Generative engine optimization: getting cited by ChatGPT and Gemini

A growing share of buying research now starts with a question typed into ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or an AI overview at the top of Google. The person asking may never see a list of ten blue links. They see an answer, sometimes with a few cited sources. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of making sure your business is one of those sources.

There’s a lot of mystery being sold around this. Most of what works is unglamorous and overlaps heavily with good SEO. Here’s how we think about it.

How AI answers are assembled

Different assistants work differently, but the pattern is similar. The model interprets the question, often runs one or more searches, reads a handful of pages, and writes an answer from what it found plus what it already “knows” from training. When it cites sources, it tends to pick pages that:

• answer the specific question directly, near the top of the page;
• are easy to quote: clear sentences, specific facts, unambiguous names;
• come from sources that other sites already treat as credible on the topic.

So GEO comes down to three things: be findable by the search step, be easy to quote, and be trusted.

Be an unambiguous entity

AI systems reason about entities: companies, products, people, places. If your company name, what you do and where you operate are described inconsistently across the web, the model has a harder time connecting a question to you.

• Use the same company name, description and contact details on your site, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, app store listings and directories.
• Have a clear About page that states plainly who you are, what you do, for whom, and since when.
• Add Organization structured data with your legal name, logo, contact points and sameAs links to your official profiles.

Content that’s easy to quote

Pages that get cited usually answer a question in the first two or three sentences, then go deeper. Compare:

• “In today’s digital landscape, choosing the right partner is crucial…” Nothing here is quotable.
• “A fixed-price contract suits projects with a stable, well-defined scope; time and materials suits projects where requirements will change.” This is a sentence an assistant can lift.

Practical habits:

• Use the question as a heading, then answer it immediately underneath.
• Prefer specific numbers, ranges and conditions over adjectives, and say where numbers come from.
• Keep one topic per page. A page that tries to rank for everything is hard to cite for anything.
• Add comparison tables and short definitions. These get lifted almost verbatim.

Structured data and llms.txt

Structured data won’t make an assistant cite you on its own, but it removes ambiguity: this is an organization, these are its services, this is an FAQ, this article was published on this date by this company. Use Organization, Service, FAQPage, Article and BreadcrumbList where they genuinely apply.

Some sites now publish an /llms.txt file: a plain-text summary of who they are and links to their most important pages, written for AI systems to read. Support for it varies between assistants, so treat it as cheap insurance rather than a strategy. It takes an hour to write and keeps your own summary of your business in one clean place.

Reputation still decides most of it

When an assistant chooses between ten pages that say similar things, it leans on the same signals search engines use: links and mentions from credible sites, reviews, consistent coverage. That means the slow work still matters:

• Get mentioned in industry publications, directories and comparison articles your buyers actually read.
• Earn reviews on the platforms relevant to your industry.
• Publish things other people want to reference: original data, useful tools, clear guides.

Measuring AI visibility

There’s no Search Console for ChatGPT yet, so measurement is partly manual:

1. Write down 20–30 questions a real buyer would ask, such as “who builds custom portals for logistics companies”.
2. Ask them in each major assistant once a month and record whether you’re mentioned or cited, and which page is used.
3. Watch branded search volume and direct traffic in your analytics. When AI answers mention you, people often search your name next.
4. Check referral traffic from assistant domains in analytics.

None of this replaces classic SEO. A page that ranks well, answers clearly and comes from a trusted source tends to do well in both. If you’d like us to run a baseline check of where your business shows up in AI answers today, that’s part of our SEO & AI-SEO work. Ask us for an AI visibility check.