What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation. SEO for AI answers. Getting visible in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. The new gold rush.
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation and is the younger cousin of classic SEO. Where SEO is about ranking high in Google's traditional list of links, GEO is about appearing in the answers that AI tools generate — when someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews and gets a ready-written answer instead of ten blue links.
Think of the difference like this: before, you stood in the shop window on the high street and hoped people would walk past and look in. With GEO, you make sure the city's most trusted guide recommends your shop when someone asks "where is the best place to buy X?". You become part of the recommendation, not just one of many doors to try.
In practice, GEO means writing content that an AI can understand, trust, and cite: clear answers to real questions, reliable sources and facts, and a structure that makes it easy for the machine to extract the right piece. The easier you make it for the AI to understand you, the more often you get mentioned.
Why is GEO important for your business?
More and more people look for answers directly in AI tools instead of clicking through ten different sites. If the AI does not know about your business, you simply are not there when a potential customer asks about a solution you sell. Being mentioned in AI answers is on its way to being as valuable as a top spot on Google once was.
For a smaller business, GEO can actually be a shortcut: you do not need the biggest ad budget in the market to get cited — you need the clearest and most credible answer.
GEO in practice
Say you run an accountancy firm. A local business owner asks ChatGPT "what does an accountant cost for a small limited company?". If your site has a clear, honest page explaining exactly that — with concrete answers and no sales fluff — the chance increases that the AI picks up your reasoning and mentions you as an example.
The practical work looks a lot like good SEO: write for people, answer real questions, keep facts clean, and structure content so both humans and machines can follow along.
Common questions about GEO
What does GEO mean?
GEO means Generative Engine Optimisation — optimising your content to appear in AI-generated answers. In practice, it is SEO for tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.
What is the difference between SEO and GEO?
SEO is about ranking high in Google's traditional list of links. GEO is about being mentioned and cited directly in the answers that AI tools compile. They overlap a lot, but GEO focuses on becoming part of the answer itself.
How do you get started with GEO?
Start by writing clear content that answers real questions your customers ask, with accurate facts and credible sources. Structure the text so it is easy to understand for both people and AI. It is the same foundation as good SEO, with extra weight on credibility.
Related terms
SERP
The Google page where everyone fights for attention. SERP simply means the results list you get after searching.
AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated summaries at the top of search results. Being featured here is 2026's new top spot.
Alt Text
The short description behind an image. Screen readers and Google cannot see — alt text is the voice that says what is there.
Backlink
A link from another site to yours. Google treats it like a recommendation — a good word in passing, but on the web.
Core Web Vitals
Google's metrics for page performance — load speed, interactivity, visual stability. Poor scores hurt ranking; good scores help.
Domain Authority
A kind of trust score for your site on a 0–100 scale. Not Google's own number — but a rough guide to how much weight you carry.