ESO Academy

GEO & AEO Curriculum

Master Generative Search with a hands-on, practical curriculum.

Learn how modern AI search systems discover, understand, retrieve, and cite web content. This 8-module curriculum combines clear concepts with real-world practice inside Elite Site Optimizer.

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What You’ll Learn

This curriculum is designed around the signals that influence visibility across modern search and AI discovery experiences.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT Search

Google

Google AI Overviews

Gemini

Gemini

Perplexity

Perplexity

Claude

Claude

Mint Teal Search Icon

Traditional Search Engines

Every module follows the same approach:

  1. Learn

    Understand the concept

  2. Audit

    Run an analysis
    in ESO

  3. Diagnose

    Identify the gaps

  4. Optimize

    Apply the learning

  5. Measure

    See the results

The 8-Module Curriculum

Eight applied modules. Every module ends in action with a hands-on lab inside Elite Site Optimizer.
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01

The Architecture of Generative Search

Understand how AI-powered search actually works.

What You’ll Learn

  • The evolution from traditional SEO to GEO and AEO
  • How generative search differs from conventional search
  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation and grounding
  • How LLMs retrieve, evaluate and cite information
  • The zero-click search environment
  • Differences between ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews
  • The role of entities, citations and machine-readable content
Hands-On ESO Lab: Run an initial AI visibility assessment and establish a baseline for the website you are evaluating.

02

Prompt Research & Information Gain

Move beyond keywords and understand conversational search.

What You’ll Learn

  • Keywords versus conversational prompts
  • Informational and commercial prompt intent
  • Prompt clustering
  • Multi-intent search behaviour
  • Question-based discovery
  • Competitor visibility opportunities
  • Information gain and content differentiation
  • Mapping prompts to pages and entities
Hands-On ESO Lab: Build a high-intent prompt set and compare visibility against competing websites.

03

Entity Engineering & Knowledge Graphs

Help machines understand who you are, what you offer and how your information connects.

What You’ll Learn

  • Entity-based search
  • Brand, organization, person, product and service entities
  • Entity relationships and disambiguation
  • Knowledge graph concepts
  • Schema.org and JSON-LD fundamentals
  • sameAs entity linking
  • Organization and Person markup
  • Third-party corroboration
Hands-On ESO Lab: Audit entity signals and structured data and prepare an entity relationship improvement plan.

04

Designing Citation-Ready Content

Create content AI systems can understand, extract and quote.

What You’ll Learn

  • Answer-first content architecture
  • Atomic question-and-answer blocks
  • Heading hierarchy
  • Passage-level optimization
  • Writing for extraction
  • Quotability and specificity
  • E-E-A-T and generative retrieval
  • Internal linking as a topical graph
  • Tables, lists, FAQs and structured answers
Hands-On ESO Lab: Analyze and restructure a page for improved AI readability and compare the result.

05

Digital PR, Co-Mentions & Off-Site Signals

Understand why authority extends beyond backlinks.

What You’ll Learn

  • How AI systems evaluate source credibility
  • Authority and trust signals
  • Digital PR for GEO
  • Earned mentions
  • Brand mentions versus backlinks
  • Co-mentions and co-citations
  • Directories and review platforms
  • Author identities and credentials
  • Competitor authority analysis
Hands-On ESO Lab: Compare external visibility with competitors and identify missing authority opportunities.

06

Multi-Modal & Technical GEO

Make sure AI crawlers can access, render, understand and process your website.

AI Crawlability

  • GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers
  • robots.txt strategy
  • XML sitemaps
  • Canonicalization
  • Crawl blockers
  • llms.txt

Rendering & Performance

  • Client-side versus server-side rendering
  • JavaScript-rendered content
  • Time to first byte
  • Core Web Vitals
  • Mobile parity
  • Accessibility and machine readability

Multi-Modal Signals

  • Schema validation
  • Image metadata
  • Video metadata
  • Transcripts and tables
Hands-On ESO Lab: Run technical, performance, accessibility, crawlability and structured-data checks and prioritize the issues.

07

Analytics, Rank Tracking & AI Attribution

Measure whether your GEO strategy is actually working.

What You’ll Learn

  • Defining GEO and AEO KPIs
  • AI citation share
  • Brand mention frequency
  • Answer presence
  • Prompt visibility
  • Benchmarking before optimization
  • Competitive citation analysis
  • AI referral traffic
  • AI traffic tracking in GA4
  • Recurring performance reporting
Hands-On ESO Lab: Build a measurement baseline, compare competitors and create a reusable GEO reporting framework.

08

Capstone GEO/AEO Audit

Bring everything together into one complete strategy.

Bring Everything Together

  • Generative search visibility
  • Prompt opportunities
  • Crawlability
  • Rendering and performance
  • Semantic structure
  • Content quality and AI readability
  • Structured data
  • Entity clarity
  • Authority and trust signals
  • Competitive citations
  • Measurement and reporting
Final Practical Project: Complete an ESO-backed audit of a real website and prepare a prioritized GEO/AEO improvement strategy supported by evidence.

Ready to build your GEO & AEO skills?

Explore the curriculum and start your learning journey. Gain practical knowledge, run real audits inside ESO, and build skills you can apply immediately.
Explore the Curriculum
AI Readiness Overview