FFS SEOs - DON'T Add GEO To Your LinkedIn Headline!

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If you've spent the last year calling out GEO as marketing

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bollocks, then stuck it in your headline anyway, what the fuck

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are you doing?

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This is SEO. Fucking what? I'm Nikki and I've been in SEO for

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over 30 years before it was even called SEO. I help people

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like you make money from your website by getting found on

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search. And today I'm talking about something that's really,

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really pissed me off.

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SEOs, good SEOs, people I like and respect,

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adding GEO and aeo to their LinkedIn headlines

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because they're tired of losing pictures to other people. I get

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it, I really do, but it's making everything

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worse. So here's what happened. I had

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a conversation with a potential client recently. They'd found me on

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ChatGPT, which, by the way, awesome, and they

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wanted to know what I'd done to get there. So I told them SEO.

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And they said, well, yeah, but what did you do specifically

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to be in AI search? And I said, SEO.

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And they said, yeah, but you must have done something differently,

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right? And I said, I literally did the same

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SEO I do for all my clients. And to cut a

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long story short, they went with someone else, someone on LinkedIn

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who offered AEO and GEO as well as SEO

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and charged almost three times as much. And you know what?

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There's enough business out there. There's business for everyone. So fill your boots,

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mate. Enjoy paying triple for the exact same fucking thing.

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And I posted about this on LinkedIn, as you do when you're annoyed and need

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to vent into the void. And the response has made me really sad. People

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I like, people I respect, SEOs who'd been doing this

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for years. They admitted on the post and by direct

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message that they'd reluctantly added GEO

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to their headlines. One of them said it took more thought

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than I expected, but they'd done it for clarity and positioning.

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Another said their skills better represented now.

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And a third one told me that they'd resisted for months but finally

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caved because they were tired of losing pictures. And to people

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offering the same thing with new terminology.

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And again, I get it. I really fucking

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do. When potential clients are choosing someone charging more

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than you just because they've stuck three letters in their headline,

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the temptation to play the same game is enormous. But

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it really, really bothers me. If your

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skills haven't changed, how are they better represented? By

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adding a buzzword? If you're doing the same good work you

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were doing six months ago, what clarity does GEO

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add? None. It adds precisely buck all

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except validation to the lie that GEO is somehow

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massively different from SEO. And if you've read anything I've

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written about GEO over the past year, and if you haven't,

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where have you been? Then you'll know that I think a big part of

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the whole concept is is marketing. Bollocks.

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I called it out in a blog post called what the fuck is geo? Back

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in April last year. I went after the self proclaimed

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experts in June and in January this year, Danny

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Sullivan from Google, you know, actual Google,

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pretty much confirmed what I'd been saying all along. G E O

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is pretty much SEO with a shiny new acronym.

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The guidance is the same, their work is the same. The made up

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terminology is just marketing designed to separate business owners

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from their money.

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So when SEOs, people who absolutely should know

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this, and I'm pretty sure they do, add GEO to their

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headlines anyway, pisses me right off. And it's

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not because I'm judging them personally. Like I said, I

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genuinely understand the pressure. When there are

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people out there charging thousands for AI optimization

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that just amounts to basic content structure and clients

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are falling for it. Staying principled feels like bringing

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a fucking knife to a gunfight.

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Every SEO who adds GEO to their headline makes

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the problem worse. Every single one,

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every one of us who plays along validates the lie. We make

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it harder for clients to tell the difference between someone doing

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legitimate work and someone who's just repackaged the same services

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with trendy terminology and a price hike. I

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know I'm gonna sound preachy here, and I hate myself for

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it a little bit, but I can't help it.

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Part of being seen as an expert in your field is not just doing

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the work, but educating people, helping

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them understand what they're paying for and why. When a

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client asks me what I did to appear in AI search results, I tell them

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the truth. Good SEO. When they push back,

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I explain that optimizing for search engines is pretty much

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the same as optimizing for AI search. The fundamentals

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don't change just because there's a chatbot on the other end.

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When they're skeptical, I show them the results I've achieved without

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doing anything specifically for AI. Just the same

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SEO that works. When the SEO that works

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changes, then I'll change what I do and not until then.

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And that's harder than just nodding along and adding GEO

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specialists to my invoice. But it's honest and in the

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long run, it builds the kind of trust that keeps clients coming back

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instead of chasing the next shiny thing that some dickhead on LinkedIn

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invented. When we add GEO to our

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headlines, we're not educating anyone. We're

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reinforcing the idea that there's something meaningfully different about

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AI optimization, something that requires completely

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separate expertise and justifies separate pricing.

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We're telling clients that their confusion is justified,

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that this really is a whole new discipline,

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that the Hustle Bros selling GEO services might actually be

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onto something. And they're not.

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We know they're not. And by playing along, we make it

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harder for clients to figure that out. So what's the actual

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fix here? What do we do when

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staying principled means watching those Hustle Bros who hoover up the business?

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I'll tell you what I think in just a minute.

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Here's where I'm supposed to give you a nice, neat solution. The magic

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answer to competing with people charging more for identical services

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wrapped in buzzwords. And the truth is, I don't have one.

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If I'd cracked that particular code, this would be a very different kind of

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podcast, and I'd probably be a lot richer. But this is what

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I do know. Maybe the answer is being

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louder about calling this stuff out, making more noise than the

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grifters. Maybe it's writing more content that helps business

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owners understand what they're really paying for. More podcasts,

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more articles, more guest spots. Maybe it's finding better

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ways to demonstrate value that don't require playing

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terminology games. Because what I do know is that adding

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three letters to our LinkedIn headlines ain't it? So

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every time someone asks me about geo, I have an opportunity

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to explain why the term exists, who benefits from

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it? Because it's not business owners and what the work

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actually involves. And that conversation might lose me some clients who

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want to believe in magic, but it might also build trust with

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clients who appreciate straight talk. And honestly,

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I'd rather be the SEO who told them the truth than the one who took

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their money and validated their confusion. Here's what

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I think we need to acknowledge. If we're being honest,

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this mess is kind of our own fault. The

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SEO industry's fault. The reason

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GEO grifters have been so successful is, is that the SEO

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industry has historically been absolute dogshit,

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explaining what we do. We've hidden behind jargon.

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We've made simple things sound complicated. We've treated our

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work like dark magic that only the initiated can understand,

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and that created the perfect environment for someone to come

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along with a new acronym and convince business owners that everything

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they knew about SEO was suddenly obsolete.

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Oh, you've been doing SEO? Oh, that's cute.

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But have you heard about Geo? It's completely different. You need

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a specialist. It's not completely different. It's

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not some revolutionary new technique that's different

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from what good SEOs have been doing for a decade or more. But when

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our industry has spent so long being deliberately opaque,

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can we really blame clients for falling for it? Adding

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Geo to our headlines doesn't fix this. It makes it worse.

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It's another layer of jargon, another barrier between

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business owners and understanding what they're actually paying for.

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So here's where I've kind of landed on this. I'm not

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going to add Geo to my headlines and my profiles, not

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because I'm morally superior, I'm really fucking not.

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But because I genuinely believe it would make me part of a problem

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I've spent the last year complaining about. I'd feel like a

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hypocrite. And quite frankly, I have enough to feel guilty about

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without adding that to the list. Will it cost me

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clients? Probably. Will some of

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those clients end up paying someone else loads more for

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identical work? Almost certainly. But if

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I'm going to lose clients, I'd rather lose them while being honest about

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what I can do than win them by playing the same games as

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the people I've been calling out to, the SEOs who've added

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geo to their headlines. I'm not trying to pick on you,

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honestly. I'm just sad. I'm sad that the

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industry has created a situation where good people feel they

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have to do this to compete. I'm sad that clients are being trained

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to look for buzzwords instead of expertise. And I'm sad that every

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time one of us plays along, it gets a little bit harder to push

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back. And I don't know how we fix this,

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but I'm pretty sure that adding more letters to our headlines

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isn't it. And if this resonated with you, don't keep

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it to yourself. Make sure you're following SEO fucking what in

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whichever app you're listening to right now so you don't miss the next episode.

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Share this with your SEO mates. Share it with someone who's thinking

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about adding Geo to their headline. Share it with a business owner

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who's about to pay more money for the same work. If you want to

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argue with me about this, do that as well. Find me on LinkedIn.

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Always up for a scrap. Until next time. Get

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found, make money. And for fuck's sake,

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stop validating the Hustle Bros.