Make Your Content CRISP: A Framework For Generative Engine Optimization

Forbes

5 days ago

Nohar Zmora leads marketing at Kaltura. She is passionate about helping marketers create creative and data-driven digital experiences.
Have we officially entered the post-search engine era? Today, when most people ask questions online, it's not websites answering—it's AI.
People are job hunting on Perplexity instead of Google. Home cooks are letting ChatGPT write recipes for them. Even Google's own Gemini now generates direct answers, reducing users' need to visit external sites. Indeed, the rise of AI assistants is rewriting the old SEO playbook, and the implications for marketers are huge. Now, it's not enough to merely top Google's results. If AI isn't citing your content, consider it buried.
That's why generative engine optimization (GEO) is replacing SEO as the new content holy grail. This practice aims at shaping content so that generative AI (GenAI) tools can search, find, understand and use it most effectively in their responses to user queries.
As organic web traffic declines, brand discovery is increasingly taking place within AI-generated summaries. Here's what companies should know as they strive to optimize GEO.
SEO Vs. GEO: The Evolution Of Search Strategy
Traditional SEO was all about playing to algorithms: overstuffing buzzwords, saturating backlinks and technical tweaks. However, those tricks are fading.
Keyword density, which was once a cornerstone of SEO strategy, now holds little weight in the world of generative engines. Large language models don't require repetitive phrasing to grasp context. Instead, they need clarity, coherence and a deep understanding of the topic at hand. It's among the key differences that call for more than just a new GEO "checklist"; they require a new mindset altogether.
Strong GEO is built on:
• Clear, structured data that breaks information into understandable, well-labelled segments.
• Embedded metadata and schema that tell AI what your content is about.
• A conversational, human tone that models can easily repurpose into helpful responses.
• Multimodal content, including text, video and audio, which AI can now interpret and synthesize.
My team and I operate under what we call the "CRISP" rule, configuring content in such a way that AI sees it as:
• Coherent
• Reliable
• Intelligible
• Structured Predictably
GEO strategy is still taking form, but forward-thinking companies are already tapping into the potential, exploring new ways to craft blogs, white papers and websites so they don't just rank on a search page but show up in an AI response.
What has already become clear is how important it is to audit and understand which domains are being cited when keywords are searched on traditional search engines or the new AI assistants. By keeping track of which sources are being pulled from and better engaging with them, enterprises can ensure they feature better in the results.
Of course, this cannot be a one-and-done exercise. Constant tracking and monitoring are necessary to ensure that, as AI models shift and pull from new sources, organizations maintain an ongoing strategy to ensure they're present in whatever new sources are being used.
Video: A New Power Player
Arguably, the biggest change in the era of GenAI responses is the newfound potential of video content. Once invisible to search engines, AI can now fully read these assets. Because generative engines increasingly prioritize trustworthy, expert sources, the ability of videos to signal authenticity and establish credibility better than static content makes them especially potent.
Not only is video one of the most engaging and trustworthy content mediums, but it's quickly becoming one of the most indexable. Unlike search engines, generative engines are now capable of transcribing audio, interpreting visuals, identifying speakers, extracting context and even evaluating tone. In short, AI can "watch" a video and convert it into language-based knowledge and outputs.
When videos are properly structured and tagged, they become rich, discoverable content that can surface in AI-generated responses across traditional content platforms as well as within AI assistants and engines. For example, let's say a user asked ChatGPT for a comparison of a product your company makes. A properly structured product explainer video could surface information about your specific offering within an AI-generated summary and even recommend your product to a user without them needing to find your website or sift through listicles.
For companies looking to optimize their video content to fully realize GEO potential, every video should be fully transcribed. Human-reviewed transcripts ensure accuracy and improve how AI interprets content. Beyond that, videos should be structured intentionally with chapters, titles and clearly defined topical segments to make parsing easier for both users and AI. Take advantage of the metadata and be detail-heavy and specific. Include speaker names, topics covered, industries served and use cases addressed. Implementing video schema further increases discoverability.
Videos should also be designed to answer real user questions. Build your video based on what kind of prompts people will be using on this topic. Lastly, don't sleep on repurposing longer videos. Turning these into shorter clips, highlight reels and quote cards bolsters their reach and creates more appealing materials for these engines.
Breaking The (Page) Ranks
The rules of engagement have changed. Attention is no longer gained through clicks but through presence in AI-generated answers. Accordingly, the brands that will lead in 2025 and beyond are those that create content not just for people but for the machines that people increasingly turn to.
GEO is more than just a tactical shift. It requires a strategic reorientation of discoverability. CRISP, multimodal content with an emphasis on trustworthy, optimized video assets is the ticket to AI-generated relevance.
The future of search engagement isn't about getting ranked; it's about being the answer.
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