AI has changed SEO forever (SEO vs GEO)

Marketing School - Digital Marketing and Online Marketing Tips

Eric Siu and Neil Patel

Careers, Business, Marketing

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Neil and Eric break down how to win both Google rankings and AI citations. They compare short-query SEO factors like backlinks, authority, and technical signals with AI-driven co-citations and long conversational prompts. You’ll learn practical plays such as building FAQ sections, crafting concise fact nuggets, bundling subtopics, and tightening your NAP for dual visibility. They also unpack why most teams fail to see AI ROI, how MCP-driven workflows change that, and Peter Thiel’s timeless monopoly playbook: start small, scale right, and partner instead of disrupt. Actionable strategies, no fluff—built for AI Overviews and Google alike. Key takeaways Co-citations + FAQs boost AI citations Summaries, NAP, subtopics win dual visibility MCP workflows drive real AI ROI TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Google rankings vs AI citations explained (03:00) Why most teams miss AI ROI + MCP basics (07:00) Fortune 500’s low AI bar and agency playbooks (13:00) Enterprise RFPs, podcast ROI, and leverage coaching (15:00) Peter Thiel’s monopoly playbook: start small, scale right 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗘𝗟 Welcome to Marketing School, one of the top business podcasts with over 61 million downloads. Each episode delivers actionable marketing tips and strategies from two entrepreneurs who truly practice what they preach. The show is hosted by Eric Siu, founder of Leveling Up and Single Grain, and Neil Patel, co-founder of Neil Patel Digital and recognized by Forbes as a Top 10 Marketer. LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HOSTS Eric Siu – Leveling Up: https://www.youtube.com/@LevelingUpOfficial Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel FREE RESOURCES Growth Newsletter: https://levelingup.beehiiv.com/subscribe Ubersuggest: https://www.ubersuggest.com/ Answer The Public: https://www.answerthepublic.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@neilpatel

Transcript

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0:00.0	So Google rankings versus AI citation from that digity year.
0:05.7	So Chatschipit pulled in 55.2 billion visits by June 2025.
0:10.7	That's an 80% jump in a single year via your favorite site, search engine line.
0:14.7	Sure, search engines still get 34 times more traffic, but that gap is closing fast, which
0:20.5	means one thing.
0:21.2	Your content has to work for both Google rankings and AI citation.
0:23.9	So here's a split, and we can talk about this.
0:26.0	Google takes shots, short queries like car insurance UK or best shoes, best red shoes or
0:31.1	whatever, and runs them through dozens of ranking factors such as backlinks, relevance,
0:34.8	authority, technical SEO.
0:36.3	For AI, AI deals with long conversational prompts.
0:40.1	It doesn't filter as deeply.
0:41.5	It leans more on co-citations than traditional links.
0:44.7	So he's basically saying, look, many old tactics still work for AI system,
0:49.0	but here's what works for both.
0:50.3	So you and I both know this already, but writing an FAQ section,
0:54.1	what is, how to questions, right? That's going to help. Add two to three sentence summaries at the top of every article explaining the main point. Include your business name, address, phone number. So nap, back in the day, so that guy's nap. And then break complex topics into one, two sentence, factual statements that AI can easily extract. and then cover five to seven related sub topics within each main article instead of creating separate pages.
1:14.1	So these are
1:14.5	the baseline things that you can do to do well in both. Yeah. An interesting thing that we're
1:20.8	seeing AI pull from when people ask questions about like the best X, the best Y, whatever it may be like best credit card, best
1:28.9	credit card for car students, best electric car. Dude, they're just pulling from what we've seen
1:35.3	a huge trend on Chad GPT where they just pull from random sites. Forget authority. It could be
	...

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