Writing in the Age of GEO
By Lisa Norman
In Part One, we explored how SEO changed the way we write and how it trained readers to expect that anything they wanted to know could be found online, packaged in a structured, easy-to-skim format. Recently, studies revealed that bots now make up over 51% of all internet traffic, with many AI-driven tools consuming web content without readers ever visiting the source. According to a 2025 report from SecurityWeek, automated traffic has officially surpassed human activity online for the first time in decades. This shift has raised questions about what human engagement on the internet will look like in the coming months.
We’re at the start of a huge shift in how the internet works. One that may feel unsettling, but it might be the best thing that’s happened for fiction writers in years.
Let’s talk about the next evolution of the internet and how to keep connecting with readers in a world where AI now stands between the reader and your website.
What Is GEO?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It’s the next evolution of how readers find content, not through search engines, but through AI assistants that gather and summarize information for them.
Instead of typing a query into Google and clicking through links, readers are increasingly turning to tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or Google’s new Search Generative Experience, not to mention tools we've already gotten used to like Alexa and other voice search options. Google's competitors are now releasing their own (paid) AI driven browsers to compete with Chrome. These tools pull together answers instantly. Readers get the summary without ever seeing the original article.
Google’s new ad campaign is preparing the world for what an agented search might look like. Meanwhile, people who monitor their traffic are seeing it dropping off dramatically. I’m seeing traffic drops anywhere from 20% to 100% across many of my clients’ websites.
That’s GEO: optimizing your content not for keywords, but for how AI powered tools will understand it and decide whether to include it in their answers.
And for nonfiction writers, this shift is terrifying. But for fiction writers? It’s something else entirely.
What Fiction Writers Need to Know
Readers aren’t asking ChatGPT to summarize your novel and call it a day.
Fiction doesn’t work that way.
Sure, someone might ask, “What happens in The Hunger Games?” and get a rough plot summary. But that’s not the experience fans want. They come to fiction for the voice. The mood. The humor, the heartbreak, the surprise twist that made them gasp. They come for the feels.
And that means something important: fiction writers are still creating something AI can’t replace.
We’re not writing content. We’re building worlds. We’re inviting readers into emotional journeys that aren’t easily summarized. And in an age where AI is everywhere, that human touch becomes your greatest asset.
Your Superpower: Entertainment
If SEO taught us to be informative, GEO is a reminder that readers are hungry for flavor, not just facts.
Readers aren’t craving data. They’re starving for experiences.
That’s where fiction shines. You’re not trying to serve up bullet points. You’re trying to charm someone with a first-line appetizer that sings. You’re building tension, teasing reveals, making people feel something real.
AI can mimic tone, but it doesn’t feel things. You do. Your readers do. That’s the connection you’re writing for.
So don’t chase the algorithm. Write to delight your readers. Write to make them laugh, or cry, or stay up way too late with a book they can’t put down.
In this new world, the most satisfying answer to GEO is voice. Give them something they’ll savor.
Reach Your Ideal Readers
Fiction writers don’t need to reach everyone. We just need to reach our people, the readers who love what we do, who light up when they find our characters, our settings, our sense of humor.
That’s why now, more than ever, it matters to write with clarity, honesty, and flair. We want to be searchable, yes. But more importantly, we want to be memorable.
When readers love your work, they’ll talk about it. They’ll share it in group chats and newsletters and fan forums. They’ll recommend you to others, and that kind of discovery is far more powerful than anything an algorithm can offer.
GEO might change how readers arrive, but what keeps them coming back is the same as it’s always been: your voice.
GEO Isn’t the End. It’s a Shift.
You don’t need to fear this new wave of AI-driven discovery. Many of you have already survived at least one era of digital change, and this one, in many ways, is kinder to fiction.
You’re no longer being asked to stuff keywords or force yourself to churn out blog content on a schedule that steals time from your storytelling. Instead, you’re being asked to do what you do best:
Write stories that feel human.
Because in a world overflowing with machine-made words, the most valuable stories are the ones that nourish a reader’s heart.
What about you? What is it about your stories that no machine could ever imitate? What are you offering your readers that only a human can create?
* * * * * *
About Lisa
Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.
Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of No Stress Writing Academy. She also runs Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.
Interested in learning more? Sign up for my newsletter or check out my school, No Stress Writing Academy, where I teach social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors! There's an impressive lineup of teachers there to help you conquer your writing challenges.
Want to meet in person? I'll be at WorldCon: August 13–17, 2025, Seattle, WA.
Top image from depositphotos.
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28 comments on “Writing in the Age of GEO”
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Fascinating post.
Thanks, Denise!
Thanks for this Lisa!
As always your post is informative and encouraging! Thank you!
Thanks, Kathleen. It is an interesting time.
Thanks for this Lisa!
As always your post is informative and encouraging!
Thank you!
Wow, Lisa! This is wonderful to hear. I had assumed the dramatic drop in website traffic was AI yet felt stymied. Your words here are powerful, and after watching a WFWA webinar yesterday about author websites, you're both pointing in the same direction. Write our stories. Appeal to readers by writing from our hearts. Thank you.
Exactly, Lisa. Focus on your readers and have fun! That's the only thing working well now. Email list is still working great. Readers want that connection.
Thank you, Lisa. It's really hard to feel seen these days. I needed the reminder that being HUMAN is what counts. (And I'm jealous that you'll be at WorldCon. Have fun!)
Lynette, being human is vital! Readers are going to be looking for you more and more!!!
And I'm crazy excited about Worldcon!
Lisa - great information as always. I find myself saying more and more lately ... the fun I have in writing and creating my world comes most from sharing the process (and progress) with readers. It's true gold. And you got it! And the one thing I offer my readers that is something only I can create -- my voice. Despite fears of AI stealing voice, it can't be done, not really when you think about everything that goes into a writer's voice. At least that's how I see it!
Thanks for always sharing your wisdom!
That's it, Jennifer. An AI can mimic your voice, but not that creative spark that makes you unique and amazing. There's more to the topic, but that's for another day!
Enjoy your readers and that human connection. You're doing fantastic. I'm so glad that you're finding the fun.
Lisa…
This. All of this. I feel like I just read the rallying cry we’ve all been waiting for—except instead of blowing a war horn, you handed us a fresh pen and a full heart.
You’ve laid out something that finally makes sense of what so many of us have felt bubbling under the surface. That tension. That slow, creeping disconnection between what we create and how people find us. SEO turned us into data jugglers. WordPress turned into an overgrown digital bonsai tree we kept trimming and debugging instead of writing. But GEO… GEO is different.
It’s a shift, not a collapse. A handoff. A turning point.
And for fiction writers? For us, the worldbuilders, emotion-slingers, scene-crafters, and chaos gremlins who lose sleep over comma placement because voice matters? This isn’t a threat—it’s an invitation.
Because GEO doesn’t want us to game the system. It wants us to be unforgettable.
Let me say that again: it rewards voice. Emotion. Craft.
And that’s not just hopeful—it’s a massive win for creatives who’ve spent the last decade trying to reverse-engineer visibility by stuffing passion into keyword boxes.
You’re telling us we don’t have to wrestle the Google gods anymore. We don’t have to filter our magic through a checklist. We don’t have to start every blog post with a bolded H2 that screams “BEST FANTASY BOOKS FOR TEENS 2024” and then somehow segue into character trauma.
We just need to do what we were made to do:
Tell stories that pulse with life.
That’s something no machine can replicate. Not truly.
It can mimic the format. It can echo the tone. But it can’t feel. It can’t ache. It can’t chase that one scene that hits so hard you have to walk away from the keyboard for a minute because you just lived something real.
We can. Our readers can. That’s where the connection lives.
I’m especially moved by your reminder that fiction readers don’t want bullet points. They want to feel seen. They want to fall in love—with characters, with places, with themselves in a new skin. They want to escape, wrestle truth, and come out the other side changed. No AI summary can do that.
And this?
"You’re not being asked to stuff keywords. You’re being asked to do what you do best: write stories that feel human."
That line nearly made me cry. Because so many of us have been starving for permission to return to the heart of it all.
The heartbeat of story. The heartbeat of being human.
So yes—I’m excited. Not just because GEO is a new way forward, but because it frees us from chasing attention and returns us to earning devotion. We won’t be discovered because we tricked an algorithm. We’ll be discovered because we gave someone goosebumps with a single sentence—and they couldn’t stop thinking about it.
That’s the kind of change I can stand behind.
Thank you, Lisa. For this hope. For this vision. And for reminding us that in a world overflowing with noise…
being human is our superpower.
Time to get writing.
Do it, Jaime! Your fans are already in love with Chuck and Dax.
I really think Google has wanted to do something like this for a while. They've never been pleased with people gaming the system. Their computers rewarded it, or people learned what was rewarded and did THAT... but they have often said that what they want is genuine content.
This is an interesting time. Devastating for some, for sure. But I see so much hope. Of course, I've always been an optimist. Less so these days... but this? This makes me happy.
I wish I could leave this post (maybe I will) in the reply space of every AI naysayer I see on social media.
Man, it's a jungle out there. I gotta be careful not to get eaten.
But I'm excited about AI and this GEOptimize-whatever, because I can learn new things and do cool stuff I couldn't do before! And I'll just keep writing and writing and writing.
Stay tuned, Victoria. I'll have something you can share before too much longer. But don't expect it to be all sunshine. And yes, that jungle is ridiculously dangerous... or as I said on Substack, full of those wielding pitchforks and tomatoes. I KNOW you know what I mean.
This new GEO? It's a lot of fun... mostly because what you REALLY want to do is please your fans.
Thanks for always clarifying and calming the fears. You are the best!
Thanks, Jeri. I work hard at that. And yet, in this modern world... a little fear is probably a healthy thing. We just need to focus on the happy bits when we can.
This is great news and it feels like a permission slip to do the work we need to do. Thank you 🩷
You're welcome, Ami! And it helps that if YOU do this work, we all get to read FUN books!
Lol. You're the best 🤗
This is inspiration! Chasing the algorithm is so 10 minutes ago. Let's celebrate a deep understanding of readers and what makes them laugh, cry, and stay up at night. 😎
And the joy of virtual bars with virtual Bailey's on tap! I loved how our two posts came together... and Alicia's quiet revolution, too. So much joy here. Oh... and then we have Ossandra telling folks about Twitch coming up next. Great line up.
YOU are an inspiration, RJ!
I have no idea what my voice is or might be but I am trying to discover it. I do know Lisa Norman is a real life person of great word power.
Awww, Winona. You are too kind. But your voice? It's the sweet horses and your connection to friends. It's in the images you pick and the stories you tell on your blog. It's in your caring for people. It rings in all of your books.
Wow!! I just read this and would love to share it with my small-town writers group, who both love and hate AI.
Do it, Sylvia. I'm going to be coming out with a whole series on AI on Substack (not WITS) and even a new class. Stay tuned!
The mirror articles you've been writing on Substack are great!
I hate to be a party pooper but...if we post fiction online, that fiction will be scraped [read: stolen] by the various LLMs [Large Language Models aka AI] for the benefit of AI training. NOT for the benefit of either writers or readers. I would like to think that GEO will make us more visible to those who really matters - i.e. Readers - but I don't believe it.
In the last week my blog saw an astronomical jump in views. From an average of about 100 or thereabouts, it suddenly hit 5000. I thought it must have been a mistake of some kind, because like and comments remained the same. So who were these 5000 people?
I now realise they weren't people at all. My guess is that all of my blog posts going back to 2011 have now been slurped up.
I won't be posting fiction any more. I won't be posting original graphics any more. Until we are given some kind of guarantees backed by the LAW, I'm hanging on to my copyright for dear life.