GEO CASE STUDY
Cited Where It Counts: 83% Citations Growth for Blume
How a wellness DTC brand earned its way into the citation layer that AI systems pull from, turning a low AI visibility score into a compounding structural presence across health and self-care queries.
Client
Blume
Niche
Wellness DTC
Duration
6-Month Campaign
+58%
Cited pages growth
+83%
Citations growth
+58%
Cited pages growth
The Client
Blume: Wellness Products for the Modern Self-Care Consumer
Blume is a DTC wellness brand offering products across skincare, body care, and everyday self-care in a category where AI-generated recommendations have become a primary discovery channel. Consumers increasingly turn to large language models to answer questions about ingredients, routines, and product suitability before ever visiting a brand website, making AI citation presence a direct growth lever for brands like Blume.
THE CHALLENGE
A Credible Brand Missing From the AI Recommendation Layer
Low AI Visibility Score at Baseline
Blume entered the campaign with an AI visibility score of 20 out of 100, placing it in the low tier across all measured platforms. Despite genuine brand equity in the wellness space, that score meant established incumbents were capturing the AI recommendation layer while Blume was structurally absent.
Thin Citation Baseline Against Established Players
With only 600 citations at the start of the campaign, Blume’s citation footprint was insufficient to compete with well-capitalised wellness brands that had accumulated years of editorial coverage. AI systems weigh citation mass when ranking brand relevance. Without it, consistent recommendations are out of reach.
Narrow Cited Page Coverage Across Intents
Wellness purchase decisions span dozens of intent clusters, such as ingredients, skin concerns, routines, and product comparisons. With only 338 cited pages, Blume was invisible across the majority of those intents, leaving large language models with nothing to cite even when a query matched Blume’s catalogue.
Category Dominated by Entrenched Incumbents
The wellness DTC space is crowded with brands that have deep editorial link networks and high content output across trusted health and lifestyle properties. Displacing that accumulated advantage required a systematic GEO programme rather than incremental content updates.
Our Approach
GEO for Wellness: Building the Citation Signals AI Systems Act On
Our strategy for Blume was built on one insight: in the wellness category, AI citations follow editorial trust, and editorial trust is built page by page, intent by intent. We focused on expanding both the depth and breadth of Blume’s citeable surface, targeting the specific ingredient, concern, and routine clusters where AI query volume was highest and existing brand coverage was thinnest.
Intent-First Content Architecture
We audited the wellness intents where Blume had relevant products but no citation-ready page, such as ingredient guides, skin concern explainers, and routine frameworks, and built structured content that gave AI systems extractable, authoritative answers. Each page was designed to be cited, not just indexed: clear claims, sourced context, and specific product relevance embedded in the copy.
Editorial Citation Seeding in Wellness Verticals
We identified the editorial content formats that AI systems draw from most heavily in the wellness category, including ingredient round-ups, dermatologist-backed product lists, and self-care routine guides, and executed a targeted placement programme to earn Blume citations across them. Priority went to properties that AI platforms demonstrably cite when answering skincare and wellness queries.
Cited Page Expansion Across Concern Clusters
Doubling cited page count from 338 to 535 required systematic expansion into concern and ingredient clusters that had zero existing coverage. We prioritised intents with high AI query volume and weak incumbent citations, which is the fastest route to new citation events with the least competitive resistance.
The Impact
83% Citations Growth: Blume Has Built a Foundation the AI Layer Can Act On
+83%
Citations growth (600 → 1,100)
+58%
Cited pages growth (338 → 535)
“Blume now has a citation network seeded across enough ingredient, concern, and routine intents that when someone asks an AI what to use for a specific skin or wellness need, the brand has a structural reason to appear in the answer rather than just a chance one.”
Actionable Insights
What Wellness DTC Brands Can Learn From This Campaign
AI Wellness Recommendations Run on Editorial Citations
When a consumer asks an AI which product to use for a skin concern, the answer cites brands that appear repeatedly across trusted health and lifestyle editorial rather than brands with the highest product ratings or strongest ad spend. Wellness DTC brands with thin citation profiles will be underrepresented in AI responses regardless of product efficacy.
Intent Coverage Is a Structural Moat
A page optimised for acne does not earn citations for hyperpigmentation or hormonal skincare because AI systems cite specific answers to specific queries. Wellness brands with narrow cited page coverage remain invisible across the majority of consumer intents, even when their product catalogue is directly relevant.
Citation Velocity Compounds Over Time
Each new editorial placement is both a citation event and a signal that reinforces future citation. Brands that build citation mass early in a category gain a compounding advantage, as AI systems increasingly cite what they have already cited, making early entry into the citation graph disproportionately valuable.
GEO and SEO Require Separate Citeable Surfaces
Content that ranks well in traditional search does not automatically earn AI citations. AI systems pull from a different citation graph that is shaped by editorial authority and extractable claim density. Wellness brands need pages built specifically to be cited, not just to be found, if they want consistent representation in AI-generated responses.