Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): Getting Cited by ChatGPT and Google AI

For twenty years, SEO meant one thing: rank a page on Google's blue-link results. In 2026 that is no longer enough. A growing share of buyers now start with ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews, Perplexity or Claude — and those engines do not send ten links. They summarise, cite a handful of sources, and answer the question inline. If your site is not one of those sources, you are invisible.

What GEO actually is

Generative Engine Optimisation (also called Answer Engine Optimisation) is the practice of shaping your content and site so that large language models cite you when they answer questions in your niche. It shares roughly 60% of its playbook with classical SEO — crawlability, structured data, authority — and adds new work that is specific to how models read the web.

How generative engines choose sources

• Clarity: short, quotable sentences the model can lift verbatim.
• Structure: clear headings, lists and tables the model can parse.
• Freshness: recently updated content beats older sources for time-sensitive queries.
• Consensus: the more corroborating pages point at your claim, the more likely the model treats it as fact.
• Attribution: named authors, publication dates and citations of primary sources.

Seven things to do this quarter

• Add clear H2/H3 structure so each section answers one question.
• Lead every article with a two-sentence answer, then explain.
• Include comparison tables and bulleted lists — models quote them heavily.
• Publish original data (surveys, benchmarks, pricing) — this is what gets cited.
• Add Article, FAQPage and Organization schema in JSON-LD.
• Ensure your llms.txt (or at minimum robots.txt) permits reputable AI crawlers.
• Get quoted on third-party sites — models weigh cross-source agreement.

Measure what you cannot yet see

AI referrers are underreported in analytics. Track them manually: monthly, prompt ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews with your top ten commercial questions and log which brands are cited. Set a baseline now — you will thank yourself in six months.

The takeaway

GEO is not a replacement for SEO — it is the next layer on top of it. If your organic strategy is already healthy, adding GEO can be done inside your existing retainer. If it is not, fix the fundamentals first: no model cites a site it cannot crawl.