Generative engine optimization: getting AI-written answers about you right
A generative engine doesn't look up an answer about your business. It writes one, from whatever it has read about you. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is making sure that material is accurate, so what gets written is too.
Where the name came from
The term comes from a 2023 paper by researchers at Princeton, Georgia Tech, the Allen Institute for AI and IIT Delhi, who studied what makes a source more likely to be used in an AI-generated answer. Marketers adopted it fast, and "GEO services" now covers a wide range of work, some of it ordinary SEO with a new label.
How an AI answer gets written
Ask Perplexity or ChatGPT for a roofer in your town and it will usually run a few searches, read the pages that come back, and write an answer from them. Where the assistant reports them, we keep the searches it ran and the pages it cited.
That's why GEO is mostly source work. If the answer says you close at 5 and you close at 6, the 5 came from somewhere: an old directory listing, a page on your own site nobody updated, your Google profile. Correcting the source is what changes the next answer.
When AI answers a question about a local business, 93% of the distinct websites it cites are business websites.
Your own website is usually the first place to look.
What our GEO work includes
- ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity asked your customers' questions on a regular schedule, the same way each time.
- Corrections at the source: your site, your Google listing, directories.
- Pages for the services and places you actually cover, if your site is missing them.
- A monthly account of what the assistants said. No score.
Questions
Is GEO the same as AEO?
Close enough that you shouldn't care which name a provider uses. AEO is older and started with voice assistants; GEO was coined for AI that writes its answers. The work is the same.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. Assistants that search the web read the same pages and listings search engines do. Weak SEO usually means weak GEO.
Can you get my business cited by ChatGPT?
We can't promise that, and we'd be wary of anyone who does. We can make sure what it finds about you is right.
Want to discuss generative engine optimization?
Book a time with Lehvel and we’ll go through what your business actually needs.