Search is changing shape. Alongside the familiar list of ten blue links, people now get direct answers from AI assistants and AI-powered search features that summarise the web and cite a few sources. Generative Engine Optimisation, usually shortened to GEO, is the work of becoming one of those cited sources.
How GEO differs from SEO
Classic SEO is about ranking a page for a query. GEO is about being quoted inside an answer. The two overlap heavily, because AI systems still lean on the same signals of quality and relevance, but GEO puts extra weight on a few things:
- Clear, quotable statements. Answer engines pull sentences, not pages. A paragraph that states a fact plainly is easier to cite than one that builds up to it.
- Structure. Headings that match the questions people ask, short definitions, numbered steps and comparison tables all make content easier for a model to extract.
- Evidence and attribution. Original data, named sources and dates give a model a reason to trust and reference your page over a generic one.
- Entity clarity. Your company, products and people should be described consistently across your site and on the profiles that AI systems already know, such as business directories and professional networks.
Where to start
1. Find the questions. List the questions your customers actually ask, in their words. Sales calls, support tickets and search console queries are the best sources.
2. Answer each one directly. For every question, write a page or section that opens with a two or three sentence answer, then expands. Put the question in the heading.
3. Add something only you can add. A case example, a number from your own work, a checklist you actually use. Generic content is the easiest thing for a model to ignore.
4. Mark it up. Use structured data for articles, FAQs, products and your organisation so that the meaning of the page is explicit, not inferred.
5. Keep it current. Add visible published and updated dates and revisit key pages regularly. Freshness matters more for answers than for rankings.
How to tell if it is working
There is no single GEO ranking report yet, so build your own check. Take your top twenty questions and ask them in the AI assistants and AI search features your customers use. Record whether your brand is mentioned, whether it is cited with a link, and which competitors appear instead. Repeat monthly. Traffic from these referrals also shows up in your analytics, so watch for the assistant domains in your referral sources.
What not to do
Do not stuff pages with questions you cannot answer well, and do not publish AI-generated text about your own expertise without adding real substance. Models are increasingly tuned to prefer sources with first-hand knowledge, so thin content tends to lose ground rather than gain it.
GEO is not a replacement for SEO. It is the next layer on top of it: the same foundations, with more attention to being clear, specific and worth quoting.
