Generative engine optimisation (GEO)
Generative engine optimisation: get AI tools to recommend you
Buyers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini “which company does…”. With GEO we work to make sure AI tools know who you are and what you do, and name you in their answers with a link to your site.
What's included
Real work, not promises
Every item comes with its own deadline and its own measure of success.
AI visibility check
We ask AI tools the questions your customers ask and record whether they mention you, how they describe you and whom they recommend instead.
Brand entity
The same name, address, line of business and description on your site, Google Business Profile, social media and directories, so AI recognises you as one company.
Content that gets cited
Clear definitions, original data, comparisons and lists that AI can pick up and cite as a source.
Mentions and sources
Articles, interviews and mentions on sites AI tools trust: industry portals, media, directories and partners.
Technical access
robots.txt set up for the AI crawlers you want, llms.txt, a fast site and structured data about your company and services.
Monthly tracking
The same set of questions every month, so you can see whether AI mentions you more often and in a better context.
What is generative engine optimisation?
GEO (generative engine optimisation) is optimising a website and a brand for generative AI tools: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overviews. These tools don’t show a list of links. They write the answer themselves and name a few companies, products or sources in it. The goal of GEO is for your company to be among them.
When a buyer asks “which agency does SEO for online stores” or “where can I buy an inflatable pool”, the AI puts together an answer from what it learned in training and what it finds online at that moment. If there is little clear, consistent information about you, the AI skips you, even when your website is good.
SEO, AEO and GEO: what is the difference?
- SEO: a place in Google’s list of results. Measured in rankings, visits and enquiries.
- AEO: your text as the direct answer in Google and in voice search. More on the answer engine optimisation page.
- GEO: being mentioned and recommended in the answer an AI writes. Measured by how often and in what context the AI names you.
All three stand on the same foundation: good content, a technically healthy site and clear company information. The difference is in what gets extra emphasis. For GEO that is above all your brand entity (so the AI knows you are one and the same company) and mentions on other sites (so someone else recommends you, not just you yourself). We describe the combined approach in our guide to SEO, AEO and GEO.
How we do GEO
1. Measuring the starting point
We draw up a list of 20 to 40 questions your customers put to AI tools, in English and, where needed, in German, Serbian or Hungarian. We ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google and record whether you are mentioned, what is said about you, which sources are cited and which competitors are recommended.
2. Brand entity
We align your company details on your site, Google Business Profile, social media, directories and public business registers: the same name, address, phone number, line of business and short description. On the site we add Organization schema with sameAs links to your official profiles. That makes it easier for AI tools to join all the information into one picture of you.
3. Content AI can cite
AI tools prefer to cite clear definitions, step-by-step lists, comparisons, original data and first-hand experience. We write service pages and guides so that every section makes sense even when it is lifted out of context: a clear subheading, the answer in the first sentence and concrete detail.
4. Mentions on trusted sites
We plan where it is natural for your company to be mentioned: industry portals, local media, directories, associations, partners and suppliers, guest articles and interviews. We don’t buy links in bulk, because AI and Google recognise such sources and ignore them.
5. Technical access for AI
We check robots.txt (in case you have accidentally blocked AI crawlers you want), page speed and whether pages are readable without JavaScript, and we set up an llms.txt file with a short description of your company and its most important pages.
Who needs GEO most
- Agencies, consultants and B2B companies, whose buyers increasingly start their research in ChatGPT.
- Online stores whose customers look for recommendations (“what is the best…”, “what should I buy for…”).
- Tourism and hospitality, where AI builds itineraries and recommends places to stay and eat.
- Companies selling across borders, especially into Western Europe, where AI search is already used more widely.
How we measure GEO
GEO is a new field and the measurement tools are still developing, so we use a combination of:
- the same set of questions every month, with the AI tools’ answers recorded (mentions, how your company is described, cited sources);
- visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com in Google Analytics;
- branded searches in Search Console;
- the number and quality of new brand mentions on other sites.
Nobody can guarantee a GEO result, because AI answers change from question to question. What we can do is systematically raise the chance that AI picks you, and measure it honestly. More on the method on the GEO page on Optimizacija-Sajta.rs (in Serbian).
Where AI tools get their information about companies
AI assistants combine two sources: what they learned during training and what they find by searching at the moment of the question. For current recommendations (“which agency”, “where to buy”, “who does…”) real-time search matters more and more.
| Tool | What it relies on most | What matters for you |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | The Google index | Good classic SEO, clear structure, authority |
| Gemini | The Google index and Google’s business data | SEO, Google Business Profile, reviews |
| ChatGPT search | Its own crawler and search results, largely from Bing | Indexing in Bing, access for AI crawlers |
| Microsoft Copilot | The Bing index | Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing Places |
| Perplexity | Its own search and multiple sources | Citable facts, mentions on other sites |
So GEO is not a separate world: it starts with good SEO, but it also covers Bing, access for AI crawlers in robots.txt and your brand’s presence on the sites AI tools use as sources.
Your company as a clear entity
AI tools and Google think in entities: a company, a person, a place, a product. The clearer and more consistent the information about your company is online, the less chance there is that AI mixes you up with someone else or leaves you out. We work on:
- a consistent name, description of your business, address and contact details on your site, Google and Bing profiles, social media and directories;
- an “About us” page with facts: when you were founded, your people, services, service area and references;
- Organization schema with sameAs links to your official profiles;
- mentions in relevant media, associations and portals in your field.
Content AI likes to cite
AI answers most often cite content that contains something concrete: a definition, a figure, a comparison, a step, an expert view. Generic copy like “we are leaders in the field” rarely ends up in an answer. So we write pages with clear statements that can stand on their own, with facts from your work (timelines, number of projects, experience on the ground), an author and an update date.
A good example is our digital marketing glossary: short, precise definitions that can be quoted without extra context.
How we check AI visibility
At the start we draw up a list of questions your customers put to AI tools, for example “which company does … in Germany”, “the best … for …” or “where to buy …”. We ask these questions regularly in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews and record whether you are mentioned, in what context and with which source. AI answers vary from one attempt to the next, so we track the trend across several checks rather than a single answer.
What we don’t do
- hidden “for AI” text that people can’t see;
- mass-generated pages with no real content;
- fake reviews and fake mentions on forums;
- promises that a particular AI tool will definitely recommend you.
Shortcuts like these can have a short-term effect, but they can also harm your brand and your position in classic search.
How we work
Three steps to measurable growth
01 Analysis
A review of your website, your competitors and your keywords. You get a clear list of what is holding back growth.
02 Plan and delivery
Priorities ranked by their impact on sales. We handle the technical side, the content and the campaigns, with no wasted effort.
03 Measurement and growth
A monthly report with enquiries, rankings and spend. We double down on whatever brings in business.
Work
Where we have already done this
Extraform
A manufacturer’s website with a 3D configurator, ready for AI search
FAQ
Generative engine optimisation: questions and answers
GEO (generative engine optimisation) is optimising a website and a brand for generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, so that they mention and cite you in their answers.
SEO targets the list of results in Google. GEO targets the text the AI writes itself. To do that the AI uses search results, but also what other sites say about you, so brand mentions and consistent company information matter much more here.
No. Nobody controls what AI tools answer. What we can do is raise the chance: clear company information, content that is easy to cite and mentions on trusted sites. We measure the result with the same questions every month.
llms.txt is a short plain-text description of a site for AI tools. It isn’t an official standard and it doesn’t replace good content, but it is quick to create and can’t do any harm, so we set it up for all our clients.
Yes, especially for service businesses. When asked “who in my town does…”, AI names a few companies, and small businesses with consistent details and good reviews often get a place there.
From the data the model was trained on and, when it uses search, from the sites it finds at that moment. For search it relies heavily on its own crawler and on results from Bing, so both your website and your presence on other trusted sources matter.
Yes. Besides being a search engine in its own right, its index is used by Microsoft Copilot and partly by ChatGPT search. That is why we also check your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, not only in Google Search Console.
Ask them the questions your customer would ask and see whether your company appears and with which source. Because the answers vary, the questions need to be repeated several times and the trend tracked.
No. GEO is built on good SEO, because AI tools rely heavily on search results. GEO adds work on your brand entity, citable content and presence on the sources AI uses.
If you want AI tools to mention and cite you, you should allow access to their search crawlers. Whether to allow crawlers that collect data for model training is a separate decision, and we set this up in robots.txt together with you.
Further reading
More detail on Optimizacija-Sajta.rs (in Serbian)
Enquiry
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