Generative Engine Optimisation: Getting Your Business Cited by AI
People can now research suppliers through traditional search results, Google AI features and assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. The interfaces differ, but the business need is familiar: publish information that is accurate, accessible, useful and supported by evidence.
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is a useful name for improving how a business is understood and represented in AI-assisted discovery. It is not a replacement for SEO and it does not come with guaranteed citations.
What GEO Actually Means
GEO is the work of making your organisation, services and expertise easy for retrieval systems to discover, understand and cite. That includes crawlable pages, clear language, consistent entity details, original evidence and corroboration from reputable third-party sources.
Google explicitly says that the same foundational SEO practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that no special AI file or schema is required. OpenAI separately explains that allowing OAI-SearchBot can make public pages eligible to appear in ChatGPT search summaries and citations. Eligibility is not a promise that a page will be used.
How AI Picks Sources
There is no single public formula. Products use different indexes, retrieval systems and quality controls, and those systems change. The practical principles are simpler:
Make the site accessible. Important information should be available as text, linked from other pages and open to the crawlers you want to serve.
State facts clearly. Explain who you are, what you do, where you work, who the work is for and how the service operates. Separate demonstrable facts from opinions and promises.
Use structured data accurately. Schema can help machines understand a page, but it must match visible content. It is not a ranking or citation guarantee.
Earn corroboration. Consistent profiles, relevant press, industry references, client evidence and useful third-party mentions help establish that the organisation is real and credible.
The GEO Playbook
Here is the practical sequence for getting your business in front of AI search.
Protect crawl access. Keep valuable pages indexable, submit an accurate sitemap and check crawler rules. Use OAI-SearchBot for ChatGPT search visibility. GPTBot is a separate control for model training.
Define the entity. Use consistent organisation name, website, founder, services, location and contact details across the site and trusted profiles. Add appropriate Organisation or Service schema only where it accurately describes visible content.
Publish useful primary information. Explain decisions, methods, limitations and evidence from real work. Generic summaries give a retrieval system little reason to prefer one source over another.
Answer real buying questions. Use clear headings and direct answers when that helps the reader. Add FAQs because customers need them, not because markup is assumed to create a citation advantage.
Be consistent across your digital footprint. AI cross-references claims about your business. If your website says one thing and your LinkedIn says another, AI may discount both. Consistency across your site, LinkedIn, Google Business Profile, and any directories you appear on builds trust.
What Not to Do
Do not invent statistics, manufacture third-party endorsements, add schema for information that is not visible, or create thin pages for every prompt variation. Do not treat llms.txt as a Google requirement. It can be a supplementary publisher file, but Google says no special AI file is needed for its AI search features.
The safer route is useful content, technical accessibility, accurate identity signals and evidence that can be checked.
Testing Your AI Visibility
Create a fixed list of realistic questions covering your services, location and specialist topics. Run them across the relevant tools, recording the answer, cited sources, date and account context. Repeat the same test at regular intervals. One answer to one prompt is not a dependable visibility score.
Combine prompt testing with normal search performance, referral analytics and server logs. That shows whether increased visibility leads to visits and enquiries rather than treating a mention as the end goal.
Then run a proper audit. The Ayuda Brand Clarity Scorecard covers the strategic foundations. If you want a deeper GEO-specific audit, get in touch and we can run one for your business.
The Bigger Picture
AI-assisted answers are now one part of the discovery journey. The exact interfaces will change, so the durable investment is not a trick for one model. It is a well-defined business, a technically sound website and genuinely useful evidence that can be understood by people and machines.
That work improves conventional search, local discovery and AI retrieval together. Measurement then tells you which channels are actually producing attention and enquiries.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is generative engine optimisation in plain English?
It is the work of making your business and expertise easy for search engines and AI assistants to discover, understand and cite. It builds on sound SEO, clear entity information, useful original content, crawl access and consistent third-party evidence.
Is GEO replacing SEO?
No. Search and AI discovery overlap. Google says the same foundational SEO practices remain relevant to its AI features, with no special AI markup required. Strong technical SEO and genuinely useful content remain the foundation.
How do I know if AI is citing my business?
Test a documented set of realistic customer questions across relevant tools, record the sources and answers, and repeat the test over time. Also monitor analytics and server logs for referrals from AI services. A single prompt is not a reliable visibility measure.