How Designtalks Helped Secret Flowers Secure Position #0 in Google AI Overviews

We were trapped in the old world of SEO. We chased keywords, fought for backlinks, and celebrated when we moved from page three to page two of Google. But the landscape was shifting under our feet. The “ten blue links” were no longer the only prize. A new, more powerful player had entered the game: Artificial Intelligence.

We realized that to truly dominate the Sandton market, we didn’t just need to be found; we needed to be cited as the definitive authority. We needed to be the answer Google’s AI gave when someone asked for the best. This is the story of how we partnered with Designtalks and used Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to achieve what seemed impossible: securing “Position #0” and earning 100+ Google AI Overviews.

The Problem: Invisible in the Age of AI

Before Designtalks, our digital strategy was a constant uphill battle.

Keyword Saturation: The terms “Sandton florist” or “luxury flower delivery” were saturated. We were competing with national giants and local rivals who had been playing the SEO game for decades.
The Zero-Click Threat: We noticed a disturbing trend. People were searching, getting their answers directly on the results page (from featured snippets or early AI tests), and never clicking through to our website. Our traffic was stagnating, even as search volume grew.
Brand Disconnect: While our physical arrangements screamed luxury and expertise, our website spoke the language of a generic e-commerce store. It lacked the semantic depth to convince a machine that we were the masters of our craft.

We knew we needed a radical change. We didn’t need another SEO agency; we needed a partner who understood the future of search. That’s when we found Designtalks and their revolutionary GEO-First Framework™.

You can read more about their perspective on our journey in their case study: Secret Flowers Sandton Florist Case Study – Designtalks.

The Solution: Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)

Designtalks introduced us to a concept that changed everything: GEO.

Traditional SEO is about impressing a ranking algorithm to get a click. GEO is about impressing a synthesis engine to win a citation.

The goal was no longer just to rank #1. The goal was to become the trusted source that Google’s AI (like Gemini) would use to construct its answer for the user. This coveted spot, above all organic results, is what we call Position #0.

The image above illustrates this new reality. Position #0 is not just a link; it’s a direct, AI-generated answer that establishes immediate authority.

The Strategy: A Deep Dive into Our GEO Transformation

The team at Designtalks didn’t just tweak our meta tags. They fundamentally rebuilt our digital foundation based on three core GEO pillars.

Phase 1: From Keywords to Entities

The first thing Designtalks explained was that AI doesn’t think in “keywords” (strings of text). It thinks in “Entities”.

An entity is a distinct, independent thing—a person, place, organization, or concept. Google builds its understanding of the world by connecting these entities in its Knowledge Graph.

Our old strategy was focused on the keyword “Sandton florist.”

Our new GEO strategy was focused on establishing “Secret Flowers” as a recognized Organization Entity that has a strong relationship with the Location Entity “Sandton” and is an expert in the Topic Entity “Floristry.”

Designtalks conducted a comprehensive audit to map out the entities relevant to our business. They then restructured our site’s content to clearly define these relationships.

We stopped just writing about “flowers.” We started writing about specific, named entities like “Protea Cynaroides” (South Africa’s national flower), linking them to our expertise in “native arrangements.”
We solidified our local presence. We didn’t just say “we deliver to Sandton.” We created content that connected us to specific Sandton landmarks and suburbs, reinforcing our local entity status.

This shift from a chaotic cloud of keywords to a structured network of entities was crucial. It was like handing Google a detailed map of who we are and what we do, instead of making them guess from a pile of words.

This diagram perfectly visualizes the transformation. By organizing our data into entities, we made it easy for Google’s Knowledge Graph to understand and trust us.

Phase 2: Speaking the AI’s Language with Schema Markup

Once we had defined our entities, we had to communicate them to Google in a language it perfectly understood. This is where Schema Markup (or structured data) came in.

Designtalks’ technical team are masters of this unseen code. They implemented advanced schema across our entire site that went far beyond the basics.

JSON Schema Used For This Article.

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  "article_description": "Discover the secret behind Secret Flowers' dominance in Sandton. Learn how Designtalks used Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to secure Position #0 and 15 Google AI Overviews, transforming our digital presence.",
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Organization Schema: This was the foundation. We explicitly told Google: “We are Secret Flowers, a local business, located at this address in Sandton, with these contact details and these social media profiles.” This is critical for establishing our Knowledge Graph entry.
Product Schema: Every bouquet on our site was marked up with detailed information—price, availability, user ratings, and detailed descriptions. This made it easy for AI models to parse our offerings and present them directly in search results.
FAQPage Schema: We created detailed FAQ pages addressing common customer questions (e.g., “Same-day delivery times in Sandton,” “Care instructions for orchids”). By wrapping these in FAQ schema, we were directly feeding Google’s AI with question-and-answer pairs it could use in its Overviews.
LocalBusiness Schema: This reinforced our geographical relevance, tying our services directly to the Sandton area.

This wasn’t just about getting stars next to our search result. It was about providing a clean, structured data feed that AI models could easily ingest and synthesize.

Phase 3: Optimizing for E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust)

The final, and perhaps most challenging, piece of the puzzle was content. AI models are trained to prioritize high-quality, trustworthy information. Google assesses this using a framework called E-E-A-T.

Designtalks helped us overhaul our content strategy to demonstrate these qualities in every piece of text on our site.

Experience: We started sharing more behind-the-scenes content. Blog posts about our florists’ early morning trips to the flower market, photos of our design process, and stories about the challenges of creating large installations. This showed we weren’t just drop-shippers; we had real-world experience.
Expertise: We moved beyond generic flower descriptions. We created in-depth guides on topics like “The symbolism of different rose colors in South African culture” or “How to choose long-lasting corporate floral arrangements.” We positioned ourselves as educators, not just sellers. We also made sure our authors were identified as experienced florists, not anonymous copywriters.
Authoritativeness: We actively sought to be cited by other authoritative sources. Designtalks helped us get featured in local Sandton lifestyle publications and business directories. We also linked out to reputable sources like botanical gardens or industry associations, showing we were part of a larger, credible ecosystem.
Trustworthiness: We made our business practices transparent. Our delivery policies, return guarantees, and contact information were made prominent and easy to understand. We also showcased real, verified customer reviews using schema markup.

By aligning our content with E-E-A-T principles, we were essentially building a dossier of evidence to prove to Google’s AI that Secret Flowers is the most reliable source of information on floristry in Sandton.

The Results: Dominating the AI Landscape

The results of this comprehensive GEO strategy were nothing short of spectacular. We didn’t just see an increase in traffic; we saw a fundamental shift in how we were appearing in search.

Within months, we began to see our brand being cited in Google’s new AI Overviews for highly competitive queries.

The “Best” Query: For queries like “best luxury florist in Sandton,” the AI would generate a summary paragraph, and there, right in the text, was a citation and link to Secret Flowers.
Complex Requests: For more nuanced queries like “florist in Sandton for same-day corporate gifts with orchids,” the AI would synthesize an answer based on our structured product data and FAQs, presenting us as the ideal solution.

This image shows a real-world example of what we achieved. Being cited in that blue box is the ultimate digital endorsement. It tells the user that Google itself has vetted us and found us to be the best answer.

The impact on our business was profound:

We secured 100+ distinct AI Overviews for high-value, commercial intent keywords. You can read the detailed breakdown of this achievement in this Designtalks article: How GEO Earned Secret Flowers 100+ AI Overviews.
Our organic click-through rate on these terms skyrocketed. Users trust the AI’s recommendation.
Brand authority and trust increased significantly. Customers mentioned seeing us recommended by Google, which shortened the sales cycle for high-end corporate clients.
We future-proofed our business. As search continues to evolve towards AI, we have already established the foundational data and authority needed to thrive.

Conclusion: The Future is Secret no More

The journey from a traditional florist struggling with SEO to a digital leader dominating AI search has been transformative. We learned that in the age of AI, you cannot “trick” your way to the top. You have to deserve to be there.

You must be a distinct entity. You must speak the AI’s language with structured data. And you must prove your experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness in everything you do.

This is not a task for the faint of heart, nor is it a job for a traditional SEO agency stuck in 2020. It requires a partner with a deep, technical understanding of Semantic Search, Natural Language Processing, and the rapidly evolving world of AI Search.

For us, that partner was Designtalks. Their GEO-First Framework™ didn’t just get us better rankings; it gave us a competitive advantage that is incredibly difficult for others to replicate.

If you are a business in Sandton, or anywhere in South Africa, looking to prepare for the future of search, we cannot recommend them highly enough. They helped Secret Flowers bloom in the digital world, and they can do the same for you.

The future of search is here. It’s not about keywords; it’s about being the answer.

Visit Secret Flowers for the best blooms in Sandton: https://secretflowers.co.za/
Learn more about the Designtalks GEO strategy: https://designtalks.co.za/

Frequently Asked Questions:

What specific challenges was Secret Flowers facing with traditional SEO before adopting GEO?

Secret Flowers was struggling with high competition for saturated keywords like “Sandton florist,” competing against national giants. They were also facing the “Zero-Click Threat,” where users were getting answers directly on the search results page without clicking through to their website, causing traffic stagnation. Finally, their generic e-commerce website did not reflect the luxury brand experience they offered offline.

According to the article, what is the fundamental difference between traditional SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

The article defines the difference by their goals: Traditional SEO aims to impress a ranking algorithm to earn a click (ranking in the “ten blue links”). GEO aims to impress a synthesis engine (like Google’s AI) to win a citation, effectively becoming the direct answer provided in “Position #0.”

What is an “Entity” in the context of GEO, and how did Secret Flowers use them?

An entity is defined as a distinct, independent “thing”—such as a person, place, organization, or concept—that Google understands through its Knowledge Graph. Instead of targeting loose keywords, Secret Flowers structured their content to define themselves as an “Organization Entity” with strong relationships to the “Location Entity” of Sandton and expertise in the “Topic Entity” of floristry

How did Designtalks use Schema Markup to help Google’s AI understand Secret Flowers’ business?

Designtalks implemented advanced Schema Markup (structured data code) to speak the AI’s language directly. They used Organization and LocalBusiness schema to establish their identity and location, Product schema to detail their bouquets for easy AI parsing, and FAQPage schema to feed Google direct question-and-answer pairs for use in AI Overviews.

The article mentions optimizing for E-E-A-T to gain AI trust. How did Secret Flowers demonstrate these qualities?

They demonstrated Experience by sharing behind-the-scenes content of flower markets and design processes. They showed Expertise by creating in-depth educational guides on floral topics rather than just sales copy. They built Authoritativeness by getting cited in local Sandton publications. Finally, they established Trustworthiness by being transparent about delivery policies and showcasing verified customer reviews using schema.

What were the tangible results of Secret Flowers’ GEO strategy in terms of Google search visibility?

The strategy secured “Position #0” for Secret Flowers, meaning they were cited directly in Google’s AI Overviews for high-value, competitive queries like “best luxury florist in Sandton.” In total, they secured 15 distinct AI Overviews and saw a skyrocketing organic click-through rate on those terms because users trusted the AI’s recommendation.