Quick Summary: The “Generative Engine Optimization” (GEO) process includes optimizing all your published content so that when AI search engines such as Google’s Overviews, Perplexity, or ChatGPT generate responses they can reference and cite your content. While GEO is an optimization technique for generating citations from AI Search Engines it is an extension of traditional “Search Engine Optimization” (SEO), but not a replacement. GEO seeks to establish your topical authority and factual specificity with AI search engines via optimized use of structured data, data freshness, and other technical optimizations. In addition, there are several strategies you may implement in order to earn citations from AI Search Engines including writing sentences that will likely result in citations; creating Summary Blocks for readers that also contain additional information about the topic being referenced; enabling llms.txt within your webpage source code; utilizing a complete Schema Markup implementation to provide metadata to AI search engines regarding your content structure; and designing Pillar-Cluster Content Structures which enable AI Search Engines to determine relevance.
SEO isn’t dead; however, as a stand-alone entity, it won’t suffice. With the emergence of an additional search engine optimization category (Generative Engine Optimization or GEO) that works hand-in-hand with traditional SEO, the practice of developing your content to be referenced in the generated answers from artificial intelligence based search engines is evolving rapidly.
SEO Is Not Dead, But It Is Evolving
Although the “old” game (i.e., ranking in those ten blue links) has not yet come to an end, Organic Search continues to be a large source of traffic. However, for an increasing number of searches, there will no longer be any organic link available because the AI generated answers are provided as part of the result page.
Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT search, and other AI-powered search tools aggregate data from multiple sources to produce comprehensive answers. In doing so, these tools also reference their sources. Being referenced has become an additional means of ranking.
The objective of GEO is to earn such references. Therefore, it is supplementary to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as opposed to a substitute for it. An indexed web-page that earns high rankings in Organic Search and is referenced by AI responses will be able to reap the benefits of both forms of indexing.
How AI Search Engines Choose Sources to Cite
The better you understand your selection criteria the better you are able to optimize in order to meet those criteria. The way an artificial intelligence (AI) search engine evaluates the credibility of a source is based on multiple parameters.
Authority related to the Topic. Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems will cite sources that show a high level of understanding and detailed comprehension of a topic. A Website with twenty articles that are connected to each other pertaining to WordPress Maintenance would have a greater likelihood of being cited as the reference source for that topic versus a generic Blog Post or Article written about WordPress that does not provide any detail regarding how to perform WordPress Maintenance.
Specificity of Facts. AI search engines seek out factual, clearly defined, verifiable information that they can pull from a source and document. For example “WordPress supports roughly 43% of all global Websites” would have greater potential to be used as a citation then “WordPress is one of the most widely used Content Management Systems”.
Oorganization of data. the use of schema markup (faqpage, HowTo, Organization, Product) assists in telling AI where you are pointing the information to be categorized. If your data is well organized, then the AI has a much better opportunity to extract all of the correct information.
Keeping content up to date. maintaining fresh content on your website, will signal to the AI engine that your site continues to have up-to-date information. For subjects that continue to evolve such as technology, prices and “best practices” this is particularly important, so that the AI can refer to the most recent version available.
Credibility of your sources. a web page with a good reputation as an authoritative Source of high-quality content; a history of creating new content consistently; a significant number of links from credible sources; and many other factors which also relate to traditional search engine optimization (SEO), influence the trustworthiness of a website.
Seven GEO Tactics You Can Implement Today
1. Write sentences with citations. Make sure you have reviewed your primary pages to make certain they provide clearly written, factual information about your company which is relevant and easily attributed by artificial intelligence. As such, instead of stating “our services are affordable” you would say “we offer custom WordPress maintenance plans starting at $49/month; in addition to this we also include daily backups, continuous monitoring of your site for security issues as well as automated updates of all plugins”.
2. Add GEO summary blocks. Immediately after your H1 (the title) on your pillar pages and your key service pages add a summary (of no more than three sentences). The purpose of these summaries will be to define your subject matter using facts and provide your most important claims. Many Artificial Intelligence systems will cite content found at the beginning of a page as their source.
3. Implement llms.txt. In order to create a framework or outline of your company and its various products/services as well as how you organize and structure your content, you need to publish an llms.txt document in your website’s root directory. Read our complete llms.txt guide for implementation details.
4. Use comprehensive schema markup. Schema for FAQs can be applied to FAQ sections, schema for How To’s can be used in step-by-step guides, schema for Organizations can be applied to your home page, schema for Services can be applied to service pages, and schema for Articles including authors and publishing dates can be added to blog articles. Each of these types of schema will help an A.I. to better understand what each of your web pages are about.
5. Create topical authority through pillar-cluster content. Develop your content around Pillars (in-depth guide(s) on major topic(s)) and Clustered Articles (focusing on minor topic(s) within the Pillar) which are internally linked together. The structured nature of this approach indicates to A.I.’s that you provide a well-rounded source for specific topics.
6. Keep content fresh. Refresh key content as frequently as possible; include new data, revise or delete old data and create new articles that build upon prior coverage. Include date of last publication, updates, etc. with all of your content and also include these fields in your schema markup.
7. Earn citations naturally. Create the best content on your topic(s) for users (i.e., be helpful, provide a clear and unbiased view of the topic and have the most complete coverage). This is how you get AI to recognize you and give you a citation. There is no other way to achieve this — you have to continually produce quality content that helps users better than others do.
Measuring Your GEO Performance
Geo measurement has been around for a short while compared to the many years of using traditional SEO measurements. However there are various methods that have produced quality metrics with regard to Geo measurement.
Manual review of your target terms by going to Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT periodically (to manually observe if you’ve been referenced) is one way. Manual review of your target terms by going to Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT periodically (to manually observe if you’ve been referenced) is one way. Manual review of your target terms by going to Google’s AI Overviews, Perplexity, and ChatGPT periodically (to manually observe if you’ve been referenced) is one way.
Some SEO tools such as ahrefs now track how many times an overview has appeared on AI generated Search Results for certain terms. This allows you to view which of your pages show up in AI Generated Responses and for what terms they may be showing up for.
Traditional Rank Tracking for Organic Search is still very Important today. Stronger Rankings in Traditional Search also Correlate with Higher Likelihood of being Cited by AI.
Want Deutrix to implement a GEO strategy for your site? We handle everything from content structure to schema markup to llms.txt. Learn about our AI services →
For the complete AI picture, read our AI for Business Guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. GEO is an additional method of optimizing search engine performance. While a strong organic ranking on the web increases the probability of being cited by an artificial intelligence, so too will content that has been optimized for a geographic search (i.e., clear, accurate, organized). To be successful, both methods should be used together.
The same as with traditional SEO, GEO takes some time to develop. Depending on how competitive the space is, you could potentially get AI citations for your business within weeks if you have a very specialized niche; however, you may need to wait several months if your niche is highly competitive. In either case, creating consistent content and continually optimizing your site will speed up your ability to get results from a GEO search.
Yes. As with traditional SEO, when looking at very narrow, long-tail searches and/or topics that are unique to a particular location or region, smaller businesses with specialized knowledge of a given topic can outperform larger competitors in terms of getting their website cited.
