Search is bifurcating. One half of your buyers still type into Google. The other half ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or click on Google's AI Overview before they ever scroll to the ten blue links. The brands cited inside those AI answers will own the next decade. The ones still optimising only for traditional rankings will quietly fade.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring your content, brand and authority signals so that AI engines, Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, choose to cite you when answering buyer questions. It overlaps with classic SEO but rewards different things: clarity, citability, original data, structured frameworks, entity strength.
Who is GEO consulting for?
B2B brands, SaaS companies, considered-purchase D2C brands, and any business whose buyers research with AI tools before they buy. If your buyer asks 'best CRM for outbound sales teams' to ChatGPT, you need to be one of the brands ChatGPT names.
What does a GEO programme include?
- GEO audit, where you're cited (or not) across Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini
- Source-worthy content patterns, comparisons, frameworks, original data, expert quotes
- Entity, brand and authorship signal building, get your brand and people recognised as entities
- Structured data tuned for AI retrieval (FAQ, HowTo, Article, Product, with strict consistency)
- Citability rewrites of existing high-traffic pages so AI engines find quotable assertions
- Off-site authority work, get your brand into the listicles and guides AI engines cite from
- Monitoring of AI surfaces, what's being said about you, where, and by which engine
How do AI engines actually choose what to cite?
AI engines pull from a small set of trusted sources per query, typically the top organic results, plus authoritative listicles, plus content with high citability (clear claims, specific numbers, original frameworks). Generic blog posts almost never get cited. Source-worthy content does.
"If your competitors are getting cited by ChatGPT and you aren't even mentioned, no amount of paid ads will fix it. GEO is the new shelf space."
How is GEO different from traditional SEO?
Traditional SEO optimises for blue-link rankings. GEO optimises for citation. The work overlaps (clean schema, fast Core Web Vitals, authority signals all matter for both), but GEO adds explicit work on citability, entity recognition, and AI-engine-specific monitoring. The brands winning right now treat them as one programme, not two.
By Nimitt Bhatt, founder of SEO Rise and SEO consultant in Ahmedabad. 20 years of leadership at Reliance Jio, Vodafone and ICICI.