GEO: what generative engine optimization is and how to get started

GEO (generative engine optimization) is the work of increasing the chances that a company gets cited when someone asks an AI something, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews. It starts from traditional SEO and adds three concerns: answering directly, describing the company the same way everywhere and publishing information worth citing.

This article explains the concept, what changes compared to SEO and how to get started. For the practical page checklist, see how to show up in ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews answers. For the big picture of AI in marketing, the starting point is the practical guide to AI in B2B marketing.

Why is GEO now on the marketing agenda?

Search behavior has changed. Many people now ask an AI the whole question, in natural language, and get a ready-made answer. On Google, the AI-generated summary appears above the results for many searches.

For B2B marketing, this has two consequences:

• The vendor shortlist may be put together by the AI. When a buyer asks "which companies do X in Porto Alegre," the answer cites some and ignores others.
• Fewer clicks, more intent. Some questions get answered without a click. People who click through from an AI answer usually arrive with their question already worked through.

There's no way to say how much of each company's traffic will migrate to these tools. It varies by industry and changes fast. What you can do is make sure that, when the AI looks for a source on your subject, your page is among the good candidates.

How do AIs choose what to cite?

Each tool works differently and none publishes the full recipe. But the general principle is known. AIs that answer with sources run a search, read the pages they find and build the answer from them. Some also use what they learned during model training.

In practice, a page tends to be a good candidate when it:

• can be found and read by search crawlers;
• answers the question clearly, right at the start of the passage;
• has original information that isn't repeated everywhere;
• belongs to a recognizable company, described consistently across the web.

Google is explicit about AI Overviews. The official documentation on AI features in search says there's no additional requirement or special optimization: the page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in search with a snippet. In other words, SEO basics are still the way in.

What changes from SEO to GEO?

GEO doesn't replace SEO. It's an extra layer, with different emphases.

From term to question

In SEO, research usually starts from terms like "sales consulting." In GEO, it's worth mapping the full questions customers ask: "how do I choose a sales consulting firm for a small company?". These questions come up in sales conversations, in emails and on WhatsApp. The sales team usually knows them by heart.

From page to passage

AI rarely uses an entire page. It takes a paragraph, a list, a table row. That's why each section needs to answer a question on its own, without depending on the previous paragraph.

From keyword to entity

To cite a company, the AI needs to understand who it is: what it does, where it operates, for whom. If the website says one thing, the Google profile says another and the social channels say a third, the company becomes blurry. Consistency of name, description and services weighs more in GEO than it did in SEO.

How to get started: a five-step plan

1. List the questions that matter for the sale

Bring marketing and sales together and list the questions a buyer asks before closing. Prioritize the ones that signal purchase intent: vendor comparisons, price, timelines, how to choose. Generic questions bring visibility, but few sales.

2. Check what the AIs answer today

Ask those questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google. Note who gets cited, which pages show up as sources and whether your company appears. Always repeat it the same way, because answers vary from one time to the next.

3. Fix the technical foundation

Check that the important pages are indexed, that robots.txt isn't accidentally blocking the AI tools' search crawlers and that the site loads its main content without requiring interaction. Structured data helps describe the company and the pages, but it's no guarantee of a citation.

4. Rewrite the pages that should be cited

Start with the service pages and the articles that answer the questions from step 1. Put the direct answer in the first paragraph, use question-style subheadings and include what only your company knows: process, criteria, everyday examples.

5. Align the company description everywhere

Website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, industry directories. Same name, same short description, same services. It's an afternoon's work and it usually gets forgotten.

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GEO for niche B2B companies

Niche B2B companies often have an advantage in GEO. Their buyers' questions are specific, and few people on the web answer them well. An industrial electrical supply distributor, for example, isn't competing for attention with big portals when someone asks how to size an order for a construction project. It competes with a handful of suppliers, and many of them have no content at all.

The way forward is to write about what only people who serve that customer know: selection criteria, common buying mistakes, differences between options, questions the buyer should ask the supplier. This kind of content is useful to the reader, has a chance of being cited and attracts people close to a decision.

The caveat is not to overreach. A regional company gains more by making clear where it operates and for whom than by trying to answer generic questions from across the whole country.

How to measure GEO

GEO measurement is still imperfect, and it's better to admit that than to make up a metric. Three sources help:

1. Periodic manual testing. The same list of questions, in the same tools, on fixed dates. Record whether the company appears and which page is cited.
2. Referral traffic. Some AI tools send visits that can be identified in the site's analytics. Not all of them, and not always.
3. Source reported by the lead. Ask on the form or in the first conversation how the person found the company, with an option to name an AI, and record the answer in the CRM.

The third source is what ties GEO to sales. With it, you can see whether leads that came in through an AI recommendation become opportunities and customers, and compare them with other channels.

Common mistakes

• Treating GEO as a technical trick, separate from content.
• Creating pages just for AIs, with no value for the reader.
• Promising clients they'll show up in ChatGPT.
• Ignoring basic SEO, such as indexing and speed.
• Describing the company differently on each channel.
• Measuring only presence in answers, without checking whether leads turn into sales.

Conclusion

GEO is the natural continuation of SEO in a world where some searches end in an AI answer. There's no secret formula: crawlable pages, direct answers, original information and a company described the same way everywhere.

For B2B marketing, the final criterion is the same as always. It's worth working on GEO for the questions that come before a purchase and measuring whether the leads arriving that way become opportunities in the CRM. To structure the SEO work that supports all of this, see AI for B2B SEO. Nexo also offers a GEO: AI optimization service.

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