Search & AI
GEO explained: how to get your brand recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity
AI assistants are becoming the new shortlist for buyers. Here's what Generative Engine Optimisation is, how it differs from SEO, and five practical steps to start today.
Daksh TrivediFounder, Dhyanam Digital Solution · 2 min readWhen a marketing manager asks ChatGPT "Which agencies are good at B2B lead generation?", they don't get ten blue links. They get a short, confident answer with a handful of names. If your brand isn't one of them, you may never make it onto the shortlist.
That's the problem Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) solves.
What is GEO?
GEO is the practice of improving how often, and how favourably, your brand appears in AI-generated answers from tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Claude and Microsoft Copilot.
These tools build their answers from what they can find and trust about you: your website, review platforms, directories, news coverage, forum discussions and the way other sites describe you. GEO makes that information clear, consistent and convincing.
How is GEO different from SEO?
SEO and GEO overlap, but they reward slightly different things.
| Feature | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank a page in search results | Be mentioned or cited in an AI answer |
| Main signals | Relevance, links, technical health | Brand consistency, third-party mentions, quotable facts |
| Success metric | Rankings, clicks | Share of AI mentions, citations |
A healthy SEO foundation still matters, because AI tools crawl and read your website. But GEO puts much more weight on what the rest of the internet says about you.
Five practical steps to start
- Benchmark your AI visibility. Ask the major assistants 15 to 20 questions your buyers would ask. Note who gets mentioned, what's said about you, and which sources are cited.
- Fix your brand facts. Make sure your name, services, locations and founding details are identical across your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, directories and review sites.
- Publish cite-worthy content. Original data, clear definitions, honest comparisons and expert opinions are far more likely to be quoted than generic blog posts.
- Earn mentions on trusted sources. Industry publications, partner sites, podcasts and review platforms all feed AI answers.
- Track and repeat monthly. AI answers change. Re-run your prompts each month and measure your share of mentions over time.
GEO isn't a trick. It's the work of making your brand the most clearly documented and widely trusted option in your category.
Where to begin
If you're not sure how AI assistants describe your business today, that's the place to start. We include a short AI visibility snapshot in every free strategy call, so you can see exactly where you stand.