When someone asks ChatGPT "who does good brake work near me?" or asks Gemini "which dealership in Surrey has Saturday service?", they don't get ten blue links. They get an answer, often with two or three names in it. Generative engine optimisation (GEO), also called answer engine optimisation (AEO), is the work of making sure your business is one of those names, and that what the assistant says about you is accurate.
What GEO actually means
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is about ranking a page in a list of results. GEO is about being understood and cited by an AI system that writes an answer. The two overlap a lot: an assistant with web access usually searches first, then reads the pages it finds, then summarises. If your pages are hard to find or hard to understand, you're left out of the summary.
Think of it as three questions every assistant is quietly asking:
- Can I find this business? Is it on the web in places I search and trust?
- Do I understand what it does? Are the services, location, hours and prices stated plainly?
- Do I trust it enough to recommend it? Do other sources, especially reviews, agree with what the business says about itself?
Where AI assistants get their information
Each assistant works differently and they change often, but the sources fall into a few groups:
- Your own website. Service pages, FAQs, about pages and articles. Clear, specific text helps; vague marketing copy doesn't.
- Business listings. Your Google Business Profile, Apple Business Connect, Bing Places, and industry directories. These are where hours, addresses and categories come from.
- Reviews. Not just the star rating: the words people use. If reviews keep mentioning "fast oil changes" and "honest advice", that's what an assistant will repeat.
- Third-party mentions. Local news, community sites, supplier pages and comparison articles.
Assistants with live web search (ChatGPT search, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews) lean heavily on what they can retrieve today. That's good news: improvements you make now can show up in answers fairly quickly.
A practical GEO checklist
1. Write one clear page per service
An assistant answering "who does wheel alignment in Langley?" needs a page that says, in plain words, that you do wheel alignment in Langley. One page per main service, with:
- what it is and who it's for,
- what's included and roughly how long it takes,
- where you do it (cities and neighbourhoods you serve),
- prices or price ranges, if you're comfortable sharing them,
- a short FAQ with the questions customers really ask.
2. Make your business details identical everywhere
Name, address, phone number, hours and categories should match exactly across your website, Google Business Profile, Apple, Bing, Facebook and directories. Inconsistent details make every system less confident about you.
3. Answer questions directly
Start answers with the answer. "Yes, we have loaner cars for work over two hours, by reservation" is quotable. "We pride ourselves on world-class customer experience" is not. FAQ sections are ideal for this, and you can mark them up with structured data (below).
4. Earn specific, recent reviews
Ask happy customers for a review and, where it's natural, ask them to mention what you did ("the tire swap", "the same-day diagnosis"). Reply to reviews, including the critical ones, with facts rather than defensiveness.
5. Add structured data
Structured data is a small block of code on your pages, using the schema.org vocabulary, that labels things like your business type, address, hours, services and FAQs. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it removes guesswork for machines reading your site.
6. Let the right crawlers in
Check your website's robots.txt file. Some sites block AI crawlers without realising it. Decide deliberately which ones you allow; if you want to be recommended by an assistant, it generally needs to be able to read your public pages.
7. Publish genuinely useful content
Articles that answer real questions in your field ("How often should I rotate my tires in BC winters?") give assistants something worth citing, and give customers a reason to trust you. Thin articles written for keywords rarely get cited.
How to measure GEO
There isn't a single "ranking" to check, so measure the way customers experience it:
- Write down 10 to 20 questions a customer might ask an assistant about your type of business in your area.
- Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google (watch for the AI Overview at the top), and note whether you're mentioned, what's said, and which sources are cited.
- Repeat monthly. Track how often you appear, whether the details are right, and which of your pages get cited.
Want a head start? Our free AI visibility check asks six customer questions for you and shows who gets recommended.
That simple log tells you what to fix next: a missing service page, wrong hours on a listing, or a competitor's review profile that's simply stronger than yours.
Where AIfy fits
GEO is one of the six things we build. We start with an audit of what AI assistants say about your business today, fix the pages and listings that matter most, add structured data, and track mentions over time. If you'd like to see where you stand, book a 15-minute call and we'll run a few of those questions with you.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between GEO and AEO?
Very little. Both terms describe making your business easy for AI assistants and answer engines to find, trust and recommend. Some people say AEO when they mean answer boxes and voice assistants too, but in practice it's the same work.
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. GEO builds on SEO. Assistants with web search still need to find your pages, so fast, well-structured, well-linked pages matter as much as ever. GEO adds a focus on being clearly understood and quotable.
How long does GEO take to work?
Fixes to listings and pages can show up in AI answers within weeks for assistants that search the live web. Building review volume and third-party mentions takes longer, usually months.
Can I pay to be recommended by ChatGPT or Gemini?
Not in the organic answers. Some platforms are experimenting with ads, but recommendations in the answer itself come from what the assistant finds and trusts.
What's the single most important GEO fix for a local business?
Make sure your Google Business Profile and website say exactly the same things about your services, location and hours, and that each main service has its own clear page.