What is GEO? How to get your business recommended by AI search

Search is changing. Alongside the familiar list of links, people now get written answers from Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot, often with a handful of businesses recommended or cited. Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of making sure your business is one of them.

How AI search chooses what to recommend

AI assistants build answers from information they can find and trust. Some draw on what they learned in training, and many also search the web live and cite the pages they use. In both cases, they favour sources that are easy to read, clearly answer the question, agree with other trusted sources and come from businesses with a visible reputation.

GEO vs SEO: what's different?

GEO is not a replacement for SEO; it builds on it. If search engines cannot crawl and understand your site, AI tools usually cannot either. The difference is emphasis. Traditional SEO focuses on ranking a page for a keyword, while GEO focuses on being the clearest, most quotable and most trustworthy source on a topic, so an AI system can confidently summarise and cite you.

Write answer-first content

Lead each page and section with a direct answer, then add detail. Use question-style headings that mirror how people ask, such as "How much does a website cost?", and answer in the first sentence or two. FAQ sections, comparison tables, step-by-step lists and clear definitions are all easy for AI systems to extract and quote.

Make your facts unambiguous

State the key facts about your business plainly and consistently: what you do, where you work, who you serve, prices or price ranges where possible, and what makes you different. Make sure these match across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Conflicting information makes AI tools less likely to recommend you.

Use structured data

Schema.org markup for your organisation, services, articles, FAQs, products and reviews turns your content into data machines can read with certainty. It is one of the most practical steps you can take, and it helps traditional search results too.

Build reputation beyond your own website

AI assistants weigh what others say about you. Reviews on trusted platforms, mentions in industry publications, case studies, local press coverage and genuine discussion on forums all contribute. The more consistently you are described as an authority on a topic, the more likely you are to be recommended.

Let AI crawlers in

Check your robots.txt file isn't blocking AI crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, unless you have a reason to. You can also publish an llms.txt file: a short, plain-text summary of your business, services and key pages written for AI systems. This website has one at /llms.txt.

Measure AI visibility

Ask the main AI assistants the questions your customers ask and note whether you are mentioned and which sources are cited. Watch Google Analytics for referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sources, and track AI Overview appearances in Search Console where available.

Frequently asked questions