLM. Add a couple of words to your prompt, and that changes the context. Now, you might be completely absent from sub-keyword LLM searches. And actually think that’s a good thing for founders who are positioning themselves in a way that differentiates them from another startup that might seem to be a ‘leader.’ It’s an opportunity to be able to kind of own that ‘zone’ and that positioning. SEO might have made that harder to do. The LLMs seem to be more willing to open that window.”

What Should Founders Do First? LLMs.txt, Markdown, Content

The content expert recommends that founders start out by recording their visibility in LLMs over time to build a baseline of data they can use to compare. “From within there, some of those gaps will point to areas you'll want to try to fill. That’s assuming that you're running these prompts multiple times and you feel confident the results are coming from ‘developer language.’”

“I know there are still a lot of questions about LLMs.txt and whether AI uses it. To me, one of the benefits of that is how teams can get on the same page about what they’re putting forward, and which things matter. So I think creating [a LLMs.txt file] that has categories that really show some thought put into it is worth doing.”

“If we're just talking about automating something that essentially looks like a site map? And I've also seen some teams just dump all their blog posts in a giant list. I don't think that is very valuable at all because it doesn't show that you've pointed toward a particular area. In everything you're doing, you should be looking to give those signals about what matters because if it all matters, we know that nothing matters.”

DuVander recommends thinking through website use cases where human interactions are still important. “What are the ways that you can streamline the process for [a human visitor] to get back to their agent that has maybe made this recommendation.” The content expert notes that adding markdown is a specific step founders can take to make their content LLM-readable, the way Stripe does for its documentation site.

Going forward, DuVander then recommends founders look at the potential gaps they’ve identified and build a plan to fill them in. “If this is a positioning issue where you're not showing up as highly as you would expect to, then I think you should make that a focus. You could have a series of blog posts or other content about that topic. Make a campaign of it. Don't just say, ‘OK, we'll make our one definitive page and be done with it.’”

The content expert clarifies that making progress against LLM queries where startups are underrepresented may require a continuous drumbeat of content and campaigns going across different channels, whether they be blogs, podcasts, hackathons, or other activities.

“If this is a positioning issue where you're not showing up as highly as you would expect to, then...you should make that a focus. Make a campaign of it. Don't just say, ‘We'll make our one definitive page and be done with it.’”

How to Think About Rankings in Competitive Spaces

DuVander admits that, like with SEO, AEO/GEO visibility against monolithic competitors can be challenging. “First, I’d recommend thinking about timelines, because it may take months or quarters to be able to really see any movements [in your rank] if you're invisible now. Having a super-entrenched competitor seems like it might still be as big a deal as being the top SEO result.”

For startups going head-to-head against tough competition, the content expert recommends digging deeper into areas where founders can make traction. “I would make sure I knew the use cases where we could win against that competitor. And I’d want to make sure it wasn’t just us saying that. Talking to developers, you can find there might be plenty of community chatter on places like Reddit, not even necessarily about your startup or your competitors, but just about the use cases.”

DuVander clarifies that Reddit (and every other community channel) isn’t a magic silver bullet, and reminds founders that such communities are often hostile to blatant promotion. “These channels have existed before LLMs and I think that it matters where your audience is. So if your audience is on Reddit and discussing it, yes, they won’t like it if you come in and talk about your products. But your own community might be talking there.”

The content expert suggests that one approach to community spaces is to highlight projects your community has worked on, such as by sharing projects they’ve successfully built using your platform. “But also, you should be looking at places that aren't Reddit, since your audience might be hanging out in other places.”

DuVander explains that rather than fixating on being everywhere, a better strategy is to find the few channels that matter most for your community. Particularly for smaller teams that don’t have the bandwidth to try to conquer Reddit and Hacker News and Product Hunt and Dev.to (and all the rest).

Preparing for the Future: Meeting Devs Where They Live

DuVander suggests that on some level, marketing may matter more than ever in the age of LLMs. “The big thing that has changed is that the workflow of most developers has changed. So this isn’t just about ‘another channel where you could be recommended,’ which would be a different conversation. But despite the changes, I don’t think established channels go away.”

“You still want to show up when the developers search. When they go to Google, maybe they get a recommendation in one window and they think, ‘Let me see about that.’ There are still devs who are going to be doing their research and wanting to make sure that they're making an informed decision.”

“Yes, if they trust this LLM to write code, they probably trust it to make recommendations too. But yeah, they're going to still be doing those other things: Going to conferences and hackathons. Classic DevRel sorts of places. From the conversations I've had, it's much more gearing around marketing now: Being able to build that authority and trust with the audience that is needed to show up in the LLMs and be recommended.”

The content expert also suggests thinking ahead to the next step: The deep, in-the-weeds context that’s already contained within the agentic tools developers work with every day, and the hidden opportunities to partner with related communities. “What else is true in that developer's context and that moment? They are in their own codebase. The agent knows the languages and tools they're using.”

“I think that's an underexplored area. You’re not just getting to a use case, but also: What language is someone building in when they do this? What other tools are there? So those are our partnership opportunities [for those other tools]. Which goes back to the idea that everything old is new again. These aren't new ideas, but it's about framing things in a way that is aware of what a developer’s context is, and what their agents’ context is.”

“I’m thinking about partnerships with other [complementary] tools that would make sense alongside yours. If both companies are talking about the use case, and their devs are talking about it, you start to build a lot of the training for that. LLMs now see these two connected together: They see ‘Your Product with Python,’ or ‘Your Product with Rust.’ And the LLMs are more likely to make that recommendation if it's from that context of knowing the language that developer is using. So that's I think an underexplored area, taking not just the use case, which already is a slice of the larger approach, but going even further.”