GEO: getting cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews

A growing share of buyers never reach a list of blue links anymore. They ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews and act on the synthesised answer. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of making sure that answer cites — and credits — you.

Why GEO is different from classic SEO

Classic SEO competes for a ranking position. GEO competes to be the passage an assistant lifts and attributes. The mechanics overlap (you still need to be crawlable, fast and authoritative), but the unit of value shifts from “the page” to “the quotable, self-contained claim.”

Write in extractable passages

AI systems favour content they can lift cleanly. That means:

• Answer the question in the first sentence, then expand.
• Use clear headings phrased the way people ask things.
• Keep key facts in short, self-contained paragraphs — not buried mid-argument.
• Add concrete numbers, dates and named sources an assistant can repeat with confidence.

Earn citations with genuine authority

Assistants lean on signals of trust: consistent mentions of your brand across the web, original data or perspective, author and organisation identity, and structured data that ties it all together. Thin, generic content gets summarised away; distinctive, sourced content gets quoted.

Make your structured data unambiguous

Organization, Article, FAQPage and Product schema help both search engines and language models understand your content. It’s one of the highest-leverage GEO moves because it removes guesswork about what your page is and who stands behind it.

Measure what matters

Track brand mentions inside AI answers, referral traffic from assistant platforms, and the queries where you appear. GEO is young enough that disciplined measurement is a real edge.

GEO doesn’t replace SEO — it extends it. Get the fundamentals right and you compete on both fronts at once. Start with a free audit to see how citable your site is today.