What is GEO? Generative engine optimisation explained

Quick answer: GEO, or generative engine optimisation, is the work of making your business easy for AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to understand, trust and mention when they write answers. It is about being the business an AI names when a customer asks for a recommendation.

What "generative" means

Traditional search engines list links. Generative tools write an answer in their own words, drawing on what they can find and trust. When someone asks "who is a good personal trainer near me?", the answer is assembled rather than looked up from a fixed list.

How each tool works differs and changes often, and some use live search while others lean on what they learned in training. That is why GEO is less about tricks and more about being clear, consistent and credible wherever a tool might look.

What helps

Clear facts about your business

State plainly who you are, what you do, where you work and how to contact you, on your home page and in your structured data. Ambiguity makes it harder for a tool to describe you correctly.

Consistency across the web

Use the same business name, address, phone number and description on your site, your Google Business Profile and trusted directories. These are called citations, and consistent ones make your details easier to trust.

Genuine reviews and mentions

Reviews and mentions on other credible sites are evidence from people other than you. See why reviews matter for AI search.

Specific, well-sourced content

Content that gives real answers, with names, dates, numbers and honest caveats, is more useful to quote than general claims. Naming who wrote a page and when it was updated helps readers and machines judge it.

Structured data

Schema markup labels your business details, services and FAQs so machines can read them reliably. It does not guarantee a mention, but it removes guesswork.

Letting AI crawlers in

Check that your robots.txt file does not block the crawlers of AI search tools you want to be visible in. A fast, accessible site also helps any crawler read your pages.

An llms.txt file

An llms.txt file is a short, plain-text summary of your site written for AI tools. Adoption is still emerging and not every tool reads it, so treat it as a low-cost extra rather than a switch that changes results.

What does not work

• Fake or incentivised reviews. They break platform rules and can backfire.
• Stuffing text with phrases aimed at AI tools.
• Exaggerated claims that you cannot back up.
• Buying links or using link networks.

How to see where you stand

You can learn a lot with no special tools.

1. Write down the questions a customer would ask to find a business like yours.
2. Ask them in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, in your own words.
3. Note whether you are mentioned, whether the details are right, and who is mentioned instead.
4. Look in your website analytics for visits from AI tools, and repeat the check every few weeks.

Results vary between tools and over time, so look for patterns rather than single answers.

A realistic view

No one controls what an AI tool says, and no one can promise a mention. What you can control is the quality of the information it finds about you. Our guide, how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, has the practical steps, and SEO, AEO and GEO explained shows how GEO sits alongside the other two.

Not sure how an AI tool currently describes your business? An AI Visibility Audit shows you, and what to fix first.