What is generative engine optimisation (GEO) and how is it different from SEO?
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the practice of making your business the one an AI assistant names when a customer asks it a question. Where SEO aims to win a position in Google's list of results, GEO aims to be cited in the answer that ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity gives. The two work together, but they are not the same thing.
The way people find businesses is changing. Instead of typing a query and scanning ten blue links, more customers ask an assistant directly: "Which accountancy firm near me is best for a small business?" The assistant composes an answer from the sources it trusts, and the businesses it names get the enquiry. If your site is not among them, you lose the work even when you rank well in a traditional search.
So what is different about GEO compared with SEO? The goal, the audience and the optimisation target. SEO optimises for a search engine's ranking algorithm, using keywords, links and technical health. GEO optimises for an AI model's ability to understand, trust and cite your content. The audience is still human, but the route to them runs through an assistant that summarises rather than lists.
That does not mean the fundamentals change. Clear structure, accurate information and a fast, well organised website help in both. The difference is emphasis. AI assistants favour content that states answers plainly, names specifics and can be quoted back without distortion. A page that buries its answer in fluff is hard for an assistant to cite, so it tends to be overlooked.
It helps to understand how an assistant builds an answer. It draws on what it learned during training, and it can also pull in fresh information from the web at the moment you ask. That second path is where GEO matters most. When a model searches for sources, it looks for pages that answer the question directly, use clear headings and contain details it can quote with confidence. A well written service page, a genuine case study and a clear FAQ all stand a better chance of being picked up than a promotional page that never gets to the point.
Practical steps to get cited by AI assistants:
- Answer the question directly near the top of the page, before any padding.
- Use headings that mirror how people actually ask, including question headings.
- Name concrete facts: real figures, real clients, real results, real pricing.
- Keep your business details consistent across your site and the wider web, because assistants piece together an entity from many sources.
- Publish fresh content regularly, since assistants favour current, well maintained pages.
Measurement matters as much as content. You cannot improve what you cannot see, and traditional rank tracking does not tell you whether an assistant mentions your brand. Our in-house platform Metrona tracks AI visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity alongside your usual rankings, so you can see which queries you win and which you miss. Clients see this reporting in the client dashboard at https://victory.digital/client-dashboard.
The demand is real and largely unserved. Our own post on how generative engine optimisation works collected over two thousand impressions in the last six months but almost no clicks, because there is no short, quotable answer for the topic. A well structured GEO article is exactly the kind of content an assistant will cite.
If you want help getting your business into AI answers, our generative AI optimisation service plans, writes and measures this for you. https://victory.digital/generative-ai-optimisation
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