AI Search is PRINTING (ChatGPT, GEO & Perplexity)

What the hell is Geo AI search? This is

probably one of the biggest opportunities to take your vibecoded app or take your company and get a bunch of customers. So, I brought on Cody

customers. So, I brought on Cody Schneider and we're going to give you the clearest explanation of what Gio is, who's Gio for, how to get traffic from

Gio, which tools do you need to use, and why are people obsessing over AI search?

A lot of people have done tutorials on Gio, but we put it into one place and I think this is the clearest explanation of what actually matters. Where's the

fluff? There's a ton of sauce in this episode and thanks for Cody for spilling it.

Let's start from the beginning like what is GEO? Um, cuz what I'm hoping to get

is GEO? Um, cuz what I'm hoping to get from this episode is by the by the end of it, I want to know what GEO is, how it works, which tools I need to be

using, and if it's just hype. And I know you'll give me the truth on that. I

mean, I'll just be blunt right now. I

think it's hype, right? I And here's the reason, okay? There's still more

reason, okay? There's still more searches happening on Google. Like,

people aren't stopping searching on Google. It's just like it's basically

Google. It's just like it's basically like if you think about the graphs going up like searches on Google are still increasing and searches on AI chat is still increasing like it's not like a

bigger percentage of searches are being cannibalized by chat. It's like they're almost increasing at the same velocity if not faster on Google, right? And so I I I when people are obsessing over this,

I think it just it's also a bubble thing. Like when you're in startup land,

thing. Like when you're in startup land, um like everybody's talking about this because they saw this massive spike that happened like a a couple months ago.

Guess what? Chat GPT5 launches, right?

GPT5 launches and people just get nuked on that as a source. So they invested all of this into like a a great example of this is the tally founder has this

graph where it's like absolute liftoff right it's going crazy GPT5 drops they like it changes the entire search algorithm within uh chat GPT and they're

uh their referral from that they're like like basically referral traffic coming from Chad GPT and signups just like plummets right so I I I think it's something to think about and invest in but there's the only reason that you

should be investing in it is if the product that you're building has a purchasing decision time horizon that's long where people do research to understand what types of products are

like are available and like the best for their specific business use cases. So

let's like break that down, right? So if

a if a person is uh like having to research like basically people don't do sales calls anymore to understand how the product functions. They do all of this research on the like front end and

then when if they talk to a salesperson, it's like they're so deep in the funnel by that point that they're buyer ready.

And we see that this we see this happening with people that use chat as the research tool. So they basically go to chat, they research like, you know, we'll say best funnel building software

2025 for uh soul or you know, we'll say um uh like local businesses, med spas, right? Or whatever. And so they do this

right? Or whatever. And so they do this like long query and then it pulls back all the information um and then basically surfaces that to them. The uh

I if what people are doing is they're using it as a research tool. And this is why like there's like this obsession with it is because what we see is that there's a higher p like conversion percentage of people that come from chat

to the website when they sign up. And

the reason for that is they've like gone through the whole buyer journey. like

they've educated themselves and gone through the whole buyer journey so that they're more buyer ready by the time they hit their site they're like they're like yeah I credit cards out they're in hand they're basically about to like

purchase this thing right um but overall like the the when you look at the total volume of like searches that are happening like it's minuscule it's it's super tiny and I think it's this bubble

thing that's that is software because software saw this um happen uh most quickly because early adopters are all software people like or anybody that's in this ecosystem and also software has

a long purchasing decision time horizon so there is that research component so I think that's what is skewing the data here that's what's like going on so

okay so what is GEO geo is perplexity chat GBT gemini people querying and getting answers from LLMs who's GEO for uh you know for people whose purchasing

decision timeline's long these longtail keywords um and the beauty about it is that people are so well researched that by the time they come to your startup,

they're ready to pull out that credit card and spend versus the old way where it's kind of like people come to your website and you're getting the 1 to 2%

average conversion rate. Here, I know a lot of people are saying they're seeing like 10, 15, 20% conversion rate from LLM.

I've seen like 40%. Right? So, it is a really high value customer, but like just the volume again is so small, right? Um the there's two customer types

right? Um the there's two customer types that I the data I've seen that like we've seen like have success with this.

One is local businesses that are service businesses. So, something that you don't

businesses. So, something that you don't make a purchase of often. Um, so think like roofing, think like um, uh, you know, anything that's like home related

like HVAC. When you don't have a

like HVAC. When you don't have a understanding of that thing because you're not purchasing it on a regular basis, right? People are using this to

basis, right? People are using this to discover those those local businesses.

It's like a research tool again like larger purchasing decision like larger commitment, larger purchasing decision time horizon research tool. Okay, local

businesses fit into that. the other

piece of software, right? Like tools,

anything like that where it's like, okay, we're going to use the CRM. I'm

about to commit my whole company to using the CRM. I'm going to like go super deep on comparing all the different op, you know, options and then make my decision based on that. So, if

you kind of fall into those categories, like those are the two that I've seen. I

haven't seen it really in ecom yet.

There is some around this like but it's a lot of it's like very like best you know supplement for sleep right or something like that right um it's kind

of these it but it but again the this the volume that's happening there it's just really not worth it for them to go and invest in it where it can make sense

is for ecom brands that have like almost like cult followings I would describe them. So, like imagine like a tailor

them. So, like imagine like a tailor that's like like um we just I just for another project that uh my team's working on, we had them go deep on this

company called Sunspel. It's like this old like basically um uh like men's wear uh uh manufacturer. Um, and uh, for

them, like say you're trying to discover a brand that like has a certain aesthetic and like great quality levels, but again, it's like a a bigger

purchasing uh, like decision. Like

you're almost like I'm going to like choose this brand for myself, right?

Like this is all the only shirts I'm going to buy are going to be from this company. That is when like this can

company. That is when like this can work. But if if it's like for, you know,

work. But if if it's like for, you know, almost impulse buy types of products um that are in a a cheaper uh uh you know, purchase, it it we're not seeing it be

as valuable. It may this may change,

as valuable. It may this may change, right? This may evolve, but like

right? This may evolve, but like currently like it's just not as valuable as if they're uh if if it's more of a higher ticket item. So

Okay, cool. So I get I I have a good understanding what go Gio is whatever we're calling it. Gio

I call it AI search because it's like it's all it is, right? But anyway, yeah, AI search. It's true.

AI search. It's true.

That's true. Um the VCs got a hold of of of it and started calling it GIO. So AI

search. Um okay, so let's say people are are into this idea. Maybe they have a service business. Maybe they're building

service business. Maybe they're building a cult-like ecom brand. Maybe it's a, you know, SAS software that's like pretty specific. How do you actually get

pretty specific. How do you actually get started?

Yeah. Okay. So, this is kind of the I think what I'll start with is the how it actually functions because then that will lead into okay, what are the the strategies I can execute to actually go and influence this so that I show up

within these results.

First off, um let's break down how like when I type into a chat, like when I go to chat GPT and I type in, you know, again, uh best funnel building software

for mobile devices, right? Uh or for for mobile, um what's actually happening in the background is the AI is basically taking that keyword and then it's doing

what it's called what what's called basically like AI fanning. There's not

really a name for this yet, but this is like what I've seen people describe it as. So imagine it takes that initial

as. So imagine it takes that initial query from the user and then what it does is it goes and expands that query into we'll just say a hundred different queries. So it takes that the user

queries. So it takes that the user provided query and then it goes and it writes a 100 different queries that are more descriptive. It actually enhances

more descriptive. It actually enhances them and it writes them from all of these different uh angles. It's almost

like a fact page, right, Greg? Like

think about it like that where it's like, okay, here's all the different questions that somebody could ask in relationship to this. It's going to make this like mind map of questions, right?

Or this word map of questions and then it takes all those queries and it goes and it searches those individually on, you know, Google, uh, on Bing. Each

of them kind of like lean into different ones. So, let's again walk through this.

ones. So, let's again walk through this.

User types in their initial query. It

goes, the AI goes and it writes these derivative queries that are more descriptive. And how we know this is

descriptive. And how we know this is happening is you can actually see this in Google search console, right? So if

you go to your Google search console and you filter queries that uh have a a length of over 50 characters, you're going to see these queries that no human would ever write. Like that the it is

only AI writing them. Like if you actually drop these queries into an AI detector like ai or not.com as an example like it's going to tell you like this is a query written by AI like this

is written by AI. Um and so the other component of how we know that AI is doing this search is because it is uh

showing the it's showing impressions but no clicks. So why why why do we like

no clicks. So why why why do we like assume that this is happening? So

basically what's going on is it's searching for that query that that AI the AI fanning that it created. It

searches that long query.

It then finds what's ranking on page one and then it individually goes to the URLs. It doesn't click through through

URLs. It doesn't click through through Google. It goes to the URLs that are in

Google. It goes to the URLs that are in the search results. It scrapes those out and it puts it into the context window.

So imagine like just to put numbers on this, you have a hundred different uh uh you have 100 different uh derivative queries that it creates. It goes and

scrapes a thousand pages. It pulls those thousand a thousand pages into the context window and then it answers the original query that the user gave it.

Right? So how do you actually win in that setting? You have to have surface

that setting? You have to have surface area and brand mentions is really the specifics here. Surface area within that

specifics here. Surface area within that thousand pages that it scraped, right?

And it loves listicles. It loves like top 10 lists. And so you as a company basically have to get included within that. And the more surface area you have

that. And the more surface area you have within that th that you know thousand different pages, the more likely you are to be suggested as, you know, the top result within the uh for the original

search that you did. And it's just numbers, right? Like if there's a

numbers, right? Like if there's a thousand pages and you're only included on five of them, then you're way less likely to show up than if it's a thousand pages and you're included on

40% of them. Right? So the the when you think about this, it's like basically like whatever query somebody gets searched, you have to go and find all of those uh like pages that it's sourcing

from, get included on those. And the

more that you're included on, the more likely it is that you show up within the search results that the AI actually gives back to you. So, so listicles like

being on listicles, the top, you know, 25 restaurants in New York City, that sort of thing, brand mentions, but how do you actually how do you actually do that? Like, which

tools do you need? Like, what's your stack to go and actually do these things?

Totally. I mean, so there's tons of them out there, right? Like like Prompt Watch is one, like AI for SEO or AI SEO tracker is another. That's like an indie

one. Um there's uh I can't remember the

one. Um there's uh I can't remember the name of Jackie Chow's uh company. He

just released one of these as well. Um

there is uh another one called Try Profound that's more enterprise, but all of the all of them kind of do a similar thing. All you're looking for is the

thing. All you're looking for is the URLs that are being referenced by the AI search for queries that are related to

your product. So all of these companies

your product. So all of these companies and all these products, they do almost really similar things. Um you basically like give your product, it creates all of these like different ways that

somebody could query for your product and then it goes and it finds all of the URLs that are being referenced for those queries. So once you have that URL list,

queries. So once you have that URL list, you're like set. You already know what AI is referencing, right? So now your job basically goes and it turns into I need to reach out to every one of those

websites and get our brand placed on each of those individual URLs. Right? So just to like again to use real numbers um I I got to keep a company hidden but this is like what a friend just told me when I

talked to him a couple weeks ago. So

imagine you find for like you're a software company. Um,

you basically find all of the queries that are related to the for company like what somebody would search within the discovery process using AI chat. You

find 40 45,000 URLs that are unique that are being referenced in all of the queries that are related to your product. You take

those 45,000 URLs, you go find the emails of those uh like website owners and you reach out to them and you're basically like, "Hey, I want to get

added or included on this URL. What is

the cost to do that?" Right? Like this

is literally a campaign that they're running. Um they're seeing this be super

running. Um they're seeing this be super expensive. People know that this is like

expensive. People know that this is like how this works and the value of this.

They're they're like paying basically like $500 per link that's being included on these, right?

Wow.

It's actually crazy, right?

Crazy.

It's crazy. Um you can get that down if you give them a really high affiliate commission. So if you're like, "Hey,

commission. So if you're like, "Hey, like can we pay you X and we'll give you, you know, 40% affiliate commission or 50% affiliate commission on the traffic, you know, that you drive or something like that, right? that you can

you can kind of you know uh like you can figure out some type of like deal composition that that that can make it cheaper. But that's just like the

cheaper. But that's just like the numbers that he shared with me. I I

haven't seen like a lot of like you know raw data on this yet. So um with that though like a few of these can make a

lot of impact um because a lot of the times like it's referencing the same URLs for a lot of the queries. So if you find like okay these URLs are referenced

like more often in that kind of like you know niche or that that that search uh like you know that keyword family that people are searching right if you just go and and basically prioritize those

that are being referenced most uh like you can make a way like very high impact very quickly with this and it's overnight right like I think that's the thing that like why people are obsessing over this as well if you do what I just

described like you get impact like literally 24 hours later, right? Um, and

it's way different than traditional SEO where it's like, oh, it's this very long buildup, like you know, you have kind of like a um, you know, like you have to build this trust with Google over time,

etc. Um, in contrast, when you go and get placed on this, because the AI is just aggregating from those URLs, you're going to suddenly start being shown up, right? Like you're going to start

right? Like you're going to start suddenly showing up for those queries when somebody types it into chatbt. Does

that make sense?

Yeah, it makes sense. And also, not only does old SEO take years, new SEO takes days, the amount of new SEO, AI search SEO is increasing every single day,

right? There's more and more people

right? There's more and more people searching on Perplexity, searching on chat.

Uh so, you're just now's the time, right? Now is the time to actually be

right? Now is the time to actually be doing this sort of thing.

Totally. And and there's tons of these services out there that are like, "Hey, we're going to go and write like a thousand blog posts for you and like make this private blog network that's

specific towards you to help influence the AI." I think it's [ __ ] I like

the AI." I think it's [ __ ] I like I've seen the data. There's no way that that c like stays sustainable and works.

Um I I I again I this is just like my personal opinion. And I know I'm going

personal opinion. And I know I'm going to get flamed in the chat just like talking about this, but the when it comes down to it, like all that's happening is basically what is ranking

on page one through three of Google.

That is what the source material for the AI responses are. So like your job is to basically get onto all of the qu all of the pages that are ranking on page one

through three of Google so that you show up within the AI chat. So when you're paying for that link to like that $500, like technically you are building a backlink as well to your site. So that's

actually like a good thing. Like there's

like you you like there is like a you know kind of a knock-on effect where it's like oh we're doing this specifically for AI SEO but we're also building a link which helps the like total domain authority and like effectiveness of the of the site that

we're like actually you know our own like company site which allows for us to rank for more comp you know hard keywords that are more competitive over time. So there is that component as

time. So there is that component as well. But I think the the the the big

well. But I think the the the the big thing here is that like the only way that this works is that like for example

chat GPT and OpenAI and and Plexity like they're all built on the back of this like search engine Google, right? Google

has spent the last whatever 30 years or 25 years basically indexing the entire like internet. Imagine like like

like internet. Imagine like like perplexity and chat GPT. Why would they go and index the entire web when they have this thing that they can lean on top of or like you like like get on top

of that gives already good results, right? Maybe in the future they go and

right? Maybe in the future they go and index the entire web and then they like serve back like what what they think is most relevant. But currently it's more

most relevant. But currently it's more effective for them to just lean like basically build themselves on top of Google because Google has done all that heavy lifting of that indexing. it's

already invested all this capital into that process of like indexing the entire web and understanding it, right? Um, and

so I I I think that when like you kind of break this down like at its fundamental pieces, right? When you go elemental with this like this is just SEO. It's just like a layer on top of

SEO. It's just like a layer on top of it. And it's it's it's honestly in a way

it. And it's it's it's honestly in a way almost like influencer marketing, right?

Or like because you're basically saying, "Hey, your pages are ranking page one through three. like can I pay you to

through three. like can I pay you to like put us on this list so that we show up higher, right? And so it's just this like you know derivative layer that's above like traditional like search

engine optimization and and dumb question here like to to find out which URLs are are being referenced. Are you using Google search

referenced. Are you using Google search console or is there another tool that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So all of those AI

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So all of those AI like SEO tracker tools, they all show you this. It's basically like the URLs

you this. It's basically like the URLs that Google is sourcing from. Um I can't remember the name of the one my friend was using. Um it's a startup I think I

was using. Um it's a startup I think I think like for for like is you know I know there's you know ATFs and there's um SEM

Rush and you know all those companies like is there any de facto one to use?

There isn't one yet. They're all kind of like I think they're all right now they're all just trackers, right? It's

basically just like percent of brand mentions, which I don't give a [ __ ] about and you shouldn't either. Like

that's like kind of a vanity metric.

What's more important is like what are the actual things being referenced? How

do I go and reach out to those people, right? Um so I I think if there like you

right? Um so I I think if there like you know any of these people building these like types of companies, that's actually the value like as a growth person like that's what I want. Like I don't really care about the percent of brand

mansions. There's so many of these out

mansions. There's so many of these out there that like do this now, right? Um,

and so it's more about like what are the URLs that are being referenced. I know

ah refs and SCM Rush are going to like provide this as a solution at some point. Um, I'll try to find the uh uh

point. Um, I'll try to find the uh uh the uh one that my friend is using, uh, Greg, but because he basically went to them and was like, "Can I just like get the entire list for this these key like

these queries, like that whole list, that 45,000? Can I just get that from

that 45,000? Can I just get that from you and basically pay for access to that?" And that was like how he went

that?" And that was like how he went about that process. But I can't remember the name of it. So, I'll ping him after this and we can just include it in the show notes. So,

show notes. So, cool. Yeah. And I'm on You can see my

cool. Yeah. And I'm on You can see my screen right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm on prompt watch. I've never

used it, but it seems like it's it's doing what you what you're talking about.

It's it's all of them are doing the same thing. There's only so much. Basically,

thing. There's only so much. Basically,

what they do is they go and they send synthetic data to all of these chats.

Like whether you pick any of these like AI optimization, search optimization tools. They send synthetic data to these

tools. They send synthetic data to these chats. They get the results back. They

chats. They get the results back. They

look at what's being referenced. that's

where the brand mentions are basically coming from like the percent of brand mentions and then they uh they look at the URLs that um the chat is using as the source material like that's every

single one of them is doing the exact same thing basically. So and then how do you actually do this? How do you actually like make impact with this is um you're again finding those URLs that

are being referenced for queries that are related to your product and then you have to create some type of campaign or some type of process to go and basically get get placed. So

cool. Anything else that people should know about uh with Geo and AI search?

I I think that's the biggest like biggest thing that I'm seeing currently.

Um I I would have it be a part of your stack but not the only thing you rely on. Um just like all marketing. Um like

on. Um just like all marketing. Um like

again just the fact that you know a new model gets released and it just claps everybody from a uh from a you know a signups uh from that as a source. It's a classic, right? It's

source. It's a classic, right? It's

basically like new algorithm drops and everybody gets screwed. Um or like it just totally gets messed up, right? like

Twitter algro changed and all it is on my feed is just like basically like bombing videos. It's ridiculous, right?

bombing videos. It's ridiculous, right?

And I I think we have to like you have to think about that with with all of this is like you can get platformed just like with this you can get platformed just like anything else. So

amazing. All right. Thanks, man. I I

appreciate it. Um there you have it.

Sauce about geoi search from the sauce boss himself, Cody Schneider. Thanks.

I live to serve. Thanks for hosting, Jeet.