What is GEO? And what does it mean for your website?

Generative engine optimisation — or GEO — is the practice of optimising your online presence to appear in AI-generated answers, as well as in traditional search results.

If you’ve spent any time on LinkedIn or in marketing circles lately, you’ve probably come across the term already. It’s being talked about as a major shift in how businesses get found online.

But is it really that big a deal? And should you, as a business owner, be doing anything differently?

Here, we explain what GEO actually is, how it relates to SEO and what — if anything — it should change about how you approach your website.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. Like SEO, it’s about getting your business found online. The key difference is where you’re trying to show up.

With SEO, the goal is to rank in traditional search engine result pages (SERPs), primarily on Google.

With GEO, the goal is to appear in the responses generated by AI tools — like ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews, Perplexity and other large language models (LLMs).

When someone types, for example, “What’s the best estate agent in Manchester?” into ChatGPT, the sources the AI draws from and the businesses it mentions are shaped by GEO.

Benefits of GEO

AI tools are changing how people search for information.

Instead of typing a query into Google and scanning a list of links, some people are now heading straight to AI tools, asking conversational questions and getting tailored answers.

If your business features in those answers (thanks to GEO), people can learn about your brand via an AI conversation and (in some cases) click a link to head straight to your website.

But GEO isn’t just about brand awareness and the odd click. The traffic AI engines send to websites appears to be unusually high quality.

As ever in GEO, we’ll start with the disclaimer that everyone is still working this stuff out. So we have to look to companies that are doing their own research on what GEO can do.

One example comes from Ahrefs, the SEO software provider. Ahrefs analysed its own website data and found that AI search accounts for just 0.5% of its total traffic — really nothing to write home about.

But, there was another interesting finding. That small amount of traffic drove 12.1% of signups. Visitors from AI search converted at 23 times the rate of visitors from traditional organic search. They also visited more pages and bounced less.

The likely reason? These website visitors arrived at the Ahrefs website further along in their decision-making process.

They’d already hashed through software comparisons and pros and cons with their AI engine. So they arrived on the website looking to verify the info AI had given them. They hadn’t started from scratch on the search engine results page and were, instead, already pretty close to taking action.

SEO vs GEO

So how does GEO compare to SEO? The two aren’t as different as some people suggest. But there are some real distinctions that a website owner should be aware of.

The goal is different

The ultimate goal of both strategies is to get more traffic to your website — and more clicks, sales or enquiries. However, there’s a key difference.

With SEO, you’re trying to get into a ranked list of links on search engine result pages. With GEO, you’re trying to get into AI responses.

The strategy is (slightly) different

Google’s algorithm looks at hundreds of factors. Currently, we believe (because Google isn’t totally transparent on this) that backlinks, page speed, user experience and keyword relevance all play a significant role in where you show up in SERPs.

Website content is also judged on the EEAT framework — meaning it should demonstrate experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

LLMs seem to take SEO performance into account when deciding whether to cite your content or mention your brand. You still need high-quality content for real users and good technical SEO foundations.

But LLMs have a few quirks of their own you should bear in mind. They particularly like well-structured content that demonstrates topical authority. They also look at your brand’s presence beyond your website — on other websites, review sites, social platforms and on forums like Reddit — when deciding if and how to talk about your brand.

The user behaviour is different

People tend to search Google with short or long tail keywords. For example, they might type in “business website” if they’re at the start of their journey, or “Manchester web design agency for small businesses” when they’re a little clearer on exactly what they need.

People prompt AI tools differently, with full questions, context and nuance. For example, the ChatGPT version of the search above might be:

I’m a small business owner looking to rebrand and redesign my website — what should I be looking for in an agency?

You can’t keyword optimise your way into that conversation in the same way.

Traffic volume and quality are different

As we saw from Ahref’s research, AI accounts for a very small proportion of the searches taking place every day across the globe, at least for the time being. However, because those AI searches help users research a topic, weigh up options and draw up shortlists, they can arrive on your website ready to buy.

The measurement is different

SEO gives you relatively clean data — rankings, clicks, traffic — via tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics. GEO measurement is much harder (more on this in a moment).

SEO vs GEO: a summary

How do you measure GEO performance?

This is one of the real limitations of GEO right now. It’s hard to measure — and anyone telling you otherwise isn’t telling you the whole story.

You can try to look at the number of click-throughs, citations and mentions your brand gets on AI tools. You can also look at sentiment (whether AI is speaking positively or negatively about your brand) and at share of voice (how often your brand is mentioned in relation to competitors).

But there’s currently no reliable way to track these metrics.

• Traditional analytics platforms like GA4 and Google Search Console weren’t built for this. And AI platforms don’t release search volume data directly. That means third-party tools estimate AI keyword volumes using Google data and statistical modelling. It’s based on predictions, not hard numbers.
• Manually measuring “share of voice” in AI results is also tricky. Research by SparkToro shows there’s less than a 1 in 100 chance that ChatGPT or Google AI would produce the same list of brands in two separate responses to the same prompt. The same question, asked twice, can return completely different answers.
• AI mentions don’t always lead directly to website traffic. When your business is recommended or mentioned by an AI tool, the response doesn’t always include a link. And, even where there is a link, users don’t always click it. They may ask some more questions. Or head to Google and type in your brand name. So it can be hard to link website analytics back to GEO performance.

This makes consistent tracking very difficult. That said, there are some practical ways to track GEO performance without expensive specialist tools.

• Track referral traffic from AI platforms. Google Analytics can show you traffic arriving from ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI tools.
• Monitor your brand mentions. Tools like Google Alerts can flag when your business is mentioned across the web — including on the kinds of third-party sites that AI tools tend to cite.
• Do your own research. Run relevant prompts through major AI tools regularly. Does your brand appear? How are you described? Track changes over time.
• Track traditional SEO metrics. Brand search volume, domain rating and the number of quality sites linking to you all influence how AI tools perceive your authority.

So what does GEO mean for your website?

Should you abandon your small business SEO efforts and switch to GEO? Do you need a completely different set of tactics?

Before you go all in on GEO, take a minute.

GEO is changing SEO. But SEO has always been subject to change. And the data doesn’t support treating GEO as a replacement for everything you’ve already built.

The businesses appearing consistently in AI-generated answers aren’t the ones who’ve cracked some new GEO formula. They’re the ones doing SEO and marketing basics well — authoritative content, technical SEO and a credible presence across the web.

How to make your website visible in AI results

Some SEO pros are arguing that there is so little difference between SEO and GEO that you should continue as usual — optimising your site for Google and other search engines. Because this will also impact your appearances in AI results and LLMs.

Others are taking a more nuanced approach. Continuing to advocate for Google’s EEAT guidelines and SEO best practice. But also incorporating a few AI-friendly tactics.

We’ve included those GEO tips below. Some are simply SEO strategies revisited. But some present a few new ideas for how to get your website seen in AI results.

1. Structure your content clearly

AI tools are better at citing content that’s easy to extract. So front-load your key points, include specific facts and stats, and use clear headings. FAQs and tables also seem to be an AI favourite.

Paragraphs that contain a definition, explanation or key fact should stand on their own — without relying on context from the paragraph that came before. Think of each one as a self-contained unit of information that could be lifted and cited independently.

Structured data (schema markup) helps too. It gives AI tools and search engines explicit information on exactly what your content contains.

2. Build topical authority

Create a small set of closely related content around your core areas of expertise, rather than lots of disconnected articles. Cover the main questions and problems your audience has, and make sure each piece links logically to the others. Over time, this signals to search engines and AI systems that you’re a reliable source on that topic.

3. Include internal links in your content

Good internal linking helps search engines and AI crawlers understand the depth and breadth of your expertise. It signals that you have genuine authority across a topic area, not just a single page on a subject. It’s a way of building a web of credibility across your site.

4. Optimise your commercial content

Your product pages, service pages, case studies and about page are really important. These are the pages that describe who you are, what you do and why customers choose you. Make sure they’re clear, well-written, packed with trust signals and properly structured for both users and machines.

A key part of this is ensuring important information is presented as real, readable text in the HTML, not embedded inside images, PDFs or other formats that machines can’t easily interpret. If key messaging or pricing is locked inside an image, it effectively becomes invisible.

5. Develop a presence beyond your website

This is where GEO seems to differ most obviously from traditional SEO. AI tools don’t just draw from your website — they draw from everywhere you appear online.

Reddit, LinkedIn and YouTube are among the top cited sources in LLM responses. Press coverage, guest blogs, customer reviews, podcast appearances and conference contributions all build the kind of off-site authority that AI tools treat as credibility signals.

6. Avoid using LLMs for SEO advice or content writing

AI can’t write an SEO strategy. It can’t weave keywords into your content naturally. It can’t speak from a position of experience and expertise (which are key elements of Google’s EEAT formula). So avoid using AI tools for content strategy and writing. You can use these tools for research, structure and editing. But the thinking and the voice should be yours.

Get your website ready for a new age of search

The fundamentals haven’t changed. Getting traffic to your website still comes down to two key things: solid technical SEO and genuinely good content. GEO adds a few other factors into the mix but it doesn’t replace those foundations.

We know that the websites best placed to perform — in traditional search and in AI results — are fast, well-structured, built on clean code and backed by content that actually means something to the people reading it.

Here at Radical, we can help with all of that. We build bespoke WordPress websites with strong technical SEO foundations and clear content architecture — giving your business the best possible chance of being found, however people are searching.

Want your website to work harder? Get in touch with the Radical team today. We’d love to hear about your project.

FAQs

What is generative engine optimisation?

Generative engine optimisation — often shortened to GEO — is the practice of optimising your website and web presence to appear in responses generated by AI tools, like ChatGPT, Google’s AI overviews and Perplexity.

What’s the difference between SEO and GEO?

SEO focuses on ranking in traditional search engine result pages. GEO focuses on appearing in AI-generated answers. The two overlap — strong SEO foundations tend to support GEO performance. But user behaviour when using search and AI tools, and measurement methods are very different.

Should I focus on GEO instead of SEO?

Not instead of — alongside. The data strongly suggests that businesses doing well in AI results are the same ones with strong SEO foundations. Abandoning SEO for GEO would be risky. A more sensible approach is to continue investing in SEO best practice while incorporating the content and authority-building tactics that also support AI visibility.