Generative engine optimization: get cited in AI answers

Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your brand easy for AI assistants to understand, trust and cite, so that when a buyer asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google’s AI Overviews for a recommendation in your category, you’re in the answer. It works alongside SEO but measures something different: not where you rank, but whether you’re mentioned.

Want to rank higher in Google’s classic search results? That is AI SEO. AI SEO gets your pages ranked in search results; generative engine optimization gets your brand cited in AI-generated answers.

Why brands are missing from AI answers

More buyers now start research by asking an AI assistant instead of typing keywords into Google. These are the problems we find when brands check what those assistants say:

• Your competitors are recommended, you aren’t. A buyer asks “what’s the best invoicing tool for freelancers in Germany?” and gets four names. You rank on page one of Google for the same query, but you’re not in the answer.
• The answer about you is wrong. The assistant quotes pricing from two years ago, describes a feature you discontinued, or confuses you with a company that has a similar name.
• Your site doesn’t say anything quotable. The homepage says “empowering teams to do more”. A model can’t extract a clear, citable claim about what you do, for whom and at what price.
• Nobody else talks about you. AI answers lean heavily on third-party sources such as comparison articles, review sites, forums and directories. If you’re absent there, you’re absent from the answer.
• You can’t measure any of it. There is no Search Console for ChatGPT, so you don’t know which prompts you win, which you lose or whether anything is improving.

How generative engine optimization works

Entity clarity

Models need to understand who you are before they can recommend you. We make your company name, description, category and key facts consistent across your site and the profiles models read, such as LinkedIn, Crunchbase, review platforms and industry directories. We also connect them with Organization structured data.

Structured data

We add accurate schema.org markup for your organization, services or products, FAQs and articles, matching what’s visible on the page. That gives machines an unambiguous version of your key facts.

Answer-first, citable content

AI answers quote pages that answer a question clearly in the first two or three sentences. We rewrite key pages and create new ones (definitions, comparisons, pricing explanations, “best X for Y” pages) so the answer comes first and the facts are specific enough to cite.

Crawler access and llms.txt

We check that AI crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended can reach your content, according to the policy you choose, and that important content is in server-rendered HTML. We add an llms.txt file as a low-cost extra, without overselling it.

Citation building

We get your brand mentioned where models look: industry lists and comparisons, review platforms, community discussions, partner pages, podcasts and expert quotes in articles. This is earned coverage. We don’t use spam or paid placements disguised as editorial content.

AI-visibility tracking

Every month we run a fixed set of prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. We track your mention rate, how you’re described, which competitors appear and which sources get cited.

Our process

1. Prompt set (week 1). Together we define the prompts your buyers actually ask: category questions, comparisons, problems you solve. Usually 30 to 100 prompts.
2. Visibility audit (weeks 1–2). We run every prompt several times on each engine, record mentions, competitors, cited sources and factual errors, and review your site’s technical and entity signals.
3. Fix plan. You get a prioritized list of what to change on your site, what content to create, and where to earn mentions.
4. Monthly retainer. We ship the fixes (schema and code included), produce answer-first content, run citation outreach, and report AI visibility every month.

What you do: approve content, introduce us to partners and customers who could mention you, and give us access to your site or CMS. What we do: the audit, the fixes, the content, the outreach and the tracking.

AI answers vary between runs and change as models are updated. We report trends across many prompts and runs, not single screenshots, and we don’t promise placement in any specific answer.

What you get

• An AI visibility audit: mention rate per engine, competitor share, cited sources and errors in how you’re described
• Entity and structured data fixes, shipped on your site
• Answer-first content for the prompts that matter most
• Crawler-access configuration and an llms.txt file
• A citation-building plan, with outreach carried out on retainer
• A monthly AI-visibility report showing the trend

Who it’s for

A good fit:

• B2B SaaS and service companies whose buyers research with AI assistants
• E-commerce brands in categories where people ask for product recommendations
• Companies that AI assistants describe incorrectly

Not a good fit:

• If you want a guaranteed “number one in ChatGPT”: nobody can honestly sell that
• Brands with almost no website content yet, which should start with the basics of AI SEO
• Local businesses that depend on map listings, which need local SEO first