What SEO is
Search Engine Optimization covers the work that helps search engines discover, interpret and present a page. It includes technical aspects, information architecture, editorial quality, internal linking, authority and performance.
For a small business the objective is not to appear for every possible word. It is to hold the searches that express a problem, a comparison or a buying intention consistent with the services you actually offer.
What GEO is
Generative Engine Optimization is the name used to describe optimising your presence inside AI-based answer systems. These systems can synthesise several sources, quote pages and offer answers without showing a traditional list of results.
No piece of code can guarantee a citation. What does help is publishing clear, consistent and current information, stating who is responsible for the content, using structured data that matches the page, and earning mentions from relevant sources.
SEO and GEO side by side
The two disciplines work on the same content but answer two different questions: SEO asks “does this page deserve to appear among the results?”, GEO asks “can this passage be quoted inside an answer?”. The table puts the differences next to each other.
| Dimension | SEO | GEO |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | Appearing among the search results | Being quoted inside a generated answer |
| Where the result appears | On the results page, as a link | Inside the text of the answer, with or without a link |
| Unit of measurement | Position, clicks, impressions | Presence and frequency of the citation |
| What it rewards | Relevance, domain authority, page experience | Short self-contained answers, verifiable data, cited sources |
| Useful structure | Headings, internal links, structured data | Question and answer blocks, tables, lists, definitions |
| How you check it | Search Console and keyword positions | Asking the answer engines the questions your clients ask |
What SEO and GEO have in common
A site has to be accessible to crawlers, with stable URLs, correct canonicals and pages linked to each other. Titles and descriptions have to tell the subjects apart, while the text has to answer the user’s question directly before going deeper.
Identity and trust play a central part. The registered company name, the author, contacts, credentials, sources and update dates all help people and automated systems judge the context of what is published.
- Original content that is useful for a precise intent
- A structure with descriptive headings and direct answers
- Structured data consistent with the visible text
- Author and about pages that can be verified
- Internal links and relevant external sources
- Content updated when the context changes
A practical route for a small business
The first step is fixing indexing, sitemap, canonicals, performance and duplicate pages. The second is building an architecture that separates services, commercial questions, guides and case studies. The third is publishing content based on real experience and checking which queries generate impressions and contacts.
For GEO it is also worth checking how the company is described by the main AI systems, without treating a single answer as a definitive result. Answers can change depending on the model, the date, the wording of the question and the sources available.
What to avoid
Repeating keywords, creating dozens of near-identical pages or publishing automated text without review does not build authority. Structured data must not declare reviews, FAQs or services that the user cannot actually see on the page.
The most sustainable strategy is to cover well the few areas where the business genuinely has expertise, show authentic evidence, and improve the content on the basis of search data and the questions clients actually ask.
Frequently asked questions
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. GEO uses a technical and editorial foundation very similar to SEO and extends it to the way generative systems understand and summarise sources.
Can a citation on ChatGPT or Gemini be guaranteed?
No. No supplier can control or guarantee the citations produced by an external AI system.
Do you need an llms.txt file?
It can give some systems a useful summary, but it does not replace indexing, quality content, structured data and authority.
How long does it take to see results?
It depends on the starting state of the site, the competition, how often you publish and the authority you build. There is no guaranteed timeline.
This is how we work on it
- SEO and GEOAudit, intents, entities and structured data: what to change and in what order.
- Blog SEO + GEOTwelve articles a month, reviewed by a person.
- How we workThe technical foundation everything else rests on.
Sources
- Google Search Central, AI features in search — How Google selects the pages it shows inside generated answers.
- Schema.org, the FAQPage type — The specification of the vocabulary used to mark up frequently asked questions.
- llms.txt, the proposed standard — The format a site uses to declare its own content to language models.
- OpenAI, the crawlers and how to allow them — The official list of OpenAI user agents and the rules for robots.txt.
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