The process of online search has changed quickly over the last few years, from the addition of AI Overviews in traditional search engines like Google, to being able to search for answers and products in Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini. As such, the idea of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has shifted as well, alongside its pillar of Local SEO, with the addition of AI. Additional measures must now be taken into account when trying to optimize your website and brand across the internet.
Bearing this in mind, what exactly is the difference between SEO and Local SEO, and how have each changed with the presence of AI and the need for GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)? Read on, as we take a deep dive not only into what SEO and Local SEO now look like, but also how both feed into GEO strategies. You’ll see how SEO is based on the core pillars of on-page optimization, technical SEO, backlinks, and content marketing, while Local SEO focuses more on Google Business Profile Management, including the consistency of contact information online, as well as the importance of reviews and location keyword integration.
What Is SEO?
SEO is a set of strategies that help your content, and thus website, grow in visibility and appear higher in rankings on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). This is done with content that is of high quality, relevant, and authoritative for users, along with being easily readable by search engines and AI tools. You can simply think of SEO as being broken down into these four pillars:
- On-Page Optimization: Optimizing each page with specific keywords to better speak to the intent of the searcher. This is done by ensuring metadata is properly in place, including through titles, descriptions, and images
- Technical SEO: Ensures search engines and AI tools can understand your website’s content and can easily crawl and index it, including site structure, site speed and mobile-friendliness
- Off-Page SEO: When your content is strong others create inbound links (backlinks) to your website, showing you are a trustworthy source of the information and have credibility
- Content Marketing: Content informs, educates, and entertains, needing to be of high-quality and relevant to what is being searched for, along with being consistently updated and refreshed
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is part of a strong SEO strategy that optimizes your website, online profiles, and listings to best reach the potential customers that live in your direct area. This can be done through focusing on areas where your information can be found, and can also be incorporated into your overall content creation.
Check out our previous blog to learn more about what Local SEO is!
Google Business Profile Management
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) essentially acts as a secondary website, putting your dealership’s information out to the world to make you that much easier to interact with in desktop and mobile search. This is where you want to make certain your information, especially your NAP (name, address, and phone number) are accurate and match your website. Make sure you’re filling out and actively updating every feature you possibly can on the listing. This includes photos, posts, product entries, social media profiles, responding to reviews, having a proper business description, and more. An optimized GBP also helps with ranking on local map packs in search, and in Google Maps itself, which can help inform potential customers of your business and what you have to offer.
Local Citations
Getting your dealership, with its correct NAP information, on listing sites, online directories and social media like Facebook and Instagram, not only puts your business out there for more potential customers, but also helps to create unified authority and trust across the internet toward your brand.
Review Responses
Potential customers often interact more with dealerships that actually respond to reviews, and even more so with ones who take feedback from negative reviews and meet those criticisms head-on, instead of just ignoring them. Addressing all reviews, both good and bad, can help you with both the authority and trustworthiness parts of the EEAT model that Google uses when it’s deciding whether or not to use you as a source. Not only does addressing reviews directly serve the people who have shopped with you, but is highly valued by traditional search engines and LLMs, which use this info to determine whether or not to feature you in AIOs and use you as a source of information, making review responses all the more important. Don’t just focus on Google as well; wherever your dealership is on a platform that reviews can be left, make sure to respond to them!
Read our blog for helpful tips on how best to address all types of online reviews.
Local Keyword Inclusion & Page Optimization
We mentioned earlier that Local SEO can also be used in content, and that’s done through keyword inclusion and page optimization. For example, when mentioning that you’re a “new and used Ford dealership”, you can say that you’re a “new and used Ford dealership in Toronto, Ontario” and give helpful information to both readers and crawlers. Adding your location to your meta descriptions and the title of your pages can also serve to get more eyes on your dealership for those searching for a local business right by them. Be careful, though, to keep keyword inclusion natural, as overstuffing keywords with a ton of locations that you don’t actually serve will not trick search engines or AI tools and becomes tricky to read.
What Is GEO?
GEO, or Generative Engine Optimization, is an online strategy that contains many of the same tenants (including some additional ones) from both SEO and Local SEO, utilizing them to improve the appearance of content in AI tools and results.
While traditional SEO strategies focused on getting content to rank high in SERPs, GEO strategies turn this on its head by tailoring content to topics that AI tools then want to take in and share in their more conversational fashion. AIOs, for example, are information about a specific prompt you searched in Google, which is gathered from a number of sources to create this holistic answer for you. To be a source for this information you’ll have to incorporate a number of strategies, like structuring content properly, answering info quickly and directly, providing credibility, using structured data and more. Many of these are familiar traditional SEO strategies, and others further defined for AI.
How Tried-and-True SEO Strategies Match with GEO
SEO strategies might have changed over the years (and continue to do so with the rise of AI), but they still remain with the same core over all this time: when creating content, you want to have content that people are actually searching for and want to read. With GEO, you’re putting more emphasis on making easily readable content that includes direct answers and takes content structure and schema into account so that AI tools and search engines can easily crawl and “see” it for AI use. Further, keeping your content fresh and covering in-depth content areas, as you would with traditional content marketing strategies, benefits both classic SEO and GEO as well.
What’s the Difference Between SEO, Local SEO, & GEO?
To put it plainly, SEO is an umbrella term that encompasses Local SEO, while GEO is a term that encompasses many of the same features of traditional SEO and Local SEO, just to serve answers in AI-generated prompts and tools. How they are similar and different, though, including what they do and how they interact with each other, breaks down thusly:
| SEO | Local SEO | GEO | |
| What It Is | Optimizing your website to rank in organic search results | Optimizing your online presence to appear in local searches | Optimizing your brand to be included in AI-generated answers |
| What It Does | Helps your pages rank higher, earn more clicks, and increase visibility | Connects your business with nearby, high-intent customers | Helps AI tools understand, trust and mention your business |
| What It Includes | High-quality content production and marketing, on-page and off-page optimization, and technical SEO | GBP optimization, reviews, citations, local keywords, location pages | Structured, authoritative content focused on direct answers to user questions, brand consistency, local SEO signals, citations |
| Where It Shows Up | Organic search results | Local search results, local pack maps | LLMs/AI chatbots (like ChatGPT and Gemini), AI Overviews at the top of Google SERPs |
| How They Work Together | Provides the foundation of authority and content | Adds location relevance and real-world trust | Uses SEO and Local SEO to generate AI answers |
| What Success Looks Like | More website traffic and stronger lead quality | More calls, visits local leads and visibility | More brand mentions, citations and trust |
EDealer: Where We Cover Both SEO and Local SEO for You, Optimized for AI
At EDealer, our team of SEO experts create both SEO and Local SEO content that helps your dealership build trust and visibility, in both traditional search, AI features and LLMs. Our SEO Services cover both SEO as well as Local SEO so you don’t have to worry about a thing. If you’re ready to improve your dealership’s online presence, just reach out to us, today!