What exactly is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?
SEO optimizes a page to rank in a list of links on a search results page. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) optimizes your brand's information so AI systems — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews — can understand it well enough to summarize, cite, and recommend it inside a generated answer. The two disciplines overlap heavily (technical health, authority, content quality) but GEO adds AI-specific work: structured data for machines, entity building, answer-first content formatting, and explicit access for AI crawlers.
Which AI platforms does GEO actually cover?
Our GEO work targets visibility across the major generative engines people actually use for recommendations: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews (SGE), Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Each platform sources and weighs information slightly differently, so our technical setup and content strategy are tuned per-platform rather than treated as one generic "AI" target.
Do I still need traditional SEO if I invest in GEO?
Yes — and the two reinforce each other. Google still sends the majority of search traffic today, and a technically healthy, well-structured, authoritative website is the foundation both SEO and GEO are built on. We never recommend dropping SEO for GEO; we recommend layering AI-specific optimization on top of a solid SEO base so you're visible whether someone types a query or asks an AI assistant.
What is llms.txt, and do I actually need one?
llms.txt is an emerging convention — similar in spirit to robots.txt — that gives AI crawlers a clean, structured summary of your site's most important pages and information. It's not yet a universal standard every AI platform reads, but combined with proper robots.txt rules for bots like GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended, it makes your most important content easier for AI systems to find and parse correctly. We set this up as part of every technical GEO audit.
How do AI engines actually decide which brands to cite or recommend?
Generally through a combination of crawlable, well-structured content; recognised "entity" signals (consistent business information across the web, directories, and knowledge bases); third-party trust signals like reviews and mentions; and clear, fact-dense answers that are easy to extract and summarize accurately. No agency — including us — can promise the exact internal ranking logic of any AI model, since these systems evolve constantly and aren't fully public. What we can do is systematically strengthen every signal known to influence citation likelihood.
How long does it take to start appearing in AI-generated answers?
Technical fixes like AI crawler access and schema markup can take effect within weeks, since they simply make your existing content easier to read. Earning consistent citations takes longer — typically 2 to 4 months — because it depends on building genuine entity authority and trust signals across the web, which compound gradually rather than appearing overnight.
Can you guarantee my brand will be mentioned by ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews?
No honest agency can guarantee a specific citation on a specific platform — these models are proprietary, constantly updated, and outside any agency's control. What we do guarantee is a thorough, transparent GEO process: real technical fixes, real content improvements, real entity-building work, and honest monthly reporting on what's changing. We treat anyone promising guaranteed AI rankings as a red flag, and we'd encourage you to do the same.