Generative Engine Optimization for an international trading company: Zeno Visibility turns generative answers into the new visibility layer
Generative Engine Optimization for an…
Situation
Nordexa Trade Group is an internationally active trading company headquartered in the DACH region, with offices in Benelux, Eastern Europe, and North America. The company distributes technically complex industrial and consumer goods through a B2B and B2B2C model and serves around 4,500 active business customers. Its digital sales channel had grown strongly in recent years: more than 60% of qualified leads came from organic search, product comparisons, and content marketing.
In spring 2024, the marketing team noticed that while traditional SEO metrics remained stable, digital visibility in AI search and answer systems was barely present. For relevant industry queries, the brand appeared only sporadically — or not at all — in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Copilot. At the same time, audience search behavior was changing: buyers, category managers, and technical decision-makers were increasingly using generative answers as their first research touchpoint. Nordexa had plenty of content, but no systematic content architecture aligned with GEO Generative Engine Optimization. It lacked semantic linking, machine-readable structures, and a measurable authority strategy for AI systems.
Challenge
The core problem was not a lack of content, but a lack of semantic authority. Nordexa published blog posts, product pages, and guides on a regular basis, but these assets sat side by side in isolation. Neither internal linking nor Schema.org markup were structured in a way that would allow large language models to consistently classify the brand as a trusted source.
The impact was measurable: despite stable rankings for 120 relevant keywords, visibility in generative answers declined across the most important topic clusters. In internal tests, Nordexa was mentioned in less than 8% of AI answers queried, while three competitors appeared in an average of 24% of responses. This created a structural disadvantage at the top of the funnel: fewer mentions, fewer qualified first contacts, and growing dependence on paid media. The marketing team therefore did not need more content production in the traditional sense, but a system that could deliberately build and measure visibility in generative models.
Solution Approach
Nordexa chose a GEO approach with Zeno Visibility because the platform does more than measure AI visibility — it automatically builds the semantic authority needed for citations and recommendations in generative systems. The goal was to turn scattered content into a resilient authority network that would function as a trusted knowledge base for LLMs.
The implementation process ran in four steps:
Using the Zeno Visibility research engine, brand presence in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot was captured. For 30 prioritized keyword clusters, an initial Semantic Authority Score was established. At the same time, competitive patterns, semantic gaps, and missing entities were identified.
For the five highest-revenue clusters, the Authority System Builder generated complete content systems with more than 100 semantically connected assets each. These included hub pages, expert articles, FAQs, comparison pages, use cases, case studies, and social snippets. The content was structured to provide both people and machines with clear topical hierarchies.
Schema.org JSON-LD data was generated for all core content, and internal linking was built automatically. This created a consistent semantic network that made it easier to associate the brand, topics, products, and use cases. This structure was central to anchoring Nordexa more effectively in knowledge-graph-adjacent contexts.
The content was published directly into the existing WordPress system. The editorial and SEO teams could review templates, metadata, and linking before pages went live. This kept operational control in-house while significantly accelerating content production at scale.
Within eight weeks, a reactive content setup was transformed into a GEO-ready content infrastructure.
Results
After twelve weeks, clear improvements in visibility and lead quality became apparent. The Semantic Authority Score increased by an average of 47% across the prioritized topic clusters. In parallel tests across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Copilot, brand mentions for defined industry queries rose from 8% to 31%. The area of “comparison and selection guidance” showed particularly strong growth: Nordexa was now regularly named as one of the recommended sources in generative answers.
Traditional organic performance also improved. For 19 prioritized keywords, average rankings increased by 6.4 positions within three months. Organic CTR on the newly created hub and comparison pages rose by 28%. Over the same period, the number of MQLs generated through content increased by 22%, while paid lead costs declined.
Based on saved media spend and the additional pipeline generated, the initiative turned positive ROI after five months. Nordexa valued the effort above all for making the connection between content structure, AI mentions, and lead generation visible for the first time.
Lessons Learned
Individual articles generate little authority. Only interconnected topic architectures are consistently recognized by generative systems.
Without a benchmark across multiple LLMs, progress remains vague. A Semantic Authority Score creates comparability.
They are the technical foundation that allows machines to correctly classify and connect content.
If you only create content but do not operationalize it, you won’t scale visibility.
Generative answers are not a separate playing field, but a new layer of visibility.
Summary
With a GEO strategy based on Zeno Visibility, Nordexa made the transition from traditional content production to semantically structured AI visibility. Within just a few weeks, brand mentions in generative systems, organic rankings, and lead quality all increased at the same time. This case study shows that if you want to be present in generative answers in a B2B environment, you don’t need isolated content — you need a systematically built authority network.