GEO: how to be visible in AI answers
Some searches now end in a ready-made answer instead of a list of links. Generative engine optimisation means content an AI can find, understand and cite with confidence.
For years the goal of SEO was clear: be on the first page of Google so the user clicks your link. Now some users put their question to an AI assistant and get a ready answer — sometimes with a few sources, sometimes with no click at all.
That raises a new question: when someone asks an AI about your field, is your name in the answer?
What GEO is
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: the work that helps your content be found, understood and cited in AI-generated answers. It is sometimes called AEO, answer engine optimisation.
How it differs from SEO
| Classic SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | A rank in the results list | A place in the answer text |
| Unit of competition | The page | The sentence and the fact |
| Measure of success | The click | The citation and the mention |
| Reader | A person, with a crawler's help | A language model, then a person |
The good news is that the two aren't opposed. Most of what GEO needs is simply good SEO, with extra care in a few places.
How a model reaches your content
There are two routes:
- Training data. The model saw public web content during training. This route is slow and outside your control.
- Live search. The assistant searches the web and reads pages while answering. This route is fast, and it is where you can act.
On the second route, assistants rely on search engine indexes. If you aren't indexed by a search engine, you don't exist for the assistant either.
Practical steps
1. Let the crawlers in
First check you haven't shut the door yourself. Your robots.txt shouldn't block AI crawlers unless you mean it to. The main content should also be in the HTML without needing JavaScript to run; many of these crawlers don't execute scripts.
2. Write sentences that stand on their own
A model lifts a sentence out of a page and quotes it. A sentence that is meaningless without the paragraph before it can't be quoted.
- Weak: "He has done this in three products."
- Strong: "Mohammad Ali Eslamipour is a digital product architect who designs and leads AI products, SaaS platforms and web apps."
The second can be taken from anywhere on the page and is still true and complete.
3. Answer real questions directly
People ask assistants questions, not keywords. Content with a question-and-answer structure is selected more readily. Put the answer at the start of the section, then explain.
4. Add structured data
Schema.org markup tells a machine what each thing is: this is a person, this is an article, this is a question and that is its answer. It reduces ambiguity and raises the chance of a correct reading.
5. Keep identity consistent
Your name or brand should be written the same way everywhere. If it appears with different spellings, a model may treat them as different entities. State the alternative spellings explicitly.
6. The llms.txt file
This is a young proposal: a plain, readable summary of a site for language models, with links to the important pages. It isn't an official standard and not every assistant uses it, but it is cheap to produce. This site has one, generated automatically from its content.
7. Register with Bing as well
Several widely used assistants draw on Bing's index for live search. Registering the site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submitting the sitemap takes ten minutes and is often forgotten.
8. Don't make unsupported claims
Models are steadily getting better at telling a reliable source from advertising. "Best", "leading" and unsourced numbers add nothing. Specific, checkable facts do.
What you can't control
Honestly, GEO is still a young field:
- There is no guaranteed way to appear in an answer.
- Assistant behaviour keeps changing.
- Accurate measurement is still hard.
Anyone promising a guaranteed place in the answers is promising something that isn't theirs to give.
How to measure
- Ask several assistants the questions your customers ask, and record the results periodically.
- In your analytics, separate out visits arriving from AI assistants.
- Check page indexing in the webmaster tools.
The foundation is the same
None of this replaces the basics: useful content, sound structure, speed and real credibility. GEO is a layer on top of good SEO, not a substitute for it.
The takeaway
Being visible in AI answers doesn't take tricks. It takes content that is accessible, clear, structured and true. Models are looking for the same thing a human reader is: an answer they can trust.
Related: AI in the product: core, not decoration.