Generative engine optimisation (GEO)
What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work of getting a business quoted inside the answers that AI assistants and AI summaries in search engines write. It rests on the same ground as SEO — clear answers, clean structure, structured data and figures a machine can check — but it is measured differently: whether you are named and for what, rather than which position you hold.
Example
A company that installs water treatment systems wants to know where it stands in AI answers. The check is manual and cheap: ten questions customers actually ask — which system suits hard water, how often a filter is changed, what a softener for a house costs — put to two assistants, with a note of who gets named.
Out of ten answers the company is mentioned once and a competitor six times. The pages explain why. The competitor has a page per question, with the answer in the first two paragraphs, a table of values and a named author. The company has one “Services” page with a general description and a phone number.
The repair is editorial rather than a trick: each page answers one question in its opening lines, the figures are specific and checkable, and the company’s details — address, licences, authors — are identical everywhere they appear.
Why it matters for a business
A share of searches now ends in an answer instead of a list of links, and that answer names a few sources. If your name is not among them, the recommendation goes to a competitor without the customer opening anyone’s website. GEO is therefore not a new channel but a continuation of search work: the same pages, read by a second reader that needs clear, verifiable content.
How to improve it
- One question per page, answered in the first two paragraphs.
- Concrete numbers, deadlines and conditions instead of adjectives; an assistant quotes what it can check.
- Structured data for the organisation, the services and the questions.
- A named author, and contact details that match across the site and the profiles.
- A monthly manual check: the same questions, and a note of who was cited.
This runs alongside the rest of SEO — technique, content and structured data, so that search engines and assistants both have something worth quoting.