Audit first. Adrian Dahlin on GEO and video.
- Dane Frederiksen
- May 2
- 6 min read
Adrian Dahlin runs searchtosale.io, an SEO and GEO agency. He spent a decade in marketing and data science before founding the firm three and a half years ago. We talked about how to use video to get cited by AI search engines, and why you should not pick a channel before you run the audit.
Key Takeaways
Run an AI visibility audit before betting your strategy on any single channel.
Tools like Peec, Profound, and Gumshoe show which domains AI cites for your prompts.
AI engines prefer user-generated content with authority signals: views, comments, upvotes.
For B2B SaaS, AI cites educational and tutorial videos, not promotional ones.
Commit to six months minimum before judging whether a GEO channel is working.
How does GEO build on top of SEO?
GEO sits on top of SEO. It is not a replacement.
Adrian frames it as a stack. Marketing is the base layer. SEO is the layer most B2B companies have been building for years. GEO is the new layer that goes on top, and it only works if the SEO foundation is solid underneath.
What changed is AI search. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini now answer the questions people used to type into Google. Traffic from search is going down for many sites, and the new traffic is coming from AI citations.
"It's clearly one of the things that influences AI, that appears in AI citations and generated answers, depending on your industry," Adrian said.
The shift means companies need to think about content as a core competency, not a technical SEO chore. Adrian compares it to how he reframes SEO for clients. Stop thinking of it as a web developer task. Start thinking of it as content. Same goes for video. If you can develop the muscle of producing content that resonates with your audience, you can deploy it through SEO, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Reddit. The platform is downstream of the skill.
Why should I run a GEO audit before picking a channel?
Most companies are reading the same headlines about AI citations. Reddit was in 40 percent of answers for a while. Wikipedia is still up there. LinkedIn and YouTube are trending up. But Adrian says do not build your strategy on aggregated global research.
Audit your specific industry first.
Use an AI tracking tool. Adrian names Peec, Profound, and Gumshoe, and notes that Ahrefs has its own version built into the platform. You feed the tool a list of prompts that matter to your business. The tool runs those prompts through ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other models on remote servers, so you do not get personalized results. Then it reports back two things:
What percentage of the time your brand shows up in the answer versus competitors
Which domains and URLs get cited as sources
The second one is the gold. If YouTube videos show up high in the cited sources for your prompts, you have evidence-based reason to invest in video. If they do not, pick a different channel.
"Don't assume that because X website is the number one cited source across all LLMs that that's where your strategy should be," Adrian said.
The audit takes the guesswork out. You are not betting on video, you are investing in something the data already shows is influential in your specific space.
What kind of video gets cited by AI?
Not promotional video.
Adrian says when you look at YouTube videos getting cited for B2B SaaS prompts, they are educational. Tutorial. Instructional. The kind of video where you actually teach something useful, not the kind where you talk about how great your company is.
This matters because it changes what kind of content strategy makes sense. If the video AI cites is teaching, then a CEO highlight reel will not get cited. A product demo with a sales pitch will not get cited. A short tutorial that walks through how to solve a real problem in your industry might.
The pattern Adrian describes for AI-cited content:
Educational or instructional in nature
Solves a specific problem the audience is searching for
Has crowd signals like views, comments, upvotes
Comes from a creator or brand with some history of authority on the topic
Translation: you cannot shortcut this. You have to build the channel, post consistently, and earn the engagement signals that tell AI your content is worth citing.
Why does AI prefer user-generated content over branded content?
The pattern across AI citations is user-generated content with authority signals.
Reddit threads with lots of engagement. YouTube videos with views and comments. LinkedIn articles from people with a posting history and a real follower base. Reviews. The companies building these models chose to weight crowd signals as a proxy for authority.
This creates a problem for CEOs who want to control the narrative. Most leaders would prefer to publish a press release or get on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. But AI engines are not citing your press release. They are citing the people talking about you.
Adrian's read is that content strategy has to do two things at once. You publish your own content, and you create the conditions for other people to talk about you. Tutorial videos help with the first one. Proprietary data and novel analyses help with the second one, because that kind of content gets shared on Reddit, picked up by media, and cited back to you.
He gave a specific example. His friend Ann Smarty is finding that data-driven, research-based content does well on Reddit. It gets cross-posted, upvoted, and picked up by media. That is how user-generated content turns into earned media turns into AI citations.
How long should I commit to a GEO strategy before judging it?
Six months minimum.
Adrian's last piece of advice for CEOs: do not run a one or two month experiment with video and expect it to change your business. Be patient. Be consistent. Commit before you see the results.
This is easier when you have done the audit first. If you started by running an AI visibility check and you saw that YouTube videos are getting cited in your space, you have the evidence you need to stay patient. You are not betting blind. You are investing in a channel the data already shows is influential.
The other thing he flags is that video has inherent benefits. Even if the GEO citation lift is slower than you want, video reaches people directly on YouTube, on LinkedIn, in your sales process. You are not putting all your eggs in one basket. You are stacking outcomes.
"You're not going to do a one or two month experiment with video and change your business," Adrian said.
The pitch he would make to a CEO is simple. Do the audit. Set the strategy. Get six months of buy-in. Then judge.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It is the practice of getting your brand cited in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and other AI search tools. It builds on SEO. You still need a strong SEO foundation, but the goal shifts from ranking on Google to being cited as a source by AI.
What tools track AI visibility for a brand?
Adrian names Peec, Profound, and Gumshoe as AI tracking tools. Ahrefs also has its own version built into the platform. These tools run prompts through AI models on remote servers and report back which brands and URLs get cited.
Why does AI cite user-generated content over branded content?
AI models were built to weight crowd signals as a proxy for authority. Reddit threads with high engagement, YouTube videos with views and comments, and LinkedIn articles from active creators all carry signals of trust. The model designers chose to preference user-generated content over self-published brand content because the engagement signals real audience value.
What kind of YouTube videos get cited by AI?
For B2B SaaS, the videos getting cited are educational, instructional, and tutorial-based. Promotional videos and product pitches do not get cited. AI looks for content that solves a real problem and has authority signals like views, comments, and a creator history on the topic.
How long should I commit to a GEO strategy before judging it?
Six months minimum. Adrian recommends running the audit, setting the strategy, then committing for six months without interruption. Do not run a one or two month video experiment and expect it to change your business.
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