Since AI assistants started answering questions directly, small business owners keep asking the same thing: "do we have to start over?" No. But you do need to look at your site with a different question in mind.
What doesn't change
Assistants rely on search indexes. A technically sound site, fast, well structured and indexed, is still the starting point. Useful content is still the heart of the work. SEO best practices are not outdated, they have become the bare minimum.
What really changes
SEO aims for a click in a list of links. GEO aims for a mention in an answer. That shifts the effort onto three things.
- Clarity over volume: one page that clearly answers a question beats three vague pages on the same topic.
- Your reputation beyond your site: what directories, reviews, media and specialist sites say about you weighs heavily in what an AI remembers.
- Accuracy: an AI can repeat an old address or an old price it found elsewhere. You need to keep your information up to date everywhere.
The advantage of writing in French
In Quebec, a large share of questions are asked in French. Yet precise, local French content is far scarcer than English content. A small business that publishes clear answers, in French, about its field and its region faces less competition to be picked up.
Watch out for sloppy machine translation: text that sounds off in French is less likely to be chosen as a reliable source.
Where to start when time is short
Run a visibility test on a dozen customer questions (see our article on measurement), check that AI crawlers are not blocked, update your Google Business Profile and your directory listings, then rewrite your three most important pages so they answer in the very first sentence.
These are simple steps that a small team can handle, and they serve classic SEO as much as GEO.