GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation: the work of making sure your business is found, understood and recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Where classic SEO earns you a position in a list of search results, GEO earns you a mention in the answer itself. And no, it has nothing to do with geography. Different GEO.

It matters because more of your customers now ask AI for recommendations and act on the reply without ever seeing a results page. Someone types "who's the best plumber near Frome?" into ChatGPT, gets three names in a paragraph, and rings one of them. If AI doesn't know you exist, or worse, describes you wrongly, you're out of that conversation entirely. We've written before about how search behaviour has changed now AI does the searching. This post covers what to do about it.

What does Generative Engine Optimisation actually mean?

Break the phrase apart and it's less intimidating than it sounds. A "generative engine" is any AI system that writes an answer rather than listing links: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews all qualify. "Optimisation" means what it has always meant: improving your online presence so those systems notice you, understand you and feel confident recommending you.

In practice, GEO comes down to three jobs:

• Be findable. AI systems have to be able to reach and read your website and your listings elsewhere.
• Be understandable. What you do, where you do it and who you serve should be stated so plainly that a machine cannot misread it.
• Be credible. AI leans on corroboration (reviews, directories, press, other websites) before it puts a name in an answer.

How do AI assistants choose which businesses to mention?

There's no single ranking to climb. AI answers draw on two pools of information. The first is training data: everything the model absorbed about the web before it was built. The second is live retrieval: most tools now run a real web search behind the scenes and write their answer from whatever comes back.

You can't do much about training data quickly, because models are retrained on their own schedule. Live retrieval is where a small business can move the needle in weeks rather than years, and it rewards the same things a careful human researcher would look for:

• Consistent facts everywhere. The same business name, services, area and contact details on your website, your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Contradictions make machines cautious.
• Plain statements of what you do. "We are a dental practice in Wells offering implants, whitening and general dentistry" beats a page of atmosphere copy that never quite says it.
• Third-party corroboration. Genuine reviews, industry directories, local press, supplier and partner pages. A claim only you make is weaker than a claim other sites repeat.
• Structured data. Schema markup: machine-readable labels in your site's code that spell out your business type, location, services and FAQs.
• Quotable pages. Clear headings, direct answers, sensible lists. Generative engines lift and summarise, so give them something worth lifting.

The pattern behind all five: clarity and consistency beat cleverness. AI systems recommend businesses they can verify, not businesses with the fanciest adjectives.

How is GEO different from classic SEO?

The honest answer is that they overlap more than they differ. A fast, well-built site with clear, genuinely useful content is the foundation of both. If your SEO is in good shape, you're already part-way to decent GEO. But there are real differences in emphasis:

• The prize is a mention, not a click. SEO success is a high ranking that earns a visit. GEO success is being named, accurately and warmly, inside the answer. Sometimes the customer never visits your website at all before contacting you.
• Answers are stitched together from many sources. Google ranks your page. A generative engine reads your page, your reviews, a directory listing and a competitor comparison, then writes its own summary. Your whole web footprint is the input, not just your site.
• Questions are conversational. People ask AI full questions ("should I use an accountant or do my own tax return?"), so content that answers real questions directly gets used more often.
• Wrong information is a bigger risk. A stale address in a directory used to be a minor annoyance. Now it can be repeated to a potential customer, confidently, as fact.

None of this makes SEO obsolete. Google still drives most discovery for UK small businesses, and the AI tools themselves lean heavily on search results. That's why we treat the two as one discipline, SEO and GEO together, rather than a shiny new service bolted onto an old one.

What should a small business actually do first?

You don't need a big budget to start. In rough priority order:

1. Ask the AI tools about your business. Open ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Ask what they know about you, and who they'd recommend for your trade in your town. You can't fix what you haven't measured, and ten minutes of honest prompting will teach you plenty.
2. Fix your facts everywhere. One correct, identical set of details (name, services, areas covered, phone number, opening hours) on your website, your Google Business Profile and every directory you appear in. Retire anything stale.
3. Say what you do in plain English on your website. Every key page should answer, near the top: what you offer, where you offer it, and who it's for. Question-shaped headings help humans and machines alike.
4. Add structured data. LocalBusiness, Service and FAQ schema give machines an unambiguous version of your facts. This step usually needs your web developer.
5. Earn genuine mentions. Ask happy customers for reviews and keep them coming. Pick up the industry and local listings that make sense for your trade. No tricks: the point is genuine corroboration, and plenty of it.

If that list looks like plain good practice, that's because it is. GEO rewards well-documented, well-reviewed businesses with clear websites. The technical layer on top (schema, site structure, monitoring how the answers change) is where a specialist earns their fee.

Common questions

Is GEO replacing SEO?

No. GEO builds on SEO rather than replacing it. The foundations feed both: a fast, well-structured website, clear content and genuine authority. Most businesses that do well in AI answers do well in Google too, and the work overlaps heavily. GEO is really SEO extended to a new kind of results page.

Is GEO the same as geo-targeting?

No, and the shared name causes real confusion. Geo-targeting means aiming content or adverts at people in a specific location. GEO, short for Generative Engine Optimisation, is about being visible in answers written by AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. This article is about the latter.

How long does GEO take to show results?

Months rather than days, much like SEO. AI tools that search the web live can pick up improvements within weeks, but changes to what a model knows from its training arrive more slowly, because models are only retrained periodically. Consistency over time matters more than any single change.

Can I pay ChatGPT or Google to recommend my business?

No. There is currently no way to buy a recommendation inside an AI-generated answer. Advertising may appear around AI results, but the recommendations themselves are drawn from what the systems can find and verify about you, which is exactly why GEO is worth doing.

Can I do GEO myself?

You can make a solid start. Checking what AI says about you, tidying up inconsistent listings and writing clearer service pages are all things a business owner can do. The technical side (structured data, site architecture, ongoing monitoring) is where an agency usually earns its keep.

Want to know how your business looks to AI?

We're Bare Creative: Jack and Carly, a husband-and-wife web design and digital studio in Somerset. We've been building GEO into our client work since AI answers first started sending enquiries, and every site we build is designed to be read by humans and machines alike. If you'd like a straight answer about where your business stands, and a plan for improving it, get in touch. No jargon, no hard sell.