What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)? A clear guide

What does generative engine optimisation mean?

Generative engine optimisation is the work of shaping your website and online reputation so that AI systems that generate answers, rather than lists of links, choose your content as a source. The term was popularised by a 2023 academic research paper titled “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”, which studied how the way content is written affects whether AI answers use it.

You will also see the same idea called AEO (answer engine optimisation), LLMO (large language model optimisation) or simply “AI SEO”. The labels differ, but the goal is the same: when someone asks an assistant a question your business can answer, the assistant should be able to find you, understand you and feel confident citing you.

For a small business, success looks like this: a potential client asks “Which clinics in Thonglor offer online booking in English?” and the answer names you, with a link to your site.

How do AI answer engines choose what to cite?

Most AI answer engines search the web while they answer, read the most relevant pages, and then write a summary that cites some of those pages. What they know from training data is often out of date, so for questions about businesses, prices and services they lean on live retrieval.

The process usually runs like this: the system turns the question into one or more searches (Google describes this as a “query fan-out” in its AI features), retrieves candidate pages, picks out the passages that answer each part of the question, and writes a response with links to its sources. Where each engine gets its information differs:

The common thread is that your page has to be crawlable and indexed somewhere these systems look. That is why technical SEO is the first step of GEO, not an optional extra.

GEO vs SEO: what is actually different?

SEO aims to rank a page in a list of links; GEO aims to have a passage from that page used and cited inside a written answer. The foundations overlap heavily, but the unit of success and the style of writing shift.

A page that is good at GEO is almost always good for SEO too. The reverse is less reliable: a page can rank on the strength of its links while being too vague for an AI to quote.

What makes content more likely to be quoted by AI?

AI systems quote content that answers a question directly, in a passage that still makes sense when lifted out of the page. Write each important section so it could stand on its own:

• Answer first. Open each section with a one or two sentence answer to its heading, then add detail.
• Use definitions. Sentences shaped like “X is…” are easy to extract and cite.
• Be specific. Give starting prices, timelines, opening hours, areas served and units. “From $1,500, usually 3 to 6 weeks” is quotable; “affordable and fast” is not.
• Avoid references that depend on context, such as “as mentioned above” or “this option”. Name the thing.
• Use tables and numbered steps for comparisons and processes. They separate facts cleanly.
• Show who is speaking. Named authors, an about page and real credentials help both people and machines judge reliability.
• Keep facts consistent across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Contradictions make an AI less confident.
• Keep pages current and show the date they were published or updated.

How do you start with GEO on a small business website?

Start with access and clarity, then build reputation. A practical order of work:

1. Check crawler access in robots.txt. Make sure you are not blocking Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot or PerplexityBot. Note that OpenAI’s GPTBot, which collects training data, is controlled separately from OAI-SearchBot, which powers ChatGPT search, so you can make a different choice for each.
2. Fix the SEO basics covered in SEO basics for small business: indexable pages, clear titles, one page per service.
3. Rewrite your key pages answer-first, with question-led headings that match how customers ask.
4. Add structured data for your organisation, services and articles, explained in our schema markup guide.
5. Add a real FAQ section to each important page, using questions customers have actually asked you.
6. Consider an llms.txt file, a short Markdown summary of your site for AI tools. It is a proposed convention rather than a standard; our llms.txt guide explains what it can and cannot do.
7. Build your reputation off-site with reviews, directory listings, partner pages and local press.

How do you measure GEO results?

There is no single dashboard for AI visibility, so combine a few simple signals:

• Manual checks. Each month, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google the ten questions your customers ask most, and record who is mentioned and cited. Results vary by wording, location and user, so look for trends rather than single answers.
• Referral traffic. In your analytics, watch visits referred from domains such as chatgpt.com and perplexity.ai.
• Search Console. Google includes clicks and impressions from its AI features within the normal web search totals in the Performance report.
• Ask new enquiries how they found you. “ChatGPT suggested you” is a useful answer to hear.

Our guide to website analytics covers how to set this up.

Can anyone guarantee that AI will recommend my business?

No. AI answers change with each question, each user and each model update, and no agency controls them. What you can do is remove every reason for an AI to skip you: make your site accessible, your answers clear, your facts consistent and your reputation visible.

At PJW Partners, every website we build includes these foundations from the start: answer-first copy, question-led headings, schema markup and an AI-friendly robots.txt. If you want your business to be easier for AI to find and quote, get in touch and we will show you where to begin.

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