The most boring (and useful) GEO post you'll ever read

“How do you do it, and how do you measure it?”

If our experience is to be believed, those are the most common questions companies have about GEO right now.

And they’re among the best qualifiers anyone can ask an agency.

We’ve been working on the answers for about 20 months. Our methodology was first captured here, in one of the earliest extensive how-to guides to GEO, and we’ve refined it since then after using the system on ourselves to great impact.

The problem is, our methodology document - while useful for client engagements and our work on ourselves - is heavy as hell. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t steal it, but be ready for a long read and possibly a nap, because it’s a tad dry.

Most days we aim to avoid inducing narcolepsy, so we’ve been working to succinctly articulate both our process and thoughts around GEO’s metrics, whose priorities change based on funnel stage.

Where are we now?

Pretty damn distilled I think. The immense complexity of how to GEO, and how to measure its impact, has come down to a tale of two infographics (you can access Google Doc versions of them here):

This first, below, gets at our process. It isn’t perfect, but it is good and simple enough for people to grasp (you can tell me if I’m wrong).

The second infographic deals with measurement. Our view, strongly held, is that the GEO echo chamber and most monitoring over-indexes on Share of Answer as a metric. We believe SOA is important but, down the funnel from discovery-level prompts, other metrics are more important. Measurement priorities shift significantly as buyers move from evaluation, to validation, to purchase and post-purchase.

This graphic captures our thinking:

I’d love to know if these make sense and provide clarity. Feel free to steal them for your own GEO efforts.