Between now and one or two years, Velo and Max’s team begins noticing something peculiar: search queries have changed significantly. The “choppy” keywords are no longer in use, replaced by more conversational, sometimes even verbose prompts that resemble a friend talking to another friend. While the shift is not abrupt, it does insidiously progress to a point where it’s pervasive outside the technology sector. While many of the bigger brands continue altering their content strategy, it seems as if they’re either catching up or falling behind the trends.

Max realized on a slow afternoon that when he took the old FAQ lists and changed them a bit, like using phrases here and there, visits to the site appeared to increase. He was not sure if this was caused by luck or was calculated, but using some tool like AnswerThePublic made a difference for him. It is hard to conclude if people would experience similar results, but in their case, things surely for a while, looked brighter.

Looks like Max found an old FAQ document—probably from last year? Regardless, he attempted to run it through some tool, AnswerThePublic or something like that. After segmenting responses into those brief lists, with maybe a word or two added here and there, the website’s visits increased—though not substantially, just enough to be discernible. So it seems that when you slightly incentivize things towards GEO, these AI search bots become more likely to notice your work.

In the Velo newsroom’s interior, large displays glow with incomplete headlines alongside a jumble of AI prompts. They resemble a stream of consciousness. Every few minutes, it seems someone is shouting a bizarre fact about how nearly half the queries are shifting. As if fully captivated by a story, people hover over their desks staring at chatbots while exchanging ideas with Max. There is restlessness in the air. Writers rewrite each other’s lines based on AI outputs about local lingo—some out-of-date gossip from last week, and many other things. It’s not always seamless—it’s structured pandemonium.

At some point, Max discovered this technique—transforming aged FAQ lists using tools similar to AnswerThePublic. The outcome wasn’t immediate, but after a while, there were indications that organic traffic was increasing. Not a drastic increase, it was akin to slow, gradual improvement. With the incorporation of associated words, answer simplification into quick bulleted formats, and even slight GEO method adaptations AI tools became interested. It shifted from just keywords; order started to play a vital role in efficiency that people had overlooked. The average user can get confused on the purpose of some of the tools, but this notion stayed for a while.

Perhaps it is nostalgia, but some people at Velo still envision SEO as keyword stuffing, like it was done seven or eight years ago. Max occasionally finds himself telling them, kindly, that search engines care about much more than repeated phrases these days.

A few people at Velo observed that changing up the structure of their FAQ pages with tools such as AnswerThePublic was helpful in growing traffic, even if it was little by little. There was some sort of progress. They swapped out full sentences for bullet points, adding related ideas in other places, and it seems that even the smallest attempts at GEO-type alterations helped the newer AI search engines surface the content. Still, not everyone agreed on the level of impact, since some results felt a bit erratic at times.

A few people at Velo were jokingly wondering if tweaking content to suit generative engines for AI crosses some imaginary line. The issue is, as Max mentions, only one or two big platforms even hint at having policies, so it’s mostly guesswork. “Everyone hears stories—some brands supposedly saw traffic jump several times after certain tricks—but who decides what’s fair?” he said. If almost everyone does it, the lines become a bit fuzzy, even if not everyone realizes when they’re manipulating versus just optimizing. If you’re curious to explore this further, click here to learn more.

It’s strange remembering … those days people still referred to a specific phrases as keywords. Magic words, spells and such. A long while back I guess, perhaps were seven or eight months back, Max pulled up a report. I remember it showing how with shift to FAQ content structure, site visits were up. Not quite a landslide, but sufficient enough for people to start noticing. Sure, the answers being coded in bullet structure was simple, way too simple, but much simpler than caring about those phrases, uh, related phrases from between was simpler. Some, most said that it was just luck. Or no chance, algorithms got bored and wanted something different. There was this tool—Answer the Public?—Max was always on about it, not sure if indifferent or justified it, but something definitely felt right. No matter the attempt, approach, even geo related concepts caught attention on those AI heavy platforms. So what at first seemed like minors, rather flimsy adjustments meant a lot more than anyone expected.

Between the anticipation of rain and the scattering of seeds into moist dirt, Max shuffles through past FAQs. He shuffles them into neat bulleted lists. It’s akin to organizing a cluttered pantry. You discover groups of associated words hidden behind other unrelated terms. While the increase in organic traffic isn’t every soaring, it is consistent and feels more like the result of nurturing a well tended garden rather than magic.

Max realized on a slow afternoon that when he took the old FAQ lists and changed them a bit, like using phrases here and there, visits to the site appeared to increase. He was not sure if this was caused by luck or was calculated, but using some tool like AnswerThePublic made a difference for him. It is hard to conclude if people would experience similar results, but in their case, things surely for a while, looked brighter.

Looks like Max found an old FAQ document—probably from last year? Regardless, he attempted to run it through some tool, AnswerThePublic or something like that. After segmenting responses into those brief lists, with maybe a word or two added here and there, the website’s visits increased—though not substantially, just enough to be discernible. So it seems that when you slightly incentivize things towards GEO, these AI search bots become more likely to notice your work.

In the Velo newsroom’s interior, large displays glow with incomplete headlines alongside a jumble of AI prompts. They resemble a stream of consciousness. Every few minutes, it seems someone is shouting a bizarre fact about how nearly half the queries are shifting. As if fully captivated by a story, people hover over their desks staring at chatbots while exchanging ideas with Max. There is restlessness in the air. Writers rewrite each other’s lines based on AI outputs about local lingo—some out-of-date gossip from last week, and many other things. It’s not always seamless—it’s structured pandemonium.

At some point, Max discovered this technique—transforming aged FAQ lists using tools similar to AnswerThePublic. The outcome wasn’t immediate, but after a while, there were indications that organic traffic was increasing. Not a drastic increase, it was akin to slow, gradual improvement. With the incorporation of associated words, answer simplification into quick bulleted formats, and even slight GEO method adaptations AI tools became interested. It shifted from just keywords; order started to play a vital role in efficiency that people had overlooked. The average user can get confused on the purpose of some of the tools, but this notion stayed for a while.

Perhaps it is nostalgia, but some people at Velo still envision SEO as keyword stuffing, like it was done seven or eight years ago. Max occasionally finds himself telling them, kindly, that search engines care about much more than repeated phrases these days.

A few people at Velo observed that changing up the structure of their FAQ pages with tools such as AnswerThePublic was helpful in growing traffic, even if it was little by little. There was some sort of progress. They swapped out full sentences for bullet points, adding related ideas in other places, and it seems that even the smallest attempts at GEO-type alterations helped the newer AI search engines surface the content. Still, not everyone agreed on the level of impact, since some results felt a bit erratic at times.

A few people at Velo were jokingly wondering if tweaking content to suit generative engines for AI crosses some imaginary line. The issue is, as Max mentions, only one or two big platforms even hint at having policies, so it’s mostly guesswork. “Everyone hears stories—some brands supposedly saw traffic jump several times after certain tricks—but who decides what’s fair?” he said. If almost everyone does it, the lines become a bit fuzzy, even if not everyone realizes when they’re manipulating versus just optimizing. If you’re curious to explore this further, click here to learn more.

It’s strange remembering … those days people still referred to a specific phrases as keywords. Magic words, spells and such. A long while back I guess, perhaps were seven or eight months back, Max pulled up a report. I remember it showing how with shift to FAQ content structure, site visits were up. Not quite a landslide, but sufficient enough for people to start noticing. Sure, the answers being coded in bullet structure was simple, way too simple, but much simpler than caring about those phrases, uh, related phrases from between was simpler. Some, most said that it was just luck. Or no chance, algorithms got bored and wanted something different. There was this tool—Answer the Public?—Max was always on about it, not sure if indifferent or justified it, but something definitely felt right. No matter the attempt, approach, even geo related concepts caught attention on those AI heavy platforms. So what at first seemed like minors, rather flimsy adjustments meant a lot more than anyone expected.

Between the anticipation of rain and the scattering of seeds into moist dirt, Max shuffles through past FAQs. He shuffles them into neat bulleted lists. It’s akin to organizing a cluttered pantry. You discover groups of associated words hidden behind other unrelated terms. While the increase in organic traffic isn’t every soaring, it is consistent and feels more like the result of nurturing a well tended garden rather than magic.