The short answer is yes. There are no additional technical requirements to be eligible to be shown as a supporting link within AI results. All existing SEO fundamentals continue to be worthwhile. Both SEO and GEO have been using the same principles since Google was launched. Relevance and Popularity.
However, due the way AI works, some of the SEO topics are more relevant and deserve closer attention or even an update.
Relevance relates to how relevant your page is to what the user is actually searching for. Search engines like Google and AI models like ChatGPT evaluate relevance of your content for a specific question or query.
Content was always a key area for SEO, but it is the primary input that AI uses to generate an answer. AI-based search engines learn, read, understand, and synthesise this information.
The way content is created helps AI to cover and solve user questions. While users traditionally type a keyword in a Search engine, in AI, users type a contextual query, in other words, a question. This is why your content should answer questions rather than be optimised by keywords or using small descriptions.
The Shift in User Intent
Consider a user looking for a family room.
A family room page on your website should explain why your hotel is a good option for a family stay rather than only providing a family room description. The content you provide should not only be text, you should also support your textual content with high-quality images and videos, where possible.
While SEO focuses on driving traffic through clicks, GEO focuses on providing answers through synthesis. The following graphic highlights the strategic shift required:
Review your hotel key features and selling points and ensure that your website emphasises these and provides the necessary contextual content that provides the answers to users' questions about these features. If a user is looking for a hotel in a central location, are you emphasising this across your website content? Are you explaining why the user should choose your hotel?
Can a FAQ page help? Yes, a FAQ page allows you to provide answers to long-tail questions that a user might pose, exactly like they type into ChatGPT (“How can I…?”, “What does … mean?”). The FAQ page can be a great way to drive visibility or citations in AI search results if you meet these conditions:
Structured Data. The marked-up schema, also known as structured data, is a code that helps Search engines and AI platforms understand the information on a page. Review and implement Structured Data for key hotel pages: Hotel, HotelRoom, Offer, Event, FAQ.
Review how your website can be indexed. Robot.txt file directives still provide site owners with control over how search engines crawl their websites. You can also verify your website in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools.
You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features.
Popularity measures how trusted or authoritative a webpage is and how many others reference it.
Being cited. One of the key topics on SEO was to be linked in external websites, that helps Search engines to find referrals to your website and evaluate this as good content depending on the quantity and quality of those referral links.
AI is going to use dozens of sources to generate the answer, and instead of links AI is going to use content. Collaborate with other websites and write blogs so that GEO can use these as part of the generative result.
Ensure that your Business Profile information is up-to-date. One of the sources that AI engines are using is Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business where they can find the hotel description, services, reviews, etc.
Also review and update your profile in OTAs and Metasearch websites like Tripadvisor and Trivago.
GEO is not a replacement for SEO, but an evolution of it. The core principles of relevance and popularity remain unchanged since the launch of Google.
However, the bar for "relevance" has been raised. By shifting your focus from keywords to comprehensive contextualised answers, and ensuring your technical structure is sound, you position your hotel to succeed in both traditional search and the new age of AI-generated assistance.