“At Adobe, I help global brands grow their organic brand visibility through Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) / LLM Optimization
Speaking Events
Here are events where I will be speaking at:
Prompt to Performance: Getting Started with LLM Optimizer
If you want to understand how your brand is represented across AI-driven platforms and large language models, now is the time to act. Generative search is reshaping how visibility and trust are built online, and companies that adapt early gain a measurable advantage. By learning how to increase your brand’s visibility in LLMs, you can ensure your products, services, and expertise are accurately reflected when users interact with AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
Location:
Virtual Webinar
Date:
Friday, 24th of October 2025
adaptTo() 2025
This talk examines how LLMs are changing web and enterprise content discovery, covering the shift from traditional crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot to AI-driven indexing. It outlines best practices in AEM—such as using clear, static .md files and llms.txt for crawler policies—and highlights strategies for ensuring strong brand visibility in AI search results.
Location:
Berlin, Germany
Date:
Monday, 29 September 2025 16:25
What does the “strategic” mean on what I do?
- Own the long-term roadmap – map out multi-quarter initiatives such as technical migrations, content expansion, or structured-data roll-outs, sequenced for maximum impact.
- Align with business goals – translate revenue and market-share targets into measurable organic-search and generative-answer objectives.
- Set priorities, not tasks – decide which markets, personas, and search intents merit resources, then leave keyword research or on-page tweaks to execution teams.
- Advise on cross-function orchestration – coordinate product, DevOps, legal, and content teams so SEO / GEO requirements are baked into release cycles and governance.
- Quantify upside and risk – build traffic, conversion, and cost models to justify investments and highlight technical debt before it blocks scale.
- Influence C-level decisions – present clear trade-offs (e.g., subdomain vs. subfolder, edge delivery vs. origin, AI crawler opt-in vs. opt-out) to inform executive choices.
Previous Clients:
What my peers say about me
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to work with several teams where SEO and more recently LLM optimization has played a central role in product growth. At Smallpdf, I was brought in as an head of acquisition where I lead SEO strategy across multiple departments. Christoph Forsting, then COO, mentioned that after a long search, I stood out among the candidates. Mainly because I was able to show how SEO could directly support Smallpdf’s growth goals. I worked closely with Stéphane Turquay, one of the product managers, to embed SEO into product development and internal knowledge sharing.
One of the most rewarding aspects of that time was helping others grow. Akemi Narindal-Aoki, who joined the marketing team early in her career, described our work together as a “turning point” for her. I see that as a core part of my role: making SEO not just functional, but teachable. Almudena Cañadas referred to me as a “guru,” which I take less as a compliment and more as a reminder of the responsibility to keep things simple and useful. Dr. Tamara Johnson summed it up well “..what I try to do is translate complex acquisition systems into actionable strategies the wider team can understand and use..”.
At Experteer, the challenges were different but equally engaging. As Head of Marketing, Elisa Chieno involved me directly in aligning acquisition with product and metasearch development. I collaborated closely with engineers like Taras Struk to bring technical improvements to market quickly, and with analysts like Michael Korotkov to test and measure their outcomes. Nathalie Santos called our work together “enriching,” which reflects what I value most—transparency, clear thinking, and shipping changes that compound over time. Manfred Thurm-Kollenda, our Head of Product, and I started on the same day and regularly met to align SEO and product performance—those sessions were key to unlocking better acquisition flows within the job search engine.
You can view my full references here.
FAQs
Definitely not! I think it is more important than ever and is evolving rapidly.
Traditional SEO is no longer just about ranking for keywords. It’s now a foundational layer for visibility in both search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.
If your content doesn’t appear on the first page of Google or Bing, it likely won’t be surfaced by LLMs either. These models often rely on real-time web searches to retrieve or validate facts, especially for up-to-date information or references.
LLMs like ChatGPT with browsing capabilities parse user prompts into multiple sub-queries that are executed in search engines. This means ranking well for long-tail and related questions increases the likelihood of your site being referenced in AI-generated answers.
In this new landscape, SEO isn’t dead, t’s now critical for both human and machine visibility. Optimizing for traditional search engines remains essential to be discovered, cited, and trusted by generative AI.
LLM Optimization refers to the process of improving how content, websites, and data are understood, indexed, and surfaced by Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Claude. Unlike traditional SEO, which targets search engine crawlers, LLM Optimization focuses on making content more relevant, structured, and contextually useful for AI-driven answers and summaries.
> Key aspects of LLM Optimization:
Content Structuring: Organizing information clearly using semantic markup (e.g. schema.org), headings, and consistent formatting so LLMs can extract and summarize it more accurately.
> Data Contextualization: Ensuring the content includes enough background and clarity for LLMs to “understand” the context without needing external sources.
> Prompt-Aware Optimization: Writing in a way that aligns with how users ask questions (conversational, task-based).
Source Credibility: Building a strong brand footprint across the web (linked entities, citations, backlinks), which LLMs use to assess trustworthiness.
> Technical Cleanliness: Making sure the site’s structure (e.g., crawlability, canonicalization, internal linking) supports accurate interpretation by LLM-powered crawlers.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of improving a website’s visibility in organic (non-paid) search results on platforms like Google and Bing. The goal is to attract relevant traffic by ensuring your content appears prominently when users search for specific topics, questions, or products.
Key aspects of SEO:
> Technical SEO: Ensures search engines can crawl, index, and render your site correctly. This includes site speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data, canonical tags, and XML sitemaps.
> On-page SEO: Optimizes individual pages for keywords and search intent. This covers meta titles, headers, content structure, internal linking, and keyword targeting.
> Content Strategy: Focuses on creating high-quality, helpful, and relevant content that aligns with what users are searching for.
> Off-page SEO: Builds authority and trust through backlinks from reputable external websites, brand mentions, and social signals.
> User Experience (UX): Google increasingly considers UX signals such as bounce rate, dwell time, and Core Web Vitals as part of ranking factors.
Why it matters:
SEO is a sustainable, long-term channel for acquiring traffic. Unlike paid advertising, it continues to deliver value over time. A strong SEO presence not only drives qualified visitors but also enhances brand authority and supports the entire marketing funnel—from awareness to conversion.
Adobe AEM Sites Optimizer is a built-in, AI-powered service within Adobe Experience Manager Sites that continuously analyzes your live website and identifies actionable opportunities to improve traffic acquisition, SEO, engagement, accessibility, and site performance.
Using a powerful auto-identify, auto-suggest, auto-implement workflow, it enables marketers and web teams to:
Detect underperforming pages based on traffic, engagement, Core Web Vitals, and other signals
Receive prescriptive recommendations—such as fixing metadata, accessibility issues, or content structure
Apply fixes directly within AEM with one click—without needing developer support
All optimization tasks and progress are tracked inside an intuitive dashboard that shows impact on key metrics like page views, speed, and engagement.
This tool is fully integrated with AEM Cloud Manager and requires no separate setup. It’s designed to empower marketing teams to take control of site performance at scale.
Learn more on the official product page: AEM Sites Optimizer or read the launch announcement on the Adobe Blog. For implementation details, refer to the Experience League Documentation.
No, I don’t take on external consulting projects.
I’m currently fully dedicated to ongoing initiatives at Adobe, working with some of the world’s leading websites on large-scale SEO and LLM optimization through AEM / Sites / LLM Optimizer team.
However, I highly recommend reaching out to Gipfel Marketing AG, where I previously worked. They specialize in SEO and LLM optimization and are an excellent team with deep expertise in technical and enterprise search strategy.