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Alexandre Caramaschi
Alexandre Caramaschi

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YouTube as a GEO Engine: 10 Field Rules for Getting Cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

Last quarter I helped scale a B2B channel to 1,200+ subs, 179K total views, and two videos past 30K views each. Great numbers. Wrong lens.

In the same period, that channel generated zero attributed leads in the CRM. Zero. The paid campaigns bought 11,765 views at R$0.13 average CPV. Every single one landed on the YouTube channel page — not the website. Subs went up. Pipeline stayed flat.

The problem wasn't the channel. It was the strategy. YouTube in 2026 is not a conversion funnel — it is structured authority storage for generative engines. Treat it as the first and you waste money. Treat it as the second and you buy something your competitor cannot: citation inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude answers.

Ten field rules follow. None are theoretical. All came from auditing a real channel (@acaramaschi) that averages a GEO score of 75/100 with 12 videos below threshold — meaning, lots of room to grow, probably like yours.

Read full 10 rules + Portuguese version: https://alexandrecaramaschi.com/artigos/youtube-para-geo-o-canal-como-prova-de-autoridade-algoritmica

10 rules in bullets (short version for dev.to)

  1. Metadata GEO-first before thumbnail — Title ≤ 60 chars with keyword in first 35; description ≥ 300 chars + CTA; 5+ tags; chapters for 2min+; 3 hashtags. 82% of audited videos had zero tags.

  2. Shorts open, long-form converts authority — Shorts = 30-60s hook trailer. Long-form 7-20min = pillar. One long-form yields 10x the indexable transcript of 10 Shorts.

  3. Treat transcript as a blog post — Download auto-transcript, rewrite, upload as manual caption, republish as site article with Schema VideoObject + Article. One video → three indexable sources.

  4. Wikidata + Schema VideoObject on the site — Create Wikidata item, add P2397 (YouTube channel ID). Site articles embed with full VideoObject markup. Attribution triad: channel ↔ Wikidata ↔ site.

  5. Demand Gen with site destination, not just subscribe — Run two parallel campaigns: Subs (final_url=channel) and Leads (final_url=site). Same asset, different CTA, different conversion goals. 70/30 budget split.

  6. Canonical UTM and ≤ 20% dark attribution — utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=demandgen&utm_campaign={snake}. Persist first-touch cookie 90d. Measure CPL per video, not per channel.

  7. Weekly cadence beats daily volume — 3-7 day upload interval. Retention ≥ 50%. If 21 days without posting, pause ads (CTR drops 40-60%).

  8. Pick 3 pillar topics, rotate format — 60% / 25% / 15% split. LLMs associate channels with topics. Topical authority comes from density, not variety.

  9. Crosslink channel ↔ site ↔ platforms — Every video: 3 outbound + 3 inbound links. Description → site article. dev.to, LinkedIn, Medium, Hashnode repost. 3-5 crosslinks = average delta between cited vs uncited.

  10. Measure GEO score, not views — 0-100 formula based on title + desc + tags + chapters + hashtags + manual transcript + site link + retention. Target ≥ 85 for every 2026 video.

Full 2000-word article with detailed examples, formulas and 5 FAQs:
→ alexandrecaramaschi.com/artigos/youtube-para-geo-o-canal-como-prova-de-autoridade-algoritmica

Other articles in the Generative Engine Optimization series:

Alexandre Caramaschi is CEO of Brasil GEO, former CMO of Semantix (Nasdaq: STIX), co-founder of AI Brasil. Pioneer in Generative Engine Optimization and Business-to-Agent (B2A) in Brazil. Watch the channel: @acaramaschi.

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