What are SEO and GEO? A beginner's website guide

Websites, SEO, and now GEO too. When you first hear about these topics they can feel overwhelming. Technical jargon, advice that contradicts itself, articles that open with "do this or Google will punish you"…

In reality it isn't that complicated. There are a few simple ideas underneath, and once you understand them everything else falls into place. That's why we're starting a series: we'll explain websites, SEO and GEO from zero, broken down to their simplest form. Each article covers one topic, with examples taken from the everyday work of tour and activity operators.

In this first article we'll meet three concepts: why a website is the foundation, what SEO does, and why everyone has started talking about GEO. No prior knowledge needed.

The foundation: why your website matters

Many operators make most of their sales through marketplaces like GetYourGuide and Viator. These platforms are valuable, and it makes sense to keep working with them. In our glossary we call them OTAs. But there you're on someone else's shelf: the platform sets the rules, the commission and how you talk to your customer.

Your website is your own shop. You decide how to describe your tour, which photos to show and how to talk to your guests. You can take bookings without paying commission. If you're curious how much you pay a marketplace, our commission calculator shows it in seconds.

But however nice a shop is, it won't sell if nobody can find the way there. SEO and GEO are all about that "finding the way" part.

What is SEO? How does Google find a page?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is everything you do so that your site appears in search engines like Google for the right searches.

The easiest way to understand it is to know how Google works. In its own documentation, Google describes the process in three stages:

• Crawling: Google's bots travel the web, following links from page to page to discover new and updated pages.
• Indexing: A discovered page is read, Google works out what it's about and stores it in its huge index. A page that isn't in the index can never show up in search.
• Serving results: When someone searches, Google picks the pages from its index that it believes best answer that person's question and ranks them.

Think of it as a library. The librarian first has to know the book exists, then read it and put it on the right shelf, and finally recommend it when someone asks about "hot air balloon rides in Cappadocia".

SEO is about making each of those three steps easier: your site gets found, gets understood correctly, and gets shown as the answer to the right question. Later in the series we'll open up each step on its own.

What does Google actually want?

When people hear SEO they often think of tricks: repeating a keyword fifteen times, hidden text, bought links. These don't work, and they clearly break Google's spam policies.

What Google says in its own guide to helpful content is actually very simple: content written for people, not for search engines, that is genuinely helpful and trustworthy. To assess this, Google looks at four qualities it calls E-E-A-T:

• Experience: Has the author actually lived what they're writing about? A route described by the operator who runs the tour is worth more than one written by someone who has never been.
• Expertise: Does the author know the subject, and is the information accurate?
• Authoritativeness: Do others see this source as a reference in its field?
• Trust: Is the information accurate, transparent and up to date? Google says this is the most important of the four.

For a tour operator this is great news. You're already out in the field. You know what time to go to avoid the crowds, where to stop on the route and what guests ask most often. That first-hand knowledge is exactly what Google wants to reward.

What is GEO? Why did AI enter the picture?

Over the last few years, the way people look for information has started to change. Instead of typing short keywords into Google, many people now ask AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity long, detailed questions: "Can you suggest a calm sunset boat tour in Istanbul for a family with kids?"

Google has also started showing AI-generated summaries (AI Overviews) at the top of search results. So sometimes users get their answer without clicking on any site at all.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the work of making sure your business is mentioned correctly, recommended and cited in these AI answers. The term was first used in an academic paper published in 2023 and caught on quickly.

The good news: GEO isn't a brand-new world separate from SEO. AI assistants also rely heavily on content from the web when they build their answers. Pages that are clearly written, accurate, easy to understand and clear about who wrote them stand out both on Google and in AI answers. Solid SEO groundwork already covers most of GEO.

How do the three fit together?

In short:

• Website: The foundation. The place you control, where your tours, information and bookings live.
• SEO: Google finding your site, understanding it and showing it for the right searches.
• GEO: AI assistants knowing who you are and recommending you to the traveller asking the question.

Each one is incomplete without the others. A site without SEO is like a shop on a street nobody walks down. And without a site, SEO and GEO have nothing to stand on.

A few common myths

• "SEO is a one-off job." It isn't. Search results, competitors and customer questions keep changing. SEO needs regular upkeep.
• "SEO brings results right away." Usually not. A new page needs time to be crawled, understood and trusted. Patience is part of the job.
• "The more keywords, the better." The opposite. Unnatural, repetitive text drives readers away and can be judged negatively by Google.
• "AI is here, SEO is dead." No. AI assistants feed on well-written web pages too. What has changed is that content needs to be clearer and more trustworthy than ever.

What we'll cover in this series

In the coming articles, each focused on a single topic, we'll look at:

• What should a good tour operator website include?
• Domains, hosting and HTTPS: the technical basics in plain language
• What is a keyword, and how do we find what travellers actually search for?
• Titles, descriptions and page structure: how Google reads your page
• Why site speed and mobile-friendliness matter
• Seeing how your site performs on Google with Google Search Console
• Google Business Profile and local search
• How reviews affect visibility
• How to write content that gets picked up by AI assistants

One small thing you can do today

To kick off the series, here's a simple test. For short definitions of the terms in this article, see our glossary. Go to Google and type site:yourdomain.com into the search box (with your own domain). The results show some of the pages Google has indexed from your site. If nothing comes up, or your key tour pages are missing, that's exactly where this series will help you most.

Then think like a traveller and run a natural search that describes your tour, for example "Goreme sunrise balloon ride". Where does your own site show up? Ask ChatGPT or Gemini the same question. Do they mention you?

The answers to these two questions show you where you stand. In the next article we continue with the core building blocks of a good tour operator website. If you'd rather not wait, we can look at your site together.