Business was flat for Ed Moore Florist — until it embraced a new kind of online optimization. After the Denver-based shop worked with a digital marketing firm, its direct customer orders jumped 25%, with new business coming in from cities it hadn’t previously reached.
The secret? Not just search engine optimization (SEO), but its next-generation cousins: Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO).
“You have to do it all,” Art Conforti, PFCI, founder of the digital marketing consultancy Bloomerang Solutions, says in the July/August issue of Floral Management.
AEO targets voice search — think Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant — by helping businesses show up as direct answers to spoken questions. GEO focuses on making content more discoverable to AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
“People aren’t just typing keywords into Google anymore,” says Renato Cruz Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, of BloomNet. “They’re asking full questions, whether by voice or AI, and your business has to be ready to respond.”
According to Adobe Analytics, 53% of U.S. consumers plan to use AI for shopping assistance this year. Adobe’s research also indicates that shoppers who clicked through to a retailer’s website from an AI search platform had a 23% lower bounce rate compared to all other sources.
Read “AEO and GEO: The Next Gen of SEO” in the July/August issue of Floral Management to learn more about how AEO and GEO work and strategies to implement so your business is found online.
Amanda Jedlinsky is the senior director of content and communications for the Society of American Florists.
