When we shared our digital marketing predictions for 2026, we shared that AI is here to stay, but that it needs to be balanced with thought leadership and content creation. As we enter the new year, this prediction is becoming a reality that dental practices will need to pay attention to.
GEO as an Emerging Aspect of SEO
Dental practices are still going to need to create and update their website content for SEO, but also do so for GEO. Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is an emerging aspect of SEO that focuses on content quality, structure, and authority building through thought leadership.
This content is used and sourced for AI search models like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, helping your content appear in AI-generated search summaries.
While Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, primarily ranks pages, GEO makes content a resource for AI to reference, creating even more visibility through mentions in AI answers. In other words, this allows your content to appear in more than just traditional search results.
How to Plan for GEO in 2026
It’s never too soon to start planning ahead, especially for your website content and GEO. Here’s how to make sure that your website content is cited in AI answers at the top of search results:
- Make your content understandable, citable, and authoritative
- Include a clear content structure, topical depth, and third-party content
- Create high-value content that AI views as trustworthy and worth mentioning
- Always use clear, concise, and precise language that AI can more easily process
Optimizing your content for not only SEO but also for GEO will help you increase your brand awareness, mentions, and qualified traffic coming to your website.
What the Future of AI Looks Like
Like we’ve shared, it’s going to be more important than ever before for dental practices to show up consistently on the platforms where their future patients are looking for dentists.
With so much content being created, it’s important for your dental practice to stand out, and to do so, it’s important that AI views your content as credible, trustworthy, and authoritative.
AI is only going to keep evolving over time, so we need to learn how to work with it and benefit from the opportunities that it can provide. If dental practices can find ways to create content that can work everywhere, they’ll have a better chance of standing out in a patient’s search results.
If you’re ready to reevaluate your website content to ensure that your online presence is set up to succeed long term, we’re here to help—we’re the dental marketing agency that has a pulse on what’s going on in the digital marketing landscape and knows how to help you stand out.
Let’s get started on a digital marketing plan for your practice! Schedule your free consultation.