For years, businesses have worked to make sure their websites appear when potential customers search on Google. Now, people are increasingly turning to generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for those same answers.

Instead of Googling their question and scrolling through a page of search results, users ask a generative AI tool a question and receive a synthesized answer that may include information, recommendations, and links to relevant sources.

That creates a new question for marketers. How do you increase the chances that your business will be part of those answers? The emerging discipline known as Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is beginning to provide the answer.

Why AI visibility matters

Search behavior is evolving. People are using AI for many of the same activities that have traditionally started with a search engine, including researching products, comparing services, answering questions, planning purchases, and learning about businesses.

But the experience is different. A traditional search engine presents a list of possible sources and lets the user decide where to click. A generative engine gathers information from multiple sources, synthesizes it, and presents the user with an answer directly.

For businesses, that means making your company, expertise, products, and services easy for AI systems to discover and trust is becoming as important as securing a high position on a search engine results page.

To be clear, traditional SEO is not disappearing. In fact, many of the fundamentals that make a website useful to search engines also make it easier for AI-powered search systems to understand. GEO, however, adds another layer to that strategy.

What is generative engine optimization?

Generative Engine Optimization is similar to Search Engine Optimization. It works by improving digital content so it has a greater opportunity to appear, be cited, or influence the answers produced by generative AI platforms.

SEO asks:

How can we help this page rank when someone searches for this topic?

GEO expands the question:

How can we make our brand a useful and credible source when an AI platform answers questions about this topic?

There is no single formula for accomplishing that. Research suggests that GEO tactics can improve visibility, but results can vary considerably by platform, query, and context, and no single approach guarantees consistent inclusion in AI-generated answers.

In other words, there is no magic piece of code or copywriting trick that guarantees ChatGPT will recommend your company. There are, however, steps businesses can take to make their websites stronger candidates.

How can you optimize your website for ChatGPT and other AI platforms?

Start with a technically accessible website. If an AI search crawler cannot access your content, the quality of that content will not matter. OpenAI says any public website can appear in ChatGPT Search and recommends allowing its OAI-SearchBot crawler to access content you want included in ChatGPT search summaries and links. Website owners can manage that access through their robots.txt file.

It is worth noting that OpenAI uses different crawlers for different purposes. OAI-SearchBot is associated with search, while GPTBot is used separately for OpenAI’s generative AI models. Allowing or blocking one does not necessarily require making the same choice for the other.

Create content around the questions your customers actually ask. Generative AI is conversational. People are more likely to ask, “What type of HVAC system is best for a hospital?” or “How often should commercial roofing be inspected?” than type a string of disconnected keywords.

Your website should provide clear, useful answers to the questions customers ask during every stage of the buying process. FAQ pages, educational articles, service pages, guides, comparisons, definitions, and other informational content can all help establish what your company knows and what topics it should be associated with.

Make answers clear and easy to extract. AI platforms need to understand what a page is saying before they can use it effectively. Clear headings, focused sections, descriptive language, concise explanations, lists where appropriate, and logical page structures can make complex information easier to interpret.

Recent research into AI citations has found that highly influential source pages tend to be well structured, closely aligned with the question being asked, and rich in useful information such as definitions, facts, comparisons, and step-by-step explanations.

Demonstrate real expertise. Generic content gives an AI platform little reason to choose your website over thousands of others discussing the same subject.

Original insights can create differentiation. That might include proprietary research, statistics, case studies, technical expertise, first-hand experience, detailed product information, expert commentary, or answers to specialized questions that competitors have not adequately addressed.

Keep information accurate and current. Outdated service information, old statistics, discontinued products, and stale articles can weaken the usefulness of a website as a source. Regularly reviewing important content helps ensure that both people and AI systems encounter accurate information about your business.

Build authority beyond your own website. Your website is only one part of your online presence. Mentions and information about your organization across credible third-party websites can help establish context around your brand and expertise.

That makes public relations, thought leadership, industry publications, partnerships, directories, and other earned-media opportunities increasingly relevant to search visibility.

Measure what is happening. GEO should not be treated as guesswork. OpenAI automatically adds a utm_source=chatgpt.com parameter to referral links from ChatGPT, which means businesses that receive traffic from ChatGPT can identify and analyze those visits in platforms such as Google Analytics.

Monitoring the questions for which your brand appears, which pages receive AI referral traffic, and where competitors are being cited can help shape an ongoing content strategy.

How We Can Help

Our team can help evaluate your existing website for both traditional search visibility and emerging AI search opportunities, identify the questions your customers are asking, and develop authoritative content that answers them.

That can include technical website improvements, SEO and GEO strategy, keyword and topic research, website copy, blog and thought-leadership content, FAQ development, case studies, public relations, analytics, and ongoing content planning.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your GEO and SEO strategies, contact us today.