Chris van der Deijl
AI is rapidly changing how businesses become visible online. In this column for Our Harbor colleague Chris van der Deijl shares his vision on the rise of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and what this means for organizations in the port, logistics, and industrial sectors.
From Geopolitics to GEO-strategy
Everyone is talking about geopolitical tensions, trade routes, power blocs, and spheres of influence these days. As if the world is being redrawn.
Meanwhile, another type of geospatial issue is playing out in Marketingland. Perhaps less world-shattering, but at least as interesting for those concerned with visibility: GEO. Generative Engine Optimization.
For years, we've been dictated to by Google's laws. We learned how to write. Not just for people, but especially for search engines. The right keywords, the right structure, the right build. I have to admit, I never felt much love for that.
As a port marketer, you want to tell stories. Make the port visible. Show what's happening and why it matters, but somewhere along the way, I increasingly felt that findability was winning out over the story itself. That a good story primarily had to score well. For a born promoter, that feels like a strange contradiction.
Don't get me wrong: I get it. The pressure to keep up is huge, because if you don't, your competitor will. And ultimately, it's all about leads and business, so investments are made. In agencies, analyses, and processes. With beautiful promises regarding SEO.
That's probably where my frustration lies as well. Not because SEO is nonsense, but because the profession sometimes became smaller because of it. More technical. As if the question was no longer what you had to say, but how cleverly you could package it for a system that is constantly changing.
And at that very moment, GEO presents itself. Another abbreviation. Another playing field in motion. Only the question now seems to be slightly different. Not just: ‘How do I get found?’, but also: ‘How do I become the answer?’
Will we let ourselves be guided again by a system that most of us only half-understand? And by people who claim to know exactly how it works? We know that reflex by now. New rules, new terms, new experts. And always the same undertone: if you don't get on board now, you'll be left behind.
Perhaps that's precisely why I want to do it differently this time. Not to watch from a distance as a new playing field is laid out again, but to better understand for myself what is changing. That's exactly why we've taken more control. Not to blindly follow the next hype, but to bring knowledge closer to us, with someone on board who has a background in SEO and a clear vision of what is now called GEO.
