What is GEO? AI search optimisation in plain English
GEO, or generative engine optimisation, means making your business easy for AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to find, understand and recommend. It builds on SEO. It does not replace it. And nobody can guarantee that an AI answer will mention you.
More people now ask an AI assistant questions they used to type into Google, such as “best aircond service in Penang” or “how much does a wedding photographer cost in KL”. If the answer names three businesses, you want to be one of them.
How do AI answers decide which businesses to mention?
Each tool works differently, and the companies do not publish exact rules. In general, AI answers lean on:
- Pages that already rank well in search, because many AI tools search the web before answering.
- Clear, consistent facts about a business: name, location, services, prices and reviews that match across your website, Google Business Profile and directories.
- Content that answers a question directly, in a way that is easy to quote.
- Mentions on other trusted sites, such as news, industry lists and reviews.
How is GEO different from SEO?
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in Google’s search results and get clicks | Be mentioned or cited inside AI answers |
| Main signals | Relevance, links, technical health, user experience | The same, plus clear facts, structured data and quotable answers |
| How you measure it | Rankings, impressions and clicks in Search Console | A fixed list of prompts, tested regularly, and logged |
| Maturity | Well understood | New. Tools and behaviour change often |
In short, GEO is SEO done carefully, with extra attention to how machines read and summarise your pages.
What can a small business do about GEO today?
- Make your business details consistent everywhere. Same name, phone, area and services on your website, Google Business Profile, Facebook page and directories.
- Answer questions first. Start each section of a service page or article with a direct two or three sentence answer, then explain.
- Add structured data. Schema markup for your business, services, FAQs and articles helps machines understand what each page is about.
- Publish real specifics. Prices, areas served, process steps and honest limits. Vague marketing language gives AI nothing to quote.
- Get mentioned elsewhere. Reviews, local media, industry associations and partner websites all count.
- Keep doing SEO. If your pages do not rank, AI tools that search the web are less likely to find them.
How do you measure GEO?
There is no Search Console for AI answers yet. The most honest method is a prompt log:
- Write 10 to 20 questions a real customer would ask, such as “who is a good Google Ads specialist in Malaysia”.
- Ask each one in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google, on the same day each month.
- Record whether your business is mentioned, cited with a link, or missing, and who is mentioned instead.
Answers vary between sessions, so look at the trend over months, not a single result.
Does llms.txt help?
An llms.txt file is a short text file at the root of your website that summarises who you are and links to your key pages, written for AI tools. It is cheap to add. There is no confirmed evidence yet that major AI tools rely on it, so treat it as a small experiment, not a strategy. I run one on this site and will share what I find.
Should you pay for GEO?
Only on top of solid SEO, and only from someone who tells you what they cannot promise. Be wary of anyone guaranteeing that ChatGPT will recommend you. A useful GEO service starts with a baseline prompt log, fixes your business facts and structured data, restructures key pages, and re-tests every month so you can see what changed.
That is how my GEO and AI search service works.
Sources: Google Search Central documentation “AI features and your website” and “Introduction to structured data”; llmstxt.org proposal.