Home / Blog / Strategy

Strategy

LLM SEO vs traditional SEO: what's actually different?

By Zeb Choudhry · Visus · 4 July 2026 · 6 min read

What is traditional SEO?

Traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the practice of improving a website's visibility in Google's link-based organic search results. It covers keyword optimisation, backlink building, technical health (crawlability, site speed, mobile-friendliness), and content quality signals like E-E-A-T.

Traditional SEO is well understood and well-tooled. Semrush, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog give you keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and technical audits. The outcome you're optimising for is: appearing at position 1–3 in Google for target queries, which drives clicks to your website.

What is LLM SEO?

LLM SEO (also written as LLM-SEO, and often called GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation) is the practice of optimising content so that large language models and AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot — are likely to cite, mention, and recommend your business in their answers.

The outcome you're optimising for is different: not a position in a ranked list, but appearing as a recommendation or source in a conversational AI answer. The buyer may never click through to your website — they may just see your business named in an AI answer and decide to contact you directly.

Side-by-side comparison

Where they overlap

Despite the differences, LLM SEO and traditional SEO share significant common ground. If you're doing strong traditional SEO, you're already building many of the right foundations:

• Page speed and mobile-friendliness — fast, accessible pages get crawled and indexed by AI systems too
• Quality content — well-written, factually accurate content that serves user intent is valued by both Google and AI systems
• E-E-A-T signals — experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust signals help both Google ranking and AI citation confidence
• Third-party mentions — press, reviews, and citations build domain authority for SEO and corroboration for AI

A well-optimised page for traditional SEO is usually a good starting point for LLM SEO. The gaps tend to be in the AI-specific additions: llms.txt, AI crawler access, FAQPage schema, and entity clarity.

Where LLM SEO is different

Several LLM SEO signals have no traditional SEO equivalent:

• AI crawler access — you can rank in Google while blocking GPTBot. A business can have perfect SEO and be completely absent from ChatGPT for this reason alone.
• llms.txt — this file doesn't exist in traditional SEO. It's an AI-specific instruction file that tells language models about your business.
• Entity clarity — traditional SEO doesn't score whether your business is identifiable as a distinct entity. LLM SEO does. AI can't recommend a business it can't confidently identify.
• Answer-ready content — traditional SEO tools measure keyword density and content length. LLM SEO requires content that can be quoted verbatim as an answer to a specific buyer question.

Do you need both?

For most businesses: yes, and the overlap means you're not doubling your effort. The LLM SEO additions (llms.txt, AI crawler access, FAQPage schema, entity clarity improvements) take a few hours to implement on top of a solid traditional SEO foundation.

If you're starting from scratch, prioritise traditional SEO first — technical health, keyword-relevant content, backlinks — then layer in the LLM SEO additions. The exception: if your business is in a category where buyers are actively asking AI tools for recommendations (local services, professional services, hospitality), LLM SEO visibility may matter more immediately.