Part 3: Why topics matter in GEO

In the last post, I explained why personas are the foundation of GEO. Once you know who you are measuring for, the next question is what you actually measure.

The answer is topics.

Topics are the things your personas actually care about. They define where attention lives and where AI recommendations are shaped.

Same category, different topics

Take athletic footwear.

A marathon runner cares about cushioning, race day shoes, and injury prevention. A casual jogger cares about comfort, style, and price. Same product category. Completely different topics.

If you measure generic queries without understanding topic intent, you flatten these differences and miss how AI actually responds to real buyers.

Not all topics are equal

Some topics matter far more than others.

Best running shoes gets more than 100,000 monthly searches. Trail running shoes for overpronation gets under 1,000. That difference matters.

Search volume tells you where attention lives. And where attention lives is where AI visibility has the biggest impact.

SEO data transfers directly to GEO

This is where classic SEO skills map cleanly into GEO.

The questions people type into Google are the same questions they ask ChatGPT. The volume data already exists. Use it.

For each persona, identify five to ten topics they actively search for. Then pull the keywords and monthly search volume for each topic. Prioritize the topics with the highest volume and strongest buying intent.

A topic with 50,000 monthly searches matters more than one with 500. Not because the smaller topic is irrelevant, but because the upside of AI visibility is much higher where volume is concentrated.

Topics before queries

Most GEO tools get this backwards.

They ask you to enter a list of queries with no topic structure, no volume context, and no prioritization. You end up measuring noise instead of signal.

The right sequence is:

• Persona

• Topics

• Keywords and volume

• Queries

When you follow this order, your GEO data becomes interpretable. You can see which topics drive visibility, which topics drive sentiment, and where your brand actually wins or loses in AI recommendations.

What’s next

In the next post, I will show how to turn these topics into the hundreds of queries you need for statistically meaningful GEO measurement, without drowning in manual work.

If you are doing GEO without topics, you are guessing.