What is GEO and why maritime companies should care
How digital PR is becoming part of your visibility within AI
Over the last year, I’ve noticed more and more conversations around GEO for maritime companies. In simple terms, Generative Engine Optimization is about how companies appear in AI-generated answers from platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Instead of only ranking websites in Google, these systems summarise information, recommend companies and shape how markets are understood digitally.
At first glance, GEO sounds highly technical. But the underlying shift is actually very human. The way maritime companies are discovered is changing. For years, visibility in shipping depended heavily on trade fairs, industry magazines, relationships and Google rankings. Those elements still matter enormously. Shipping remains a highly relationship-driven industry.
But increasingly, the first layer of visibility happens digitally. A commercial manager researching maritime suppliers. An investor exploring maritime start-ups. A shipowner comparing decarbonisation solutions. More and more often, the process starts with AI-assisted search before someone visits a website or speaks to a company directly. That changes what digital visibility means.
From rankings to authority
Traditional SEO focuses heavily on backlinks, content structure, keyword usage and the technical set-up of your website. GEO introduces another layer on top of that.
One of the interesting implications of this shift is that companies increasingly need to think not only about how they communicate to people, but also about how they become understandable to AI systems. That does not mean writing content for robots.
But it does mean communicating with greater clarity, consistency and contextual relevance across the digital ecosystem. AI systems work by connecting expertise, authority, topics and trusted references across large amounts of information.
Companies that explain clearly what they do, where they fit and what expertise they represent become easier for AI systems to understand and associate with certain markets or topics. AI search systems increasingly evaluate authority, consistency and trust signals across multiple digital sources.
In many ways, maritime companies are now communicating to two audiences at the same time: the market itself and the AI systems increasingly shaping how that market discovers information. That is where digital PR becomes increasingly important.
Because AI systems do not only look at your website and the structure of your content. They also evaluate what the broader digital ecosystem says about your company:
- interviews
- editorial mentions
- expert commentary
- thought leadership
- discussions on platforms such as Reddit
- consistent positioning across platforms
In other words: your website explains who you say you are. The rest of the internet helps AI systems decide whether they trust it. That is a fundamental shift.
Why this matters in maritime
One of the interesting things about the maritime industry is that many companies are operationally extremely strong, but digitally often much less visible than they deserve to be. The expertise is there. The track record is there. The innovation is there. But online, the positioning can still feel fragmented. Messaging differs between channels. Expertise stays hidden inside the organisation. Press releases focus on announcements without reinforcing authority or market positioning.
As a result, many maritime companies remain surprisingly difficult to understand digitally. And that becomes increasingly important in an AI-driven search environment. Unlike traditional search engines, AI systems do not simply rank webpages. They interpret, summarise and connect information across multiple sources to understand what a company actually specialises in. That means content increasingly needs to be structured around clear expertise, consistent themes and contextual relevance.
How digital PR influences GEO for maritime companies
For maritime companies, this creates a major opportunity. And to be clear: traditional maritime PR already contributes to digital visibility today. Press releases published on company websites, trade media coverage and archived industry announcements all become part of a company’s digital footprint over time. That accumulated visibility absolutely matters.
But what is changing is the way companies approach and structure that visibility. Many maritime companies still treat PR primarily as a communication activity around a single announcement. A press release gets distributed, shared and published, but is often not viewed as part of a broader long-term visibility strategy.
Digital PR takes a more strategic approach. In practice, digital PR is about consistently strengthening a company’s authority, relevance and discoverability across the digital maritime ecosystem. That includes press release distribution, editorial visibility, interviews, thought leadership, expert commentary and ongoing association with important industry topics.
Every trusted editorial mention, industry article or press release becomes another digital signal helping search engines, AI systems and ultimately the market understand where a company fits. AI systems increasingly rely on trusted third-party mentions and editorial authority when generating answers and recommendations.
That is also one of the ideas behind Marconic. We increasingly see maritime press releases not only as communication tools, but as part of a company’s broader digital visibility strategy. Distribution into the right maritime media ecosystem helps strengthen authority, relevance and discoverability over time. Presence in maritime media no longer only influences people. It increasingly influences AI systems too. That changes the long-term value of maritime PR significantly.
And it also explains why measurement is becoming more important. Visibility today is no longer only about impressions or publication counts. Increasingly, it is about understanding how companies become digitally associated with expertise, markets and industry topics over time.
Maritime discoverability is entering a new phase
The maritime industry is still early in this GEO & digital PR transition, which makes it interesting. Many shipping companies, maritime suppliers and offshore businesses are only starting to think about AI visibility and GEO. But the direction is already becoming visible. The companies that consistently communicate their expertise, strengthen their digital authority and build trusted visibility across the maritime ecosystem will increasingly become easier to discover commercially as well.
Not only through Google rankings. But through AI-generated answers, summaries and recommendations that shape how markets are understood. And in many ways, this is only the beginning.
In the next article, I’ll explore why maritime PR is becoming digital PR and why visibility in shipping is no longer built at trade fairs alone.
Let’s continue the conversation
Frans Swarttouw
frans@marconic.com
I believe maritime companies have a much bigger opportunity to strengthen their digital visibility than many realise today.
With Marconic, we help shipping companies, maritime suppliers and offshore businesses distribute press releases into the right maritime media ecosystem while building long-term digital authority and discoverability.
Curious how that works in practice?
Feel free to reach out.
