The verdict in three sentences
For a commodity trading house in Miami, the website rarely sells anything: it exists to be judged credible by a trade finance bank, a counterparty in Latin America, an NGO or a trader you want to hire. SEO still pays off on hiring and brand queries, while AEO/GEO addresses how AI assistants like ChatGPT summarize your governance, offices and sourcing policy when someone looks you up. For most established houses the priority is consistent compliance and brand pages, measured with Search Console on one side and a dated record of AI answers on the other, on quote and with no ranking promise.
Two levers, two audiences: the comparison
Trading houses based in Miami (coffee, sugar, cocoa, metals, energy, often focused on Latin America and the Caribbean) do very little product marketing. What counts is trust. The table below compares both levers for this profile.
| Criterion | SEO (Google) | AEO/GEO (AI assistants like ChatGPT) |
|---|---|---|
| What it targets | Brand, careers, office and published policy queries | Summaries of the house when a third party asks an assistant |
| Main audience | Recruits, journalists, suppliers | Credit analysts, counterparty KYC teams, NGOs |
| Time to effect | 3 to 9 months on niche queries | 2 to 6 months, varies with sources |
| Market budget | Audit USD 3,000 to 10,000, retainer USD 2,500 to 8,000 a month | Diagnostic USD 2,000 to 6,000, retainer USD 2,000 to 7,000 a month |
| Metrics | Clicks, impressions, applications, inbound requests | Share of answers citing the house, accuracy, cited sources |
| Main risk | Worthless traffic on price or quote queries | Wrong description of ownership or past activity |
These ranges are a 2026 ballpark based on typical US B2B agency quotes and public rate pages.
Where to invest depending on your situation
The right call depends less on the lever than on your starting point. A house founded two years ago has different needs from a twenty-year-old name already familiar to the trade press.
| Situation | Priority | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New house, little press | Factual pages and AEO/GEO | Assistants have almost nothing to cite, the risk is absence or confusion with a namesake |
| Established brand | AEO/GEO then brand SEO | Check that summaries are accurate and current |
| Sensitive content (sanctions, KYC, responsible sourcing) | Compliance review before any lever | An imprecise sentence gets repeated verbatim |
| Hard-to-fill roles | Careers SEO | Queries like 'commodity trader jobs Miami' carry real intent |
| Limited budget, under USD 10,000 | Combined diagnostic | One SEO and AI baseline avoids paying for two audits |
| Entering a new corridor (Brazil, Colombia) | Spanish or Portuguese pages | Searches and questions happen in the counterparties' language |
On substance, the site must prove what the house actually publishes: governance, sanctions compliance policy (OFAC rules apply to US persons), KYC procedures described in general terms, responsible sourcing policy and ESG reports only if they exist. Never invent volumes, counterparties or certifications. Accessibility matters too: ADA Title III suits regularly target company websites, and aiming for WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA is sound practice. There is no single federal privacy law in the US and state rules vary; commercial email falls under the CAN-SPAM Act. This is not legal advice.
How to measure each lever
SEO is measured in Search Console: impressions and clicks on brand, careers and office queries, then concrete conversions such as qualified applications or requests from banks and suppliers. Be wary of traffic on sugar or copper price queries: it inflates charts without producing relationships.
AEO/GEO is measured through a dated record: a fixed list of 20 to 30 questions a bank, an NGO or a candidate might ask ('who owns this trading company', 'what is its cocoa sourcing policy', 'does it have offices in Miami and São Paulo'), put to AI assistants like ChatGPT every month and archived. You track the share of answers citing the house, factual accuracy and the sources picked up.
A serious diagnostic covers, in broad terms: the Google queries that matter, a baseline of AI answers, inconsistencies between the site, public registries and press, missing pages and wording risks on sensitive topics.
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Mini case study
Illustrative example: Biscayne Ridge Commodities, a fictional coffee and sugar trading house in Miami with 35 staff. It hires two senior traders a year through a search firm charging 25% of a USD 200,000 base salary, so USD 50,000 per hire and USD 100,000 a year. Assumption: a USD 6,000 combined diagnostic plus six months of work on careers, governance and sourcing pages at USD 3,500 a month, USD 27,000 in total. If one hire out of two comes directly from inbound applications, the saving is USD 50,000 for the year, before counting the harder-to-measure benefit of accurate answers reaching bank KYC teams.
FAQ
Do we have to choose between SEO and AEO/GEO?
Rarely. Both rest on the same factual pages; the difference is in measurement. A combined diagnostic of USD 4,000 to 8,000 is often enough to set the split.
Can a trading house publish its volumes?
Only those already public and approved by management. An unverified figure will be repeated by AI assistants for months, which is harder to fix than to avoid.
How long before a measurable effect?
Allow 3 to 9 months for SEO on niche queries and 2 to 6 months to see AI answers shift. No serious provider promises a ranking or a recommendation.
Do we need Spanish pages?
In Miami, a large share of counterparties and candidates work in Spanish or Portuguese. Translating 5 to 10 key pages is a reasonable start.
What should the compliance page contain?
The policy actually applied, described in general terms, with an update date. A page dated within the last 12 months inspires more trust than a long text never revised.
Find out how AI assistants describe your firm. We record what AI assistants like ChatGPT and Google say today about your house on the questions banks, NGOs and candidates ask. Request a diagnostic quote: reply within 48 hours.
Mohamed Bah
Fondateur, Kolonell
Passionate about digital and entrepreneurship in Africa, Mohamed has been helping Sénégalese businesses with their digital transformation since 2020. Founder of Kolonell, he believes every SME deserves a professional and accessible online présence.
