SEO helps you rank in classic search results. AEO helps engines lift direct answers from your pages. GEO helps generative tools cite you when they synthesize a response. In practice, these are not three separate programs. For most indie apps, they are one discipline built on clear pages, clean structure, and a coherent public identity.
What each practice optimizes
SEO is still the foundation. It asks whether your titles, metadata, internal links, crawlability, and content depth match the query.
AEO is about extractability. Pages do better when the heading matches the question and the answer arrives quickly, without forcing the reader or the machine to dig for it.
GEO is about whether a model can understand who you are, what your product does, and why it should mention you. That includes your own site, but it also includes the consistency of your entity across the wider web.
What vibe-coded apps usually miss
A lot of fast-built SPAs ship with one generic description in `index.html`, no sitemap, no `robots.txt`, no per-route titles, and no real content surface beyond the landing page. That leaves both search engines and answer engines with very little to work with.
This is where discoverability becomes a launch issue, not merely a marketing issue. If the product is safe but invisible, the launch still underperforms.
A practical order of operations
Start by fixing the basics: your brand description, canonical URLs, route titles, and metadata. Then publish a few genuinely useful pages that answer the questions buyers already ask.
After that, add FAQ or Article schema where it reflects the truth of the page, and maintain an `llms.txt` file that states the product in plain language. Wardloom audits these signals because launch readiness is broader than a list of CVEs.
Questions builders ask
Is GEO different from SEO?
They share foundations (clarity, authority, crawlability) but GEO emphasizes being citable in multi-source AI answers, including off-site mentions over time.
Do I need schema for AI Overviews?
Valid structured data helps machines understand pages, but clear answer-first writing matters more than decorative schema.
Ready for the last gate?
Run a defensive Wardloom scan, security, SEO, GEO, and health, then leave with a roadmap and handoff prompt.
Scan your app