Noor Khan Podcast · 14 min
Peter Rota on What Actually Changes in AI Search
Is GEO just SEO with a new name? Peter Rota (HUB International) on falling clicks, structuring content for AI answers and the first 3 moves on a new site.
Episode summary
Everyone is arguing about whether AEO and GEO are a genuinely new discipline or SEO with a new label. Peter Rota's answer, after running technical SEO for a billion-dollar enterprise and auditing sites specifically for AI visibility: a strong SEO foundation gets you roughly 80% of the way there. The last 20% asks questions SEOs didn't used to ask, such as how customers see a brand compared with how LLMs describe it, and whether support docs and other "unimportant" pages answer what people actually ask.
We cover why impressions are rising while clicks fall (and how to report that without it looking like failure), why AI systems pull chunks instead of reading top to bottom, how Peter structures content so the answer sits at the top, the first three things he'd do on a brand-new site, and why consistency has mattered more to his career than being the smartest SEO in the room.
Key takeaways
- Good SEO gets you about 80% of the way to AI visibility. Peter got a lead from ChatGPT without optimizing for it, from links and LinkedIn mentions alone.
- Falling clicks with rising impressions is the new normal. Report impressions as visibility, keep conversions as the north star.
- GEO is still its own discipline at the edges: brand perception across customers and LLMs, and pages SEO undervalues, like support docs.
- Structure for extraction: inverted pyramid, key takeaways at the top, semantic HTML (lists, tables, headings), strong internal links.
- On a new site: fundamentals and schema first, then social profiles and third-party mentions, then crawl logs and Search Console.
- Rankings over citations, mentions over citations. In 12 months, rankings will still drive more traffic.
Chapters
- Introduction: Noor Khan and Peter Rota
- Brand, storytelling and copywriting
- A lead from ChatGPT without optimizing for it
- Impressions up, clicks down: what to report instead
- AEO and GEO: new discipline or SEO rebrand?
- AI reads chunks: structuring content for extraction
- Key takeaways first: a practical structure
- The first three things to do on a brand-new site
- The skill outside SEO that matters most
- Rapid fire: citations or rankings, and where to start
- Wrap-up and Peter's SEO audit template
Episode highlights
The ideas worth acting on, chapter by chapter. Select a timestamp to watch that moment.
You can show up in ChatGPT without "doing GEO"
Peter's first ChatGPT lead came to a site he had barely touched. No AI-specific optimization, just a sound SEO foundation and links earned from his LinkedIn presence. His point: people over-obsess about exotic GEO tactics when consistent messaging and solid fundamentals do most of the work.
What to do with it: before buying a "GEO package", check the basics are done: crawlable pages, clear positioning, schema, and a brand people actually mention and link to.
Impressions up, clicks down is not a crisis
Peter's team has watched this pattern for about two years, since AI Overviews launched. They still report clicks, but they also present impressions to leadership as visibility, and keep conversions as the number that matters. Their insurance glossary pages lost clicks while gaining impressions, and they still earn their place.
What to do with it: add impressions and branded search to your monthly report, so a drop in clicks is read in context, not as failure.
GEO is mostly SEO, but not entirely
Peter started out believing "good SEO is good GEO". Running a GEO-focused audit changed his mind on the edges: brand perception (what customers think versus what LLMs say) and pages SEO rarely prioritizes, like support docs, turned out to matter. Some sites rank well in Google and still don't appear in LLM answers.
What to do with it: ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini how they describe your brand and your competitors. Where the answer is wrong or thin, that's your GEO work.
Write for extraction: answer first
AI systems lift chunks of a page rather than reading it top to bottom. Peter applies the inverted pyramid: the most valuable information goes at the top, with no fluffy intro, followed by semantic HTML that machines parse easily: bullet lists, tables and a clean heading structure. His team is also testing serving markdown versions of pages to AI agents.
What to do with it: rewrite the first two sentences under each heading on your top pages so they directly answer the heading. See answer engine optimization and passage retrieval.
Put key takeaways at the top
Peter's practical habit: a short key takeaways list at the top of every article. LLMs get the core facts fast, and readers who want depth keep going. Add strong internal linking and good headers, and you have content that works for both audiences. Every article on this site, and this page, uses that structure.
Three moves for a brand-new site
- Fundamentals: optimized core pages (services, about, contact), internal linking, JSON-LD schema, and crawl access for both Google and LLMs.
- Third-party presence: social profiles and any credible place that talks about you. LLMs pull heavily from third-party sources.
- Watch the crawlers: crawl logs and Google Search Console, to see how bots actually move through your site and what's broken.
Consistency beats brilliance
Asked about the skill outside SEO that mattered most, Peter's answer wasn't technical. He's never claimed to be the smartest SEO, but he shows up daily, keeps learning and stays consistent. In SEO, results come from repeating the work, not from a burst of effort followed by giving up.
Rapid fire: rankings, mentions, and who to trust
Twelve months out, Peter still bets on rankings over citations, because rankings drive more traffic, and he rates brand mentions above citations too. His advice for anyone overwhelmed: build the fundamentals, then experiment, and before acting on advice from LinkedIn or Facebook, check whether the person is trying to help you or sell you a course.
Notable quotes
If you have a basic foundation of SEO, you're going to get 80% of the way there.
Just because someone sees you and doesn't click, at a later date they could come back.
Get your most important content early, versus burying it in the middle of the page like people were doing five years ago.
I've never said I'm the smartest SEO, but I show up each day and try to learn as much as I can.
Resources mentioned
- Peter Rota's SEO audit template (free)The Google Sheets checklist Peter uses for SEO audits. Make a copy and run it on your own site.
- Peter Rota on LinkedInDaily posts on technical SEO, AI search and building a brand as an SEO.
- What is GEO (generative engine optimization)?A plain-English guide to getting cited and recommended by AI assistants, and how it relates to SEO.
- What is AEO (answer engine optimization)?How to structure pages so the answer is easy to extract: the inverted-pyramid approach Peter describes.
- Google Search Central: AI features and your websiteGoogle's own guidance on how AI Overviews and AI Mode use web content.
About the guest
Peter Rota is a Senior Technical SEO Manager at HUB International with more than 13 years in SEO across local, enterprise and affiliate sites. He is one of the most followed SEO voices on LinkedIn, where he writes about technical SEO, AI search and building a personal brand.
Doing interesting work in SEO or AI search? I'm always looking for practitioners to talk to on the Noor Khan Podcast. Pitch yourself as a guest.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO just SEO with a new name?
Peter Rota's view is that good SEO and technical SEO get you about 80% of the way to visibility in AI answers, but GEO is still a different discipline. It adds questions SEOs rarely asked, such as how LLMs perceive a brand compared with how customers do, and whether pages like support docs answer what people actually want to know.
Why are my impressions going up while clicks go down?
AI Overviews and LLM answers satisfy many queries directly, so content can be seen without being clicked. Peter's team reports impressions as a visibility metric alongside clicks, keeps conversions as the primary goal, and treats lower clicks on content like glossaries as expected rather than as failure.
How should content be structured so AI can use it?
Put the most important information first (the inverted pyramid), add a key takeaways list at the top, use semantic HTML such as lists, tables and clear headings, and connect pages with strong internal links. AI systems extract chunks, so an answer buried mid-page is less likely to be used.
What should a brand-new website do first for SEO and AI search?
Peter recommends three steps: build the SEO fundamentals (optimized core pages, internal linking, JSON-LD schema, crawlability for both Google and LLMs), then create social profiles and third-party presence that LLMs can pull from, then study crawl logs and Google Search Console to see how the site is actually being crawled.
Do citations or rankings matter more?
Looking 12 months ahead, Peter would still choose rankings, because rankings are likely to drive more traffic than citations. He also rates brand mentions as more impactful than citations.
Where can I get Peter Rota's SEO audit template?
Peter shares his SEO audit template for free as a Google Sheet. The link is in the resources section of this page and in the YouTube video description.