GEO: how to get your business found in ChatGPT & co.

What GEO means

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. It covers all the measures that help AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or the AI Overviews in Google search know your business, describe it correctly and cite it as a source.

Unlike classic search, the user doesn’t get a list of ten links, but a summarised answer. Whoever is named or linked in it gains attention. Whoever is missing is invisible for that query.

This is particularly relevant for SMEs, because AI assistants often give concrete recommendations: which agency, which fiduciary, which tradesperson in the region? Instead of ten options, the answer often names only two or three. That makes it all the more important to be one of those few.

How AI assistants arrive at their answers

Language models learn from large amounts of text from the internet. For current questions, many assistants also search the web in real time: ChatGPT, for example, with its search function, and Perplexity with essentially every query. The pages found are read, summarised and often linked as sources.

It follows that your website must be accessible and understandable for these systems, and there should also be consistent information about your business on other credible sites.

GEO builds on SEO

GEO doesn’t replace SEO; it builds on it. Pages that rank well on Google and Bing are also found more often by AI search, because it often draws on search indexes. A technically clean website with clear content is therefore the foundation. You will find the basics in the article SEO for SMEs.

What’s new is the focus: it is less about individual search terms and more about giving precise, quotable answers to concrete questions and being recognisable as an expert source on a topic.

Content that AI likes to cite

AI systems prefer content that answers a question directly and clearly. Put the most important statement at the start of a section and explain the details afterwards. Concrete information such as starting prices, processes, locations and scope of services is more valuable than generic advertising slogans.

• Clear questions as subheadings, direct answers below
• FAQ sections on the most frequent customer questions
• Concrete facts: services, starting prices, region, process
• An about page with team, location and experience
• Up-to-date content with a visible date
• Structured data based on schema.org for your company, services and FAQ

Technology: don’t lock out AI crawlers

AI providers use their own crawlers, for example GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot from OpenAI or PerplexityBot. Check your robots.txt to see whether you are blocking them by mistake. If you want to appear in AI answers, you need to make your content accessible to the search crawlers.

It is also important that content is in the HTML and isn’t only loaded later through complex JavaScript. Some websites also add an llms.txt file with an overview for AI systems. This is a proposal, not a binding standard, but it doesn’t do any harm.

Since ChatGPT’s search function draws on Bing’s index, among others, it is also worth registering your website with Bing Webmaster Tools and submitting your sitemap there. It only takes a few minutes.

Mentions outside your website

AI assistants form a picture from many sources. The more often your business is described consistently on credible sites, the more likely it is to be named. These include industry directories, your Google Business Profile, review platforms, expert articles, associations and local media.

Make sure your name, offer and location are described the same way everywhere. Contradictory information makes it hard for AI systems to give a clear answer.

What this means for SMEs in practice

For an SME, GEO doesn’t have to be a big project. The most important work is the same as for good SEO: clear pages for each service, concrete answers to customer questions and a technically clean website. If you already have that, you are in a good position.

It is also worth deliberately addressing your customers’ typical questions, phrased the way someone would ask an AI assistant. For example: who builds online shops with TWINT in Eastern Switzerland? Or: what does a website for a fiduciary firm cost? The more precisely your pages answer such questions, the more likely you are to be used as a source.

Don’t expect immediate results. AI assistants update their knowledge at different speeds, and the answers vary depending on the wording. Like SEO, GEO is therefore a task for months, not days. In return, it works across many channels at once.

Key takeaways

Test it yourself: ask ChatGPT or Perplexity about your service in your region and see who gets named. In your web analytics, you can also see whether visitors come from chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai. We plan SEO and GEO into new websites from the start; find out more on the page Websites that sell.

• GEO builds on a technically clean, well-ranking website
• Answer concrete questions directly and in a quotable way
• Use FAQs and structured data
• Don’t block AI search crawlers in your robots.txt
• Ensure consistent company details on other sites
• Check regularly how AI assistants answer about you