- • The confusion I have to clear up every single time
- • Seeing it work, with real numbers
- • 7 Detailed FAQs
GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation — is the work of getting your business named when someone asks an AI tool like ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity a question relevant to what you do. It's a different game from ranking on Google: instead of earning a spot on a results page, you're trying to become part of the answer itself.
The confusion I have to clear up every single time
Almost every client I explain this to assumes GEO means something to do with geography — local, location-based marketing. It doesn't. It stands for Generative Engine Optimisation, and it has nothing to do with where your business is, only with whether an AI model chooses to mention it. I flag this every time the term comes up, because the mix-up genuinely derails the conversation otherwise.
Picture it like this
A customer types "best accountant for a small business" into ChatGPT instead of Google. The AI reads across a range of sources and gives a written answer — possibly naming two or three specific firms. If your firm is one of them, GEO is working for you. If it isn't, you've lost that customer's attention entirely, and there's no results page for them to scroll further down.
How this actually differs from ordinary SEO
The mechanics look similar from a distance — clear content, good structure, credibility signals — but the target is genuinely different.
| Traditional SEO | GEO | |
| What you're chasing | A ranking position | A mention inside a generated answer |
| Success looks like | Position 1–3 on Google | Your business named by the AI |
| Does it need a click? | Generally, yes | Frequently not — being named is often the whole outcome |
| How you'd measure it | Rankings and traffic | How often you're mentioned, and how accurately |
That third row trips people up the most. A huge amount of GEO's actual value never shows up in your website statistics — someone hears your name from an AI, remembers it, and calls you directly. Nothing about that journey leaves a trace in Google Analytics.
Why a small business should care right now
Bigger competitors can absorb being invisible in one channel while their other marketing carries them. A small business generally can't afford that luxury — losing a customer before they even reach your website is losing them, full stop.
Here's the genuinely useful part: hardly any small businesses have started working on this yet. Most of what's written about GEO is aimed at enterprise marketing teams. That gap is temporary, and it favours whoever moves first.
What actually improves your GEO
None of this requires new software or a technical background. It's mostly the kind of groundwork that's easy to keep putting off:
- Write down clear answers to the questions customers actually ask you. If people regularly ask about pricing, turnaround time, or whether you cover their area, that answer belongs on your website in plain text — not locked inside a PDF, and not left for a phone call to explain.
- Make your details match everywhere. Your business name, address and phone number should be identical on your website, your Google Business Profile, and every directory you're listed on. A mismatch makes an AI model less sure it's even looking at the same business.
- Collect reviews, and keep collecting them. AI tools read what reviews actually say, not just the star rating, when forming an opinion about a business worth mentioning.
- Add basic structured data to your site. A small piece of behind-the-scenes markup tells a machine plainly what kind of business you are, rather than leaving it to guess.
- Don't let your content go stale. Information that's clearly been updated recently tends to be trusted over a page that's sat untouched for years.
Seeing it work, with real numbers
Rather than describe the benefit abstractly, here's an actual result. Solar4Good, a solar installation client, picked up 205 separate citations across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overview and Google AI Mode within 90 days — alongside a move from Google Maps position 14 to position 2, reviews growing from 18 to 47, and inbound calls rising from 9 to 40 a month. That came from applying exactly the kind of groundwork listed above, consistently, over three months.
A five-minute way to check where you stand today
Open ChatGPT or Perplexity and ask three or four real questions a customer might ask about your type of business. See if you're named. If you're not, look at who is — nearly always, they've published a clear, direct answer to that exact question somewhere on their own site, and you haven't yet.
That small exercise tells you more about where to focus than any generic advice could.