An SEO·GEO agency that guarantees rankings is not worth paying for. After verifying this over a year myself, I found that top rankings came from choosing keywords with little competition. On ‘중간지점찾기’, the keyword where 밋미들 holds the #1–3 spots, search volume is 19,580 a month, yet only one advertiser is bidding on it.
What Should You Be Skeptical of in an SEO·GEO Agency Proposal?
Today’s proposals follow the same structure as the old ‘power blog top ranking’ sales pitch. They promise rankings but never explain what work they will actually do. Many are the same old tactics under new names: stuffing keywords, buying backlinks, and inflating traffic. These results collapsed every time the algorithm changed, and the damage fell on small business owners who had no way to verify anything. GEO is a new concept, so there is almost no measurement basis for claims like “We’ll get you exposed in AI.”
What Happens If You Don’t Buy Anything?
To test this directly, I launched 밋미들, a midpoint calculation service, in July 2025. I used no backlinks, no keyword stuffing, no purchased traffic, and no ranking services. Organic search clicks, which were 1 in the first month, reached 670 a month a year later. The graph didn’t just keep climbing: clicks dropped in December and April, and July impressions were 12% below June’s peak. In the last four weeks, 103 search queries surfaced, and 59 of them averaged positions 1–3. This wasn’t the result of technical brilliance. People were frustrated, but no one was filling that unmet need (Needs), so we chose it.
If Your Search Ranking Is Low, Won’t You Also Be Missing from AI?
Not necessarily. A Semrush study found that about 90% of the pages ChatGPT cited ranked outside the top 21 in traditional search. Even the 소울파파마케팅 site, with an average ranking of 13.8, was described accurately by AI. What AI looks at is less about rank and more about whether topically relevant context has accumulated.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it possible to guarantee SEO rankings?
No. Search rankings are not a variable an agency can control, so any ranking guarantee should be treated as a sign of abuse.
What is GEO optimization?
It is the work of refining content so that generative AI tools like ChatGPT cite your brand in their answers. There are still no established standards for measuring its effectiveness.
If search rankings are low, won’t AI cite you?
No. About 90% of the pages ChatGPT cited were outside the top 21 in search.
What should you look for in an SEO agency?
Choose an agency that doesn’t guarantee rankings, that explains specifically what it does, and that reports even the months when results were poor instead of hiding them.
소울파파마케팅 does not offer SEO or GEO services. We first clarify which need your brand fills, using STP and USP, and then help you steadily build that story into topic-focused articles. We run e-commerce brands ourselves and have achieved a 300% ROAS, but what we aim for is not short-term ad management. It is brand asset building (Hero Branding) that lasts in both search and AI.
Original in-depth analysis: Don’t Get Fooled by SEO or GEO Optimization Again — A Record of Verifying It Over a Year by Building a Single Service
Insights from Soulpapa Marketing — Korea’s digital marketing agency.
Original Korean article: https://soulpapa.co.kr/2026/10/09/seo-geo-optimization-agency-worth-paying/
