As users switch from search engines to AI to find information, the way businesses need to optimise any content they produce and publish is changing.
Gone are the days of keyword stuffing and fighting for the top spot on page one of Google – Retrieval Augmentation Optimisation is the new SEO.
For media businesses like SoGlos, the development is a critical consideration as we continue to innovate and develop how we are reaching audiences across the county. But, much broader than that, it's also important for all Gloucestershire businesses that publish content and marketing material online, on their own website, to be aware of the changes.
What is Retrieval Augmentation Optimisation (RAO)?
Retrieval Augmentation Optimisation – or RAO for short – is the process of optimising your online content for Large Language Models – or LLMs.
Where SEO was all about incorporating the right keywords, RAO is about making your content useful and discoverable to LLMs looking for answers to specific queries.
What's the difference between a search engine and an LLM?
Unlike traditional search engines like Google or Bing, LLMs aren't looking for keywords, they're scraping the internet for answers to the user's query via a process called Retrieval Augmentation (RA).
LLMs don't look at entire pages, they look for specific sections that are directly relevant to the user's query.
Retrieval Augmentated Generation (RAG) is the next step in the process, where the LLM generates an answer to the query based on the information it has found and analysed.
Where a traditional search engine will give you a list of potential matches for your search term, based on keywords, an LLM will summarise everything it has scraped from across the internet and deemed the most relevant and engaging, to provide an answer to your query.
The factual accuracy of the answers LLMs produce to queries is inconsistent – with incorrect or misleading results generated by AI being called hallucinations – but as users gravitate towards the likes of Google Gemini and ChatGPT, optimising for this new way of finding information is inevitable.
How do you optimise content for Retrieval Augmentation (RA)?
First and foremost, establishing your website as a credible source is the first step.
Ensure your content is factually accurate; demonstrate expertise and authority in the relevant subject area; provide answers to real questions; and create consistently high-quality content.
Your content needs to be discoverable to LLMs, so content which is easily digestible, structured into bitesize chunks under relevant subheadings, will also help.
Rather than backlinks, LLMs look for citations to reinforce a source's authority and trustworthiness.
Content freshness is important too, so regularly producing new content featuring current, up-to-date information is crucial.
And while Google has stipulated that it doesn't penalise AI-generated content on its platform, it has clarified its position in its Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, published in January 2025, to say: 'The Lowest rating applies if all or almost all of the MC (main content) on the page (including text, images, audio, videos, etc) is copied, paraphrased, embedded, auto or AI generated, or reposted from other sources with little to no effort, little to no originality and little to no added value for visitors to the website.'
So, while LLMs have their benefits in the right context, they also have substantial drawbacks, especially if you're using them to generate content.
Originality is as important as ever.
What does RAO mean for website traffic?
Even the best RAO isn't going to drive organic traffic to your site – AI overviews are, essentially, taking the relevant information from your content and serving it up to users so they don't have to visit your site to find the answer they're looking for.
But, being used as a source by LLMs can help build trust with consumers, as your brand provides helpful information and answers to their queries – especially if your content includes answers to potential follow-up questions before users ask.
This is also where social media comes in.
While traditional search is on the decline, according to Forbes, Millennials and Gen Z prefer to use Instagram and TikTok as their search engines when they're looking for local information.
So, social media presence is more important than ever – not only as a way to share the content you're producing, but to create a community of loyal advocates who will engage with and share your content with their own networks, like the digital version of word of mouth.
