SEO & GEO
GEO and AEO: how to get cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini
AI-assisted content · Editorially reviewed
June 3, 2026 · 8 min
More and more customers ask ChatGPT and Perplexity, not Google. GEO and AEO are how you get cited when the AI answers. What they are and 7 concrete moves for a small business.
Search is shifting under our feet. More and more people — including your B2B prospects — don't open Google: they ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini and read the answer. And that answer often cites two or three companies, without anyone clicking a link.
So the question is no longer just "do I rank on Google?", but "when the AI answers, does it name me?". The practices to make that happen are called GEO and AEO.
What GEO is, and what AEO is
- GEO — Generative Engine Optimization: optimizing content to get cited by generative AI (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude) when they answer a question.
- AEO — Answer Engine Optimization: optimizing for answer engines broadly, including Google's direct answers.
In one line: SEO puts you in a list of links; GEO/AEO puts you inside the answer.
Why it matters for a small business
Because buying behaviour has changed. A growing share of high-intent searches ("what's the best X agency in town?", "how much does Y cost?") ends in an AI answer that summarizes and cites a few sources. If you're not among them, you've lost the customer before the race even started — even with great Google rankings.
For a small company it's also an opportunity: AI rewards clarity and facts, not ad budget. You can win the citation with well-made content, not spend.
How to get cited by AI: 7 concrete moves
1. Write atomic facts. One sentence, one fact, self-contained: "X is a Y company founded in 20.., based in …". AI cite paragraphs they can lift whole. 2. Add FAQs with real questions. The questions customers ask AI verbatim, with short, sharp answers. It's the single highest-yield GEO move. 3. Make entities clear. Company name, founders, location, sector, products: explicit, repeated consistently. They help the AI "recognize" you as an entity. 4. Use structured data (schema.org). Organization, FAQPage, Article, Service: they mark the meaning of content for machines and AI. 5. Publish an llms.txt file. A site summary + links to key pages at /llms.txt, to make the site more readable for AI. 6. Let AI crawlers in. In robots.txt explicitly allow GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended and similar — if you want to be indexed and cited. 7. Keep content fresh and sourced. AI prefer up-to-date content with verifiable citations: state dates, link sources.
SEO and GEO are not the same thing
They reinforce each other, but reward different things. SEO rewards keywords, inbound links, page signals. GEO rewards explicit facts, clear entities, marked Q&A, factual density and sources. Working them together is the right strategy: clear, factual content ranks and gets cited.
Where to start
From the page that already brings you customers: add a FAQ section with 5-6 real questions and atomic answers, state your entity facts (who, where, what), and mark everything with schema.org. It's the minimum that moves the needle in a few weeks.
If you'd rather not do it by hand, that's exactly the job of SmartRank, the agent that works on SEO and GEO for small businesses: you'll find it among the agents. And if you want to know where to start on your own site, in thirty minutes we'll give you the first moves.
Sources
- llms.txt standard — llmstxt.org
- Schema.org (structured data) — schema.org
- Google Search Central, AI features in Search — developers.google.com
Frequently asked questions
- What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?
- It's the set of practices to get cited by generative engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude — when they answer a question. Unlike SEO, which aims to rank you in a list of links, GEO aims to get the AI to name you inside its answer.
- What's the difference between GEO and AEO?
- They overlap. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is optimizing for answer engines in general (including Google's direct answers); GEO is the subset focused on generative AI. In practice you work them together: clear content, atomic facts, questions and answers.
- Isn't SEO enough anymore?
- SEO is still essential, but it covers one channel. A growing share of high-intent searches goes through AI, which often answers without anyone clicking a link. If you're not in the AI's answer, to those customers you don't exist — even if you rank first on Google.
- How does an AI cite my company?
- It cites sources it finds clear, factual and trustworthy: pages with atomic facts (who you are, where, what you do), FAQs with real questions, sourced data, schema.org structured data. It also helps to let AI crawlers in and keep content fresh.
- What is the llms.txt file?
- It's a text file (at /llms.txt) summarizing what your site does and listing its key pages, to help AI read it. It's an emerging standard: it doesn't guarantee a citation, but it makes the site more ingestible.
- How long until GEO shows results?
- Weeks, not days: AI re-ingest content on their own schedule. The fastest lever is adding FAQs with atomic answers and citable facts to the pages that already matter.