Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of making your content easy for AI answer tools such as ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity to find, trust and quote. Traditional SEO tries to earn you a ranked link. GEO tries to get your business named inside the answer itself.
That second goal is why it matters. When someone asks an AI assistant for the best accountant for sole traders in Leeds, there is no page of ten blue links to scroll. There is one answer, and a few businesses in it. If you are not one of them, you have not lost position four. You have lost the whole conversation.
What is generative engine optimisation, and how does GEO differ from SEO?
The foundations overlap heavily. Both need pages that can be crawled, content that answers real questions and a site people trust. A business with weak SEO rarely has strong GEO.
The difference is the output. Search engines rank documents. Generative engines build a new answer, drawing on several sources, and then cite some of them. So you are optimising to be included in a synthesis, not to sit at number three on a list.
The ranking factors also shift. For GEO, clear statements, consistent facts about your business across the web, and third-party mentions carry extra weight. Keyword placement carries less. In the GEO versus SEO debate, the honest summary is that GEO is SEO with a sharper focus on clarity and reputation.
What is LLM SEO, and is it the same thing?
People use several names for the same idea: GEO, LLM SEO, AI SEO, answer engine optimisation. They all describe adapting content so large language models can find and use it. The labels will keep changing. The underlying work will not.
Do not get hung up on terminology. If an agency pitches “LLM SEO” as a secret method, ask what it does differently from good SEO. You should get a concrete answer.
What do AI answer engines actually draw on?
Two sources. The first is what the model learned in training, which is a frozen snapshot you cannot easily influence. The second is live retrieval, where the tool searches the web at the moment of the question and summarises what it finds. Most of the opportunity sits in that second source, because those searches use a search index, and strong ordinary SEO helps you appear in it.
Beyond that, what gets quoted tends to be pages that state things plainly, answer a question near the top, and come from sources the web already trusts. Reviews, directory listings, press mentions and forum discussions all form part of the picture the model builds about you.
No one outside the platforms knows the exact weighting, and anyone who claims a formula is guessing. Treat advice here as informed hypothesis.
What should you do to improve AI search visibility?
Several steps are sensible and cheap. None needs a new tool.
Write pages that answer one question clearly in the first paragraph, then add depth. State facts about your business in plain words: what you do, where, for whom, and what it costs in rough terms. Models quote specifics and skip waffle.
Keep your details identical everywhere. Name, address, phone, services and descriptions should match across your site, Google Business Profile and directories. Conflicting facts lower confidence.
Earn mentions beyond your own site. Reviews on Google, a profile in a local business directory, a quote in a trade article. Third-party corroboration matters more to these systems than anything you say about yourself.
Let crawlers in. Check your robots.txt does not block the bots you want, and confirm key content is in the HTML rather than hidden behind scripts. Then keep your SEO healthy, because the retrieval step leans on it.
What in GEO is hype?
Quite a lot. Be sceptical of the following.
Guaranteed placement in ChatGPT. Nobody can promise that, because answers vary by user, by day and by prompt. Anyone selling a guarantee is selling a story.
Special files that unlock citations. A proposed llms.txt file gets talked about, but no major provider has confirmed that it relies on it. It is harmless to add and unproven as a lever.
Schema as a magic key. Structured data helps machines understand a page, which is good practice, but it is not a switch for AI answers.
Rank tracking for AI answers as an exact science. Tools exist, but results change from run to run, so treat the numbers as directional. Measure trends over weeks, not single prompts.
How do you measure it?
Start simple. Every month, ask the AI tools the questions your customers ask, such as “who is the best PPC agency in Leeds” or “how do I choose a web designer”, and note whether you appear. Record the date and the tool, because wording changes the outcome. Also look at your analytics for referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and similar sources. It is small today, and growing.
The practical, step-by-step side of this, including how to prompt-test your own visibility, sits in our guide on getting recommended by ChatGPT. This post is the explanation. That one is the plan.
One example makes it concrete. Imagine a Leeds firm that installs EV chargers. A page that opens with “We install home EV chargers across Leeds and West Yorkshire, typically £800 to £1,300 fitted” gives a model a clean, quotable fact. A page that opens with three paragraphs about the green future gives it nothing to lift. Same business, very different chance of being cited.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Google still handles the vast majority of searches, and AI answers lean on the same web content. Drop SEO to chase GEO and you weaken both. The sensible approach is one content programme that serves both audiences. Our AI SEO service is built that way.
If you are early in this, start by nailing the basics. Our guide to keyword research for small business shows how to find the questions customers ask, and those are the same questions AI tools get asked. And if anyone pitches GEO with big promises, read our list of SEO agency red flags first. Pricing questions are covered in what an SEO agency costs, and the same budgets usually cover GEO work.
Frequently asked questions
Is GEO just a new name for SEO?
Partly. Most of the work overlaps, but the goal shifts from ranking to being quoted.
Do small businesses need GEO?
Yes, and honestly small firms have an edge, because clear local expertise is exactly what these tools like to quote. You do not need a big budget. You need accurate, specific pages and real reviews. Start there, and add measurement after.
Can I pay to appear in ChatGPT answers?
Not in the organic answer. Platforms are testing ads, but they are labelled as such.
How long does GEO take to work?
Weeks to months, like SEO. Live retrieval can pick up new pages faster than training data ever will, but there is no fixed timetable.
Will AI search kill traffic to my site?
Some clicks will vanish, especially for simple factual questions. Customers choosing a supplier still want to look at a real business. Be the one they find.
Curious how your business shows up today? Send us your three most valuable services and we will test them across the main AI tools and send back what we find. Free, within one working day.
