What is GEO? Generative engine optimization, explained for professionals

GEO, SEO, AEO: what the words mean

You will see several acronyms for the same territory: GEO (generative engine optimization), AEO (answer engine optimization) and sometimes LLMO (large language model optimization). They are not standardised, and different writers use them differently. What they share is the goal: to be present, accurate and cited when someone asks an AI a question.

In practice, almost everything that helps one helps the other. A page that is crawlable, clear, fast on a phone and consistent with your other listings is a good base for both.

How AI answer engines work, in plain words

There are two broad kinds of AI answer. The first comes from what a model learned in training, with no live look at the web. It can be out of date and is not something you can easily influence. The second kind searches the web first, then writes an answer from what it finds, and usually shows its sources. ChatGPT search, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode work this way. OpenAI describes ChatGPT search as finding current information on the web and linking to the sources. For a local professional, this second kind is what matters, because it reads current pages.

In simple terms, these tools:

1. Work out what the person is really asking. “Who is a good family lawyer near me?” is also a question about experience, fees, reviews and location.
2. Search, often several times. AI search tools commonly break a question into smaller searches and combine what they find; Google has described AI Mode as doing this.
3. Read the pages, listings and reviews they found.
4. Write one answer, and link to the sources they used.

That tells you where to put your effort. You need to be findable by the crawlers (step 2), have a page that answers the small questions inside the big one (step 3), and have facts that agree with each other across sources, so the tool is confident enough to repeat them (step 4).

What the research found

The term GEO was introduced in a 2023 research paper by Pranjal Aggarwal and colleagues at IIT Delhi and Princeton, later published at KDD 2024. They built a benchmark of around 10,000 queries across 25 domains and tested nine ways of rewriting content to see which made it more visible in a generative engine’s answers.

• The best-performing changes were adding citations to credible sources, adding relevant quotations, and adding statistics. In the authors’ test, they raised visibility by up to about 40 percent on their measures, compared with leaving the text alone.
• Keyword stuffing, the old SEO trick of repeating search terms, scored below the baseline. It made things worse.
• The authors’ conclusion was that making content more credible and richer in checkable detail, with minimal changes to the original, worked better than tricks.

Read the result with care

• It was a research study on a generative engine built for the experiment, not a test of ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity as they work today. Real products change often, and results may differ.
• The queries were general, not local searches for a lawyer or a dentist.
• “Visibility” was measured by how much of the answer drew on the content and how prominently, not by whether anyone became a client.

The sensible reading is a direction: be specific, be sourced, and be easy to quote. That fits what Google and OpenAI say about their own tools, which is to write helpful, reliable pages for people and make sure the crawlers can reach them.

What GEO means for a professional

Translate “sources, quotations and statistics” into your world: make the facts about you specific and checkable. (The people, places and figures in this table are invented examples.)

The specific versions can be quoted, checked and matched against other sources. The vague ones cannot. This is also why registration numbers, regulators, dates and named places are worth including wherever your profession’s rules allow.

A practical GEO checklist

1. Let the crawlers in

Your pages must be indexed and not blocked. Google says that to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet, and that there are no additional technical requirements. OpenAI says sites that opt out of its OAI-SearchBot crawler will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers; its GPTBot crawler, used for training, is separate. Perplexity recommends allowing PerplexityBot. Check your robots.txt, and any security or “bot protection” setting that might block them.

2. State the facts in plain sentences, near the top

One sentence that says who you are, what you do, for whom and where, in ordinary words, is the most quotable thing on your page. Use your name, profession and city in the page title as well.

3. Add structured data

Structured data states your name, profession, address, hours and services in a machine-readable form. It does not guarantee anything, and must match what is visible on the page, but it removes guesswork. See the best way to build a professional website for what it is and how to get it.

4. Keep the same facts everywhere

AI tools weigh agreement between sources. If your website, Google listing, LinkedIn and directories all show the same name, address, phone number and title, a tool can repeat them with confidence. If they disagree, it may hedge or choose wrongly. Start with your Google listing.

5. Answer the questions clients actually ask

AI search tools break a question into smaller ones: Do you have parking? What does a first appointment cost? Do you see patients who are insured? Short questions and answers on your page match those directly.

6. Be specific and verifiable

Include credentials with registration numbers where relevant, years in practice, prices or “from” prices, named places and dates. Where your profession’s rules allow it and clients agree, include a short quotation from a client. Link to the regulator or professional body that verifies you.

7. Be mentioned by others

Mentions on other reputable sites, such as your professional body’s directory, local directories, local press and the organisations you work with, give an AI tool independent confirmation. They are among the most useful signals, and the slowest to build.

8. Keep it fresh, and say so

Update details when they change and show when the page was last reviewed. An assistant that repeats an old price or a closed address does neither of you any good.

What GEO can’t do

• Guarantee a mention. AI answers differ by question, by wording, by day and by user, and the tools change constantly.
• Replace the rest of your visibility. Google, maps, referrals and word of mouth still bring most clients for many professionals.
• Be measured precisely. Rank-tracking for AI answers is immature. Treat any dashboard that promises an exact “AI score” with suspicion.
• Be bought with a trick. Hidden text, keyword stuffing and fake reviews break Google’s rules, and the research found keyword stuffing made visibility worse.

Myths worth ignoring

• “You need a special file.” Google says nothing extra is needed for its AI features. A plain-text summary file for AI is a small, optional extra, not a requirement.
• “Write for robots.” Write clearly for people. The tools are built to read what people find helpful.
• “Repeat your keywords.” The research found this hurt.
• “Pay for a guaranteed AI ranking.” Nobody outside the AI companies controls what they say.

How to tell whether it is working

Pick ten questions a client might ask, such as “who is a good [profession] in [city]?” and “how much does a [service] cost in [city]?”. Ask each one to two or three AI assistants once a month, and write down whether you were mentioned, what was said, and which sources were shown. Compare month to month. It is imperfect, but it shows what clients may see and catches wrong information early. Our guide on checking what AI says about you has twelve questions and a record sheet, and why AI gets details wrong explains how to fix mismatches. For wording that cuts across assistants, see how to get recommended by AI assistants.

Where BeVisible fits

BeVisible sets up the basics of GEO for you: your page title names you, your profession and city; your facts are in plain text; structured data (Person, LocalBusiness and FAQ markup) and a plain-text summary for AI are added; and the main AI crawlers are allowed. You can build and preview free, and publish free for 7 days with no card needed. After that one yearly plan keeps a website online, and one plan covers one website. You can start from a photo of a business card or type your details.