Generative Engine Optimisation for the answers AI writes
When someone asks ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews for a recommendation, only a few sources make it into the answer. Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work of strengthening the signals those answers draw on. This page covers what a GEO engagement involves for a local business: what gets checked first, what gets fixed, how prompts are tested and how progress is reported. If you want the definitions of GEO, AEO and LLM SEO first, start with [what AI SEO is](/resources/what-is-ai-seo/).
Why choose us for GEO
AI answers pull from a small pool of trusted sources. Getting into that pool comes down to how clearly your content answers real questions and how much the AI trusts your business.
Everything connects. Your GEO work runs alongside your SEO, your Google Business profile and your content, so every signal points the same way.
We're upfront about the line between what the work can change and what it can't. Your pages, your structured data, your listings and the evidence you publish are all in reach. Whether a given AI product names you in a given answer is decided by that product, so nobody can promise a citation.
You see where your brand appears in AI answers, how often it gets cited, and what we're changing next. Nothing happens behind a curtain.
What's included
Structured content for AI
Pages built so AI systems can read, extract and quote them. Clear headings, direct answers and clean schema markup. In practice that means a one-sentence answer at the top of each section, short paragraphs, tables for comparisons and lists for steps, so a passage still makes sense when it's lifted out on its own.
Question and intent mapping
We match your content to the real questions people ask AI tools, so you show up while buying decisions are being made. The questions come from your enquiry forms, phone calls, Search Console queries and the follow-up questions customers ask on site visits, then get grouped by service and suburb.
Topical authority building
Connected content across your key services that shows AI systems you know your field inside out. Each service page links to the guides that answer its harder questions, and each guide links back, so a crawler finds the whole topic from any entry point.
Citations and brand mentions
Mentions on trusted sites and directories that AI models lean on when deciding which businesses to recommend. The first job is making sure the listings you already have carry the same name, address, phone and service area, because conflicting details give an AI tool two versions of you to choose between.
Entity and schema signals
Consistent business details and structured data, so AI knows exactly who you are and where you work. Google Search Central lists making sure structured data matches the visible text on the page as good practice, so markup only describes what a visitor can actually read.
Crawler access for AI search tools
A check that the bots behind AI search can reach your pages. OpenAI recommends allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt to appear in ChatGPT search results, and Perplexity says the same of PerplexityBot. We also check that key content loads without relying on JavaScript. An llms.txt file is described by its own site as a proposal, so it's treated as optional.
AI visibility tracking and corrections
We monitor where your brand appears across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and other AI platforms, and adjust as the answers shift. When an answer gets a fact wrong, such as old hours or a suburb you don't serve, the fix starts with the sources it drew on, as our guide to [AI source corrections](/resources/ai-source-corrections/) explains.
How a GEO engagement runs, step by step
An engagement has a setup phase and an ongoing phase. Setup finds out where you stand and fixes what's blocking you. The ongoing work adds evidence, tests prompts again and corrects anything that drifts. The order below is the one we follow, because each step depends on the one before it.
- Benchmark before changing anythingRun a set of real customer questions through the AI tools your customers use and record who gets named, which pages get linked and what the answers say about you. This is the baseline every later report is compared against.
- Fix access and indexingGoogle Search Central says a page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet before it can appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. So the first fixes are crawl blocks, noindex tags and robots.txt rules that shut out AI search bots by accident.
- Line up the business factsName, address, phone, hours, services and service area made identical across your website, Google Business Profile and the directories that matter in your trade.
- Rework the pages that answer buying questionsService and suburb pages restructured so each question gets a direct answer, backed by detail only your business can give.
- Add evidence other sites can point toJob photos, genuine reviews, local project write-ups and clear credentials, published where AI tools and people can both find them.
- Retest, report and adjustThe same prompt set runs again on a regular schedule agreed at the start, so changes in the answers can be compared like for like.
What the starting benchmark checks
The benchmark is the first deliverable, and it decides where the effort goes. A business that's named but described wrongly needs different work from one that's never named at all. Each check below records what the answer says today, so nothing is judged on a feeling.
One caution on reading it. AI answers vary between runs and between users, so a single result proves little. That's why each question is asked more than once and the pattern matters more than any one answer. Our guide on why a crawl does not prove a citation covers a related trap.
| Check | What gets recorded | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Prompt coverage | Which customer questions name your business, by service and suburb | Shows where you're absent and where you're already in the answer |
| Competitors named instead | The businesses and directories that appear when you don't | Shows whose signals the AI tool currently trusts more |
| Sources linked | Which pages, listings and third-party sites the answer links to | Tells us which sources to strengthen or correct |
| Accuracy of facts | Hours, phone, services, service area and credentials as the answer states them | Wrong facts in an answer can cost a call even when you're named |
| Crawler access | robots.txt rules for AI search bots, indexing status and pages that need JavaScript to show content | A page a bot can't reach can't be used as a source |
| Current AI referrals | Visits from AI tools that show in your analytics, where the tool passes that information | Gives a starting point for traffic comparisons later |
A worked example: prompt testing for an electrician
This is a hypothetical example with no real business behind it. Say an electrical contractor based in Buderim wants more switchboard upgrade work. The prompt set is built from the questions their customers already ask on the phone, written the way a homeowner would type them into an AI tool.
The set might include "Who's a good electrician near Buderim for a switchboard upgrade?", "How do I know if my switchboard needs replacing?" and "Which electricians in Buderim do safety switch installs?" Each one runs several times in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Perplexity, and every answer is saved.
Say the results come back like this. Two competitors and a directory page are named in most of the recommendation answers. The business is named once, with a phone number it stopped using two years ago. The switchboard question is answered from a competitor's guide, because the business's own site only mentions switchboards in a list.
Each finding points to a fix. The old number traces back to a directory listing, so that listing is corrected first. The switchboard question needs a proper page section with a direct answer, real job photos and the suburbs the business works in. Reviews that mention switchboard jobs are worth asking for, since review text is evidence a customer wrote. Then the same prompts run again and the answers are compared with the saved baseline.
How GEO results are measured and reported
The question a report should answer is whether more of the right customers found and contacted you. AI mentions are an early signal on the way there. The measures below are the ones we report, with the source for each so you can check it yourself.
Two limits are worth knowing. Google Search Central says traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is included in the overall Web search traffic in Search Console, so it isn't split out as its own line. And some AI tools don't pass referral information, so analytics undercounts their visits. Our guides on Google AI impressions and measuring ChatGPT referrals go into the detail.
| Measure | What it tells you | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Prompt set results | How often you're named or linked across the same questions over time | Saved answers from repeated runs of the agreed prompt set |
| Answer accuracy | Whether AI tools describe your hours, services and area correctly | The same saved answers, checked against your real details |
| Competitor share | Who is named alongside you or instead of you | The same saved answers, grouped by business |
| Search clicks and impressions | Google visibility, with AI Overviews and AI Mode traffic counted inside Web | Search Console Performance report |
| AI referral visits | Visits that arrive from AI tools that pass referral information | GA4 traffic acquisition reports |
| Enquiries and calls | Whether visibility turned into contact from the right suburbs and services | Form records, call tracking and your booking system |
GEO, SEO and AEO side by side, and when GEO isn't the priority
Proposals use these terms loosely, so here's how the work differs in practice. GEO builds on SEO rather than replacing it. Google Search Central says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special schema needed, which is why the SEO groundwork comes first. The question-led side of this work has its own answer engine optimisation service.
- Fix the basics first ifyou have no verified Google Business Profile, your listings show different phone numbers or addresses, or you have very few genuine reviews. Google's Business Profile Help says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local results, and AI tools draw on the same kinds of sources.
- GEO is worth adding whenyour basic SEO is sound, your customers research before they call, and your trade gets questions that need a considered answer, such as compliance, sizing or which option suits a home.
| Aspect | SEO | AEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main goal | Rank pages in search results | Have a page chosen as the direct answer to a question | Be named or linked inside AI-written answers |
| Typical work | Technical fixes, pages, links, Google Business Profile | Question-led sections, FAQs, short direct answers | Prompt testing, entity consistency, evidence and source correction |
| How it's checked | Rankings, clicks, enquiries | Snippets and answer features won | Saved AI answers, accuracy, referrals, enquiries |
Built for your local market
When a Sunshine Coast local asks an AI tool for a plumber or a lawyer, it names two or three businesses. Those names come from local signals: reviews, suburb pages, consistent listings and a strong Google profile.
Google's own guidance says its local results are ranked on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to pay for a better local ranking.
We shape your GEO strategy around the suburbs you actually serve, so AI recommendations match your real service area instead of a generic region.
Questions we get asked
Is SEO dead now with AI?
No. Google Search Central says a page has to be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet before it can appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, so AI visibility in Google still rests on ordinary SEO. ChatGPT and Perplexity also run their own search crawlers. The shift is in where people read the answer, and GEO adds the checks that suit that.
What is replacing SEO?
Nothing is replacing it outright. AI answers are being added on top of search, and the terms GEO, AEO and LLM SEO describe extra work for those answers. A local business still needs crawlable pages, accurate listings and a solid Google Business Profile. GEO then tests how AI tools describe you and strengthens the sources they draw on. Our Geo SEO work covers the map side.
Can ChatGPT do SEO?
It can help with parts of it, such as drafting a FAQ, suggesting headings or summarising a page. It can't check your indexing, fix your listings, collect reviews or confirm that a fact about your business is right. Google's own help page says its AI Overviews can and will make mistakes, and the same caution applies to any AI drafting tool, so anything it writes about your services needs a person to check it first.
Is GEO a one-off project or ongoing work?
Both parts exist. The setup phase is a project: benchmark, access fixes, business facts and the pages that answer buying questions. After that the work is ongoing, because AI answers change as models update and competitors publish. Retesting the same prompts on a schedule shows whether your place is holding, and catches wrong facts before customers act on them.
Which AI platforms does the work cover?
The prompt testing covers the tools local customers use most for recommendations: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. The underlying work is shared, because accurate pages, listings and reviews feed all of them. Each platform runs its own crawler and sources, so access checks and results are recorded platform by platform.
What drives the cost of a GEO engagement?
Scope sets the cost more than anything else. The number of services and suburbs you want covered, the state of your current pages and listings, how competitive your trade is locally and how often prompts are retested all change the workload. A strategy review is the place to size that, and our AI SEO pricing page explains how the work is scoped.
How long before my business might show up in AI answers?
There's no fixed timeline, and no one can guarantee you'll be named. It depends on your starting authority, how competitive your market is, and how much of your existing content answers real questions in a form AI can quote. A business with consistent details and genuine reviews already in place starts further along than one with conflicting listings.
Keep exploring
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