SEO vs GEO vs AEO — where should a small MENA brand start?
Rohan Mehta · 18 Jun 2026
Everyone is throwing around GEO and AEO now. For a small business in the region with a limited budget, where is the highest ROI — classic SEO, getting cited by AI engines, or fixing the on-site structure (schema, llms.txt) first?
Trying to give clients a clear order of operations instead of buzzwords. How do you sequence it?
Mahmoud Farid · 18 Jun 2026
Order I would suggest: (1) fix on-site structure so AI can read you at all (crawler access + schema + llms.txt), (2) measure your AI visibility to find the worst gaps, (3) earn the trusted sources for your category. Classic SEO still matters, but if AI cannot read you, ranking #1 on Google will not help inside an AI answer.
Ali Almoosawi · 18 Jun 2026
Great question — and timely. My order for clients: (1) make sure AI can even read you (crawler access, schema, llms.txt), (2) measure your AI visibility to see where you're skipped, (3) earn the trusted sources for your category. Classic SEO underpins all of it, but readability comes first. We just published a piece on why MENA brands get skipped in AI answers — worth a read on the blog.
Rohan Mehta · 22 Jun 2026
This is the clearest version of the order I've seen — thanks. The part that lands most is putting "can AI even read you" ahead of classic SEO; that's the step clients skip. One thing I'm still chewing on: where does Arabic-dialect coverage fit? I've watched a brand show up fine in English answers and almost vanish when the same question is asked in Khaleeji or Egyptian phrasing — same brand, different result. Would you fold that into step (2) measurement, or run it as a separate pass after?
Rohan Mehta · 22 Jun 2026
Appreciate this — "readability comes first" is the line I'm stealing for client calls, and I'll read that blog piece. The bit I'd push on: once you've earned the trusted sources in step (3), how do you keep them? I've seen the AI answer drift month to month even when nothing on the site changed — so I've started treating visibility as something you defend, not win once. Do you re-audit on a fixed cadence, or only after a change?