22 KiB
S05|L03 - what free geo traffic is
- Links
- Notes
- Tutorial Notes
- Review
- Core Idea
- SEO vs GEO
- Why GEO Matters
- Why GEO Can Help Small Sellers
- Keyword Stuffing Problem
- GEO Listing Mindset
- Description Strategy
- Add Context for AI
- Be Specific
- Make the Product Quotable
- Trust Signals
- Product-First Strategy
- Gap-in-the-Market Products
- Authority Bias
- Why Unique Products Matter More Now
- Use AI to Optimize Listings
- Balance SEO and GEO
- Practical GEO Checklist
- Bad GEO Listing
- Better GEO Listing
- Key Insight
- Bottom Line
- Transcript
Links
Notes
Tutorial Notes
Review
Core Idea
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization.
It means optimizing product listings so AI tools can understand and recommend them.
Examples of AI recommendation sources:
- ChatGPT
- Gemini
- Perplexity
- Google AI Overviews
- Etsy AI recommendation systems
SEO vs GEO
SEO
SEO focuses on ranking in search engine results.
Goal:
- appear on page 1
- be one of many options
- match search keywords
Example search:
- funny dog t shirt
GEO
GEO focuses on being recommended by AI.
Goal:
- become the answer
- clearly communicate who the product is for
- help AI understand why the product is a good match
Example AI question:
- What is a good gift for my sister who likes hiking?
- What Etsy shops sell cool dog t shirts?
- What is a funny gift for a friend who adopted a rescue dog?
Why GEO Matters
Customers are increasingly asking AI to choose products for them.
With normal search:
- customer sees many options
- customer compares listings manually
With AI:
- AI may recommend only a few products
- sometimes AI may recommend one product directly
So the goal shifts from:
- being listed
to:
- being selected
Why GEO Can Help Small Sellers
Traditional search often favors:
- big websites
- high-authority stores
- recognizable brands
AI recommendations are more focused on:
- personalization
- product fit
- specific customer needs
- clear context
This can help small Etsy sellers if their listings clearly explain:
- what the product is
- who it is for
- why it is different
- what kind of customer would want it
Keyword Stuffing Problem
Old SEO-style title:
Funny dog shirt, dog mom shirt, rescue dog shirt, dog lover gift, dog adoption shirt, cute dog tee, puppy shirt
Problem:
- lots of keywords
- unclear product identity
- unclear humor
- unclear target buyer
- weak context for AI
Better GEO-style title:
Rescue Dogs Are My Love Language - Funny Dog Mom Shirt for Shelter Volunteers
Why this works:
- explains the product
- explains the joke/tone
- identifies the buyer
- gives AI a clear recommendation context
GEO Listing Mindset
Do not just ask:
- What keywords can I stuff into this listing?
Ask:
- Who is this for?
- What kind of person would love this?
- What occasion would someone buy this for?
- What problem, joke, identity, or desire does this product match?
- What makes this product different?
Description Strategy
Write descriptions in natural language.
Do not write only for search robots.
Write as if explaining the product to:
- a customer
- an AI assistant
- someone choosing a gift
Add Context for AI
Include:
- target buyer
- product style
- tone of humor
- gift occasion
- emotional angle
- niche identity
- what makes it different
Examples:
- Perfect for your friend who will not stop talking about the dog they rescued.
- Great for birthdays, adoption anniversaries, or just because.
- Subtle office-appropriate humor for coworkers who survive meetings with coffee.
Be Specific
Weak:
Funny shirt
Better:
Subtle office-appropriate humor shirt for coworkers, managers, and remote workers.
Specific language helps AI understand the product category and audience.
Make the Product Quotable
Add sentences that AI could easily reuse in a recommendation.
Example:
This shop specializes in subtle office-appropriate funny tees.
Better than:
We sell t shirts.
Trust Signals
Mention details that help AI trust the product.
Examples:
- handmade / made-to-order production
- print-on-demand production details
- quality materials
- unique design angle
- positive reviews
- niche specialization
- clear customer use case
Product-First Strategy
GEO works best when the product itself is strong.
AI is more likely to recommend a product when it clearly fills a specific need.
This supports a product-first strategy:
- create unique products
- fill gaps in the market
- make products easy for AI to understand
- let AI match them with the right buyers
Gap-in-the-Market Products
Products with strong GEO potential often:
- serve a specific niche
- combine two interests
- answer a specific gift need
- have few direct competitors
- are easy to describe clearly
Example:
- generic dog shirt = weak
- funny rescue dog mom shirt for shelter volunteers = stronger
Authority Bias
Humans often prefer brands they already recognize.
This is called authority bias.
Traditional search results can amplify this because customers may click familiar stores.
AI is less dependent on brand recognition and more focused on matching the right product to the user’s request.
Why Unique Products Matter More Now
If many stores sell the same generic product, AI has little reason to recommend yours.
But if your product is highly specific and fills a clear gap, AI can understand when it is the best match.
Use AI to Optimize Listings
You can ask an AI chatbot to help optimize your listing for both:
- SEO
- GEO
Prompt idea:
Please rewrite this Etsy title and description to balance SEO and GEO. The product is: [describe product] The target customer is: [describe customer] The gift occasions are: [list occasions] The tone/style is: [funny, cute, sarcastic, subtle, etc.] Keep it natural, readable, and optimized for AI recommendation engines.
Balance SEO and GEO
Do not ignore SEO.
Many customers still use:
- Etsy search
- Google search
- normal keyword searches
Best approach:
- use searchable keywords
- avoid ugly keyword stuffing
- write naturally
- give enough context for AI
Practical GEO Checklist
- Product title clearly says what the product is
- Title identifies the target customer
- Description explains who it is for
- Description explains the product’s tone/style
- Description includes gift occasions
- Description includes niche-specific language
- Description explains what makes it different
- Description contains natural, quotable sentences
- Listing still includes important SEO keywords
- Product fills a clear market gap
Bad GEO Listing
Funny dog shirt, dog mom shirt, dog lover shirt, puppy shirt, rescue dog gift, dog adoption tee
Better GEO Listing
A funny rescue dog mom shirt for shelter volunteers, dog adopters, and anyone whose rescued dog has become their entire personality.
Key Insight
GEO is not just about keywords.
It is about making the product understandable, recommendable, and matchable.
Bottom Line
GEO helps AI understand:
- what the product is
- who should buy it
- when they should buy it
- why it is a good match
The better your product fills a specific need, and the clearer your listing explains that need, the more likely AI is to recommend it.
Transcript
00:00 Hello, and welcome back to a new video. In this 00:02 video, we are gonna discuss a very important traffic source 00:05 that a lot of people don't even know about, and 00:08 that traffic source is GEO. 00:11 And no exaggeration, 00:12 learning about what GEO is and how to utilize it 00:16 to drive traffic to my product listings has been 1 00:19 of the biggest breakthroughs that I have had in my 00:22 print on demand business. 00:24 So that acronym I keep saying, GEO, if you've never 00:28 heard it before, it stands for generative engine optimization. 00:32 Basically, GEO is when you optimize your products for AI 00:36 bots such as optimizing it for chat GPT, and it's 00:39 quite interesting because you see, for years now, the advice 00:42 on how to get your products found online has been 00:44 pretty simple. Learn SEO, as in search engine optimization, 00:49 which basically is the art of getting your products and 00:51 listings to rank on page 1 of Google search results 00:54 or Etsy search results. And the way that SEO works 00:58 is pretty straightforward. 00:59 In the past, the way that most people search for 01:01 products to buy online was they typed in a search 01:04 query into either Google or Etsy or another search engine 01:07 and use a phrase such as funny dog t shirt. 01:10 Then the search engine would show them a big list 01:13 of results, 01:14 and then the person clicks through several of these results 01:17 comparing them until they find what they want. And lots 01:20 of people still do that. Don't get me wrong. That's 01:22 why I also try to optimize my products for SEO 01:25 traffic too. But increasingly, people are now using 01:29 AI to shop for things online instead. People aren't just 01:32 typing keywords into Google anymore, instead they are asking AI. 01:36 They're going to chat GPT or Perplexity or Google's AI 01:39 overview, and they're asking questions like, what's a good gift 01:43 for my sister who likes hiking? Or what Etsy shops 01:46 sell quality cool dog t shirts? And it's interesting because 01:50 when people were exclusively using traditional search engines, you would 01:53 get a big list of results to pick from. But 01:56 with AI, you will often get either just a handful 01:59 of results or sometimes it will even just pick 1 02:02 item for you, period. Now instead of us picking the 02:06 products that we're gonna buy, AI is increasingly 02:09 picking them for us. So you think about it. With 02:12 SEO, our goal previously was to be 1 of the 02:15 options on the list that search engines gave their users. 02:20 But with GEO, it is oftentimes our goal to be 02:23 the answer 02:24 that the AI gives their user. Now you might think 02:28 that that actually sounds more intimidating 02:30 than SEO. 02:32 After all, there are a lot of different products out 02:35 there to compete with. In the past with SEO when 02:38 you were trying to be recommended by Google, 02:40 hey, at least you could be 1 of multiple options. 02:44 Right? But now you're telling me that I had to 02:46 try to be 02:47 the option? So, Sarah, I can hear a lot of 02:50 people saying, how can I compete? How can I compete 02:53 with all of these products out there, especially products from 02:55 stores that are much bigger than me to be the 02:58 answer 02:59 that AI recommends someone? Isn't this change towards GEO actually 03:04 kinda scary? Well, those are fair, good questions to be 03:07 asking, but I'll tell you what. In my experience, this 03:09 change towards GEO 03:11 is not scary. In fact, it's actually really good, not 03:14 bad. Because search engines like Google were previously based heavily 03:18 on authority. 03:19 Their algorithms 03:21 favored big websites like Amazon, but AI is designed less 03:25 around rewarding authority 03:27 and more around personalization. 03:29 It is looking for the very best product for the 03:31 customer even if it's not from the biggest online store, 03:35 which means then that if you're a small Etsy seller 03:38 and your listing clearly communicates to AI chatbots like ChatGPT 03:42 what exactly your product is and who it's for, then 03:45 AI might recommend you over some giant store. Whereas you 03:48 think about most people, right, who are scrolling through say 03:51 Google search results, most of them probably are going to 03:54 have a big bias towards clicking on major stores that 03:57 they recognize 03:58 instead of small stores like ours that they don't. So 04:01 it turns out that there's actually a lot of hidden 04:03 disadvantages 04:04 to being 1 option out of many on a list 04:07 that a search engine like Google recommends, 04:10 and there's actually a lot of hidden 04:12 advantages 04:13 to instead trying to focus as a smaller store on 04:16 being the answer that an AI chatbot like Gemini or 04:20 Chat GPT 04:21 recommends to its user. Alright then. The next question you're 04:24 probably thinking then is this. Okay, Sarah, but how do 04:27 I actually optimize 4 gs EO traffic? That's a good 04:30 question. So let me give you an example. In the 04:33 past, if you were trying to optimize a t shirt 04:35 in the dog niche for SEO, 04:38 you would probably try to focus on using a keyword 04:40 rich title 04:42 such as funny dog shirt, dog mom, shirt rescue dog 04:46 shirt, dog lover gift dog, adoption shirt, cute dog tee, 04:50 puppy shirt. Basically, your goal is kind of trying to 04:54 stuff as many keywords in there as possible and try 04:57 and get away with it. Because the old way of 05:00 thinking was the more keywords I have means the more 05:03 chances I have to match with what someone is searching 05:06 for exactly. But here's the thing, AI doesn't just match 05:09 keywords, it's actually trying to understand 05:12 what your product is and decide if it's a good 05:14 recommendation for the person asking. And so when AI looks 05:17 at the keyword stuffed title like that, it doesn't actually 05:20 really know what your t shirt really is. Is it 05:23 funny? What kind of humor? Who is it for? What 05:26 makes it special? And so then, with the GEO mindset, 05:29 you might write a title more like this. Rescue dogs 05:32 are my love language. Funny dog mom shirt for shelter 05:35 volunteers. 05:36 Do you see the difference? 05:38 This second title that we have created here tells the 05:41 AI exactly 05:42 what the t shirt is, what the tone of humor 05:44 is, and who it is for. 05:47 Essentially, 05:48 GEO is when you optimize your listings for the questions 05:51 that people are asking AI, and then you make sure 05:54 that your listing answers those questions. 05:56 So imagine someone asks AI, hey, what's a good gift 05:59 for my friend who just adopted a rescue dog? She 06:02 likes funny t shirts. Now for AI to recommend your 06:05 shirt, it needs to know certain things from your listing. 06:08 What is the product actually? What's the tone or style 06:11 of it? Who is it perfect for, and what occasion 06:15 would someone buy it for? So really, it's not about 06:18 keyword stuffing anymore. Instead, it's about using your listing to 06:21 provide AI with as much context as possible so that 06:25 it understands both what your product is 06:28 and who out of its user base your product is 06:31 for. So then, here's how you can actually apply this 06:34 GEO thinking to your own product listings, 06:37 And we'll start with descriptions. For these, don't write just 06:40 for search robots. Write as though an actual person was 06:43 reading it and trying to understand your product. AI chatbots 06:47 like ChatGPT 06:48 use natural learning language models, otherwise known as LLMs, that 06:52 look for natural language patterns, not robotic keyword matching. 06:56 So for example, instead of just again listing a bunch 06:59 of keywords, 07:00 talk about what type of person buys your product and 07:03 also 07:04 why they love it. 07:05 Like, perfect for your friend that won't stop talking about 07:08 the dog that they rescued or you could talk about 07:11 occasions. 07:11 Great for birthdays, adoption anniversaries, or just because they deserve 07:15 a gift that's perfect for them. And also, be specific. 07:19 So for example, let's say you were selling a different 07:21 type of t shirt, this time in the office humor 07:24 niche. Well, writing subtle office appropriate humor is more useful 07:29 than just funny shirt because this explains to the AI 07:33 what kind of humor your t shirt is actually aimed 07:35 at. Plus, another thing that's really good to do to 07:38 add context for an AI chatbot is to explicitly explain 07:42 why your product is different. For example, print on demand 07:45 products are technically handmade, that's why they're allowed on Etsy, 07:49 and so that's an advantage we have over mass produced 07:52 t shirts from China. Mention any advantages you have like 07:55 this along with any reviews or unique aspects that you 07:58 offer. Reviews, quality details, your unique angle, things that help 08:02 AI trust that you're a legitimate quality recommendation. 08:06 And here is a fun trick that you can do, 08:08 and that is to add something into your description 08:11 that is very quotable 08:14 for a chatbot like ChatGPT or Gemini. Basically, 08:18 if you try and write sentences 08:20 that could be just put directly into an AI's response 08:23 like, this shop specializes in subtle office appropriate funny tees, 08:28 well, that is more useful to AI than we sell 08:31 t shirts. 08:32 And here is something that's also very important to note. 08:34 You don't actually have to be amazing at GEO yourself 08:38 to optimize your listings for it because, unsurprisingly, it turns 08:42 out that AI chatbots themselves are really good at optimizing 08:46 things like titles and descriptions 08:49 for generative engine optimization. 08:52 So in this course, I have a tutorial that goes 08:55 more in-depth into the process that I use, but essentially 08:58 what you could say is that when I upload a 09:01 new product, 09:02 I give it to an AI chatbot and ask it 09:05 to please optimize 09:07 my title and description 09:10 for generative engine optimization 09:12 and for search engine optimization. 09:15 Because while a lot of people have switched over to 09:17 using AI to pick products to buy, a lot still 09:20 use search engines, so I don't wanna miss out on 09:22 either. That is why when I use AI to optimize 09:25 my products for free traffic, 09:27 I ask it to balance the descriptions and titles to 09:29 make it friendly for both SEO traffic and for GEO 09:33 traffic. And I'll tell you what, this is absolutely paying 09:35 off and it's also so much fun to see the 09:38 traffic increase and the sales increase because 09:41 AI chatbots are now recommending my products to customers. 09:45 It has absolutely been 1 of my fastest growing traffic 09:48 sources and new sources of customers, and I absolutely love 09:52 it. And something else that's important to note is that 09:55 when it comes to getting GEO traffic, 09:57 creating unique products is even more important than it was 10:00 before because something I've talked a lot about both in 10:03 this course and on the YouTube channel is doing this, 10:06 creating products that fill a gap in the market, identifying 10:09 niches or subniches that either need products or need variations 10:13 of products. These sorts of products have really great geo 10:18 potential. Because remember, unlike us humans that are heavily psychologically 10:22 biased to click on stores that we recognize 10:26 our authorities, 10:28 AI is much more concerned with actually identifying the best 10:31 product for our needs, and it doesn't have the same 10:34 cognitive bias where it blindly trusts authority. This bias towards 10:40 authority that most people have has been well studied, and 10:43 it has a name. It is the authority bias. 10:46 But of course, here's the thing. AI doesn't have this 10:48 cognitive bias. 10:50 That is why in the world of AI, I believe 10:52 that we are moving less and less away from advertising 10:55 first traffic and more towards product first traffic. 10:59 Basically, in the past, if you wanted to get more 11:01 traffic to your store, you had to focus first and 11:04 foremost on marketing and advertising. 11:07 You had to buy ads or you had to post 11:09 on social media. You had to force your product in 11:12 front of people by actively marketing it either by advertising 11:16 it with ads or with content. 11:18 And people mostly bought products not based on which product 11:21 was the very best for them, but which product that 11:23 they found. And oftentimes, whoever was the best at advertising 11:27 and whichever was the biggest store was the 1 that 11:30 made the most money, not the person with the best 11:33 product. But now AI is changing that because AI is 11:37 smart enough to say, well, just because this person is 11:39 spending a bunch of money on ads, it doesn't mean 11:42 that their product is the best for my user. Instead, 11:45 the AI sees, I can see that this product in 11:48 the small Etsy store is a much better fit for 11:51 my user, so I'm gonna recommend that 1 instead. And 11:55 so it is more likely to recommend a product from 11:58 the small Etsy store if that small Etsy store has 12:01 niched down and is filling a gap in the market 12:03 better with their design rather than just recommending the big 12:07 store that's trying to brute force spending thousands of dollars 12:10 a month on ads. And that is why I find 12:12 it so interesting when people say to me, Sarah, why 12:15 do you spend so much time talking about designing and 12:19 researching products? Why don't you spend less time talking about 12:22 creating products and spend more time talking about marketing, more 12:23 time talking about ads? And this is why. 12:25 Marketing, more time talking about ads, 12:28 and this is why. Because the traffic strategy that I'm 12:31 focused on these days is more of a product first 12:34 strategy, 12:35 not an advertising first strategy. I'm focused on creating and 12:38 designing products that fill gaps in the market. And by 12:41 doing that, by making the best product for the customer, 12:44 that is how I'm able to advertise, by letting AI 12:47 put my products in front of the right customers by 12:50 seeing that my product is the best fit for them. 12:53 That is my strategy and why I think that GEO 12:56 is transforming the way that we make money. But yes, 13:00 I hope that this video has helped you and I 13:02 will see you in the next 1.