Our SEO and GEO teams keep fighting over resources - how do you balance traditional SEO with AI search optimization?

Stop treating them as separate disciplines. They’re two sides of the same coin.

The unified approach:

SEO and GEO share 80% of the same foundations:

• Quality content
• Technical excellence
• Authority signals
• User intent understanding

What they share:

SHARED FOUNDATIONS (80%):
├── Technical SEO (speed, mobile, crawlability)
├── Schema markup
├── Content quality
├── E-E-A-T signals
├── Internal linking
└── User intent alignment

SEO-SPECIFIC (10%):
├── Backlink acquisition
├── CTR optimization
└── SERP feature targeting

GEO-SPECIFIC (10%):
├── Entity clarity
├── AI-extractable formatting
└── Conversational optimization

The insight:

Most “GEO work” improves SEO too. Clear answers, good structure, explicit naming - all help both channels.

Resource split recommendation:

Don’t split by channel. Split by activity:

• 80% on shared foundations
• 10% on SEO-specific
• 10% on GEO-specific

This eliminates the “competing priorities” problem.

Team structure matters more than budget allocation.

What doesn’t work:

Separate SEO and GEO teams competing for resources.

What works:

Unified search team with specialists in both areas.

Our structure:

Search Team (8 people)
├── Technical SEO (2)
│   └── Owns: Speed, crawlability, schema, ALL technical
├── Content Optimization (3)
│   └── Owns: Both SEO and GEO content optimization
├── Authority Building (2)
│   └── Owns: Links, mentions, citations, E-E-A-T
└── Analytics (1)
    └── Owns: Tracking across Google AND AI platforms

Key principles:

1. No separate “GEO team” - everyone learns both
2. Content people optimize for extraction AND ranking
3. Technical people implement schema for BOTH channels
4. Analytics tracks BOTH search and AI visibility

The result:

No internal conflict because there’s no “us vs them.”

Budget allocation:

We don’t split budget by channel. We fund capabilities (content, technical, authority) and those capabilities serve both channels.

Let me share our transition from SEO-only to unified approach:

Phase 1 (Q1): Foundation audit

• Assessed which SEO content was already AI-friendly
• Found 40% of our best SEO pages had poor AI extractability
• Identified quick fixes (clearer answers, explicit naming)

Phase 2 (Q2): Unified optimization

• Updated content briefs to include GEO requirements
• Added AI visibility to our content scorecard
• Trained SEO writers on entity clarity

Phase 3 (Q3-Q4): Measurement integration

• Added Am I Cited for AI monitoring
• Created unified dashboard showing both channels
• Set OKRs covering BOTH search rankings AND AI citations

Results after 9 months:

Key insight:

The SEO team didn’t lose anything. They gained a new skill and expanded their impact.

Content is where SEO and GEO either align or conflict.

Content that works for BOTH:

Content that works for SEO but hurts GEO:

• Vague, click-bait headlines (“You won’t believe…”)
• Burying answers to drive scroll depth
• Keyword stuffing without clear answers
• Generic content lacking expertise

Content that works for GEO but is neutral for SEO:

• Conversational phrasing matching AI queries
• Explicit author attribution in text
• Clear “according to [source]” citations

The rule:

If content is genuinely useful, well-structured, and expert-driven, it works for both. The conflict usually means someone’s doing SEO wrong.

Let’s talk actual 2026 budget numbers:

Industry benchmarks I’m seeing:

Where the spend goes:

SEO budget:

• Content production: 40%
• Link building: 25%
• Technical SEO: 20%
• Tools & analytics: 15%

GEO budget:

• Content restructuring: 35%
• AI monitoring tools: 25%
• Schema/technical: 20%
• Entity optimization: 20%

The efficient approach:

Shared investments (content, technical) should count toward BOTH. Don’t double-count.

My recommendation for 2026:

Start at 80/20, move toward 70/30 by Q3, evaluate for 60/40 in 2027.

Unified measurement prevents conflict.

Our integrated scorecard:

The key:

When you measure success across BOTH channels, team incentives align.

Old way (creates conflict):

• SEO team measured on rankings and organic traffic
• GEO team measured on AI citations
• Teams compete for content resources

New way (creates collaboration):

• Search team measured on “discoverability across all search channels”
• Single budget for content optimization
• Success = visibility everywhere customers search

What changed when we unified:

• SEO team started advocating for clearer answers (helps AI)
• GEO advocate started supporting link building (helps both)
• No more “my channel” vs “your channel”

Practical steps to unify SEO and GEO efforts:

Week 1-2: Audit

• Map your top 50 SEO pages against AI visibility
• Identify gaps (pages ranking well but not cited in AI)
• Document what high-AI-visibility pages have that others don’t

Week 3-4: Process updates

• Update content briefs to include GEO requirements
• Add AI extractability to your content checklist
• Train writers on entity clarity and answer structure

Week 5-6: Technical alignment

• Implement comprehensive schema across all content
• Ensure AI crawlers have access
• Add structured data that serves both channels

Week 7-8: Measurement

• Set up unified tracking (Google + AI monitoring)
• Create integrated dashboard
• Define unified KPIs

Ongoing: Optimization loop

• Monthly review of both channel performance
• Identify content working in one channel but not other
• Continuous optimization for both

Time investment:

This is a 2-month integration project, then becomes business as usual.

This thread resolved our internal conflict. Here’s our new approach:

Organizational change:

• Disbanded separate “GEO initiative”
• Integrated GEO into existing search team
• Created unified “Search Visibility” function

New resource allocation:

Process changes:

1. All content briefs now include AI extractability requirements
2. Schema implementation covers both search and AI needs
3. Writers trained on entity clarity
4. Unified measurement across channels

New team structure:

• Combined SEO + GEO under “Search Strategy”
• Specialists maintain deep expertise but share goals
• Single budget, single set of OKRs

Expected outcomes:

The conflict is gone because we eliminated the artificial separation.

Thanks everyone for the frameworks.