Tools & Tutorials  /  8 min read

Last week I asked ChatGPT to recommend a wedding photographer in Shropshire.

It gave me three names. All real. All photographers I’d seen on Instagram before. None of them had asked ChatGPT to mention them.

It just did.

That’s what GEO is.

What GEO actually is

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It’s the practice of getting your business named, recommended, or cited by AI tools. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google’s AI Overview, Claude, Gemini. The systems people now ask before they Google.

If SEO is about ranking on a results page, GEO is about being the answer.

The mechanics are different. The goal is the same. People with a problem are looking for an answer. They want to know who can help. The question now is which platform they ask, and what that platform decides to tell them.

Why it matters now

Three things have shifted in the last 18 months.

One. ChatGPT and Perplexity now have web access.

They don’t just regurgitate training data. They actively pull from the live web when you ask a current question. That means a site can be cited within hours of being published, not months.

Two. Search behaviour is changing.

Conversations are replacing queries. People type “best Italian restaurant near Telford open Sundays” and expect a sentence back, not ten links. Google saw this coming and added AI Overview to its results page.

Three. A generation of younger users go to ChatGPT first and Google second. They’ve trained themselves to ask in plain English and trust the first answer.

If your business depends on people finding you online, this is now part of the job. SEO still matters. But ignoring GEO is like ignoring social media in 2014.

How GEO differs from SEO

SEO and GEO share a lot of plumbing. Good SEO usually helps GEO. Both want a fast site, clear content, real authority. But they value different things.

SEO rewards keyword targeting, backlinks, and click-through behaviour. The job is to convince Google’s algorithm you deserve position 1 on a results page.

GEO rewards mentions, citations, and structured information. The job is to make sure the AI has enough about you to talk about you confidently when someone asks the right question.

In SEO you compete for ranking. In GEO you compete to be remembered.

A few practical differences:

• SEO: keyword research. GEO: question research. What questions do your customers ask in conversation?
• SEO: long-form authority pages. GEO: clear, factual answers, structured cleanly.
• SEO: backlinks. GEO: third-party mentions across the web that train the model that you’re a real, relevant business.
• SEO: meta tags and schema. GEO: schema, FAQ structure, named entity associations.
• SEO: months for results. GEO: sometimes weeks. The dynamic web feed updates faster than Google’s index.

What AI engines look for

From the testing we’ve done at Coastara plus what’s been published by people doing this at scale, here’s what seems to move the needle.

1. Clear answers to specific questions. 

When someone asks ChatGPT “who is the best wedding photographer in Shrewsbury,” the AI looks at sites where someone has clearly answered that question (or a close cousin). It cites the businesses named in those answers.

What to do: build an FAQ section on your site that answers the questions your customers actually ask. Plain English. You as one of the named answers where appropriate.

2. Mentions in places the AI trusts. 

AI engines weigh sources. A mention in a local paper, an industry publication, a review site, or a directory carries more weight than your own website saying you’re great.

What to do: get yourself listed and mentioned anywhere your customers might naturally see your name. Local press. Industry directories. Review platforms. Podcast guest spots. Quora answers.

3. Schema markup. 

The structured data that tells search engines and AI engines what your page is about. Most WordPress sites have this turned on automatically via Yoast or Rank Math. Check yours.

What to do: install Yoast or check it’s working. Make sure each service page has a clear FAQ schema block. Tools like Schema.org’s tester or Google’s Rich Results Test will show you what’s missing.

4. Named entity recognition. 

AI is better at remembering names than concepts. “A marketing studio in Shrewsbury that does AI work” is harder for an AI to call back than “Coastara Studio.” Use your business name often. On your site. In your social bios. In any guest content. Build the association.

What to do: stop hiding your brand name. Use it in headings, captions, image alt-text, anywhere a model could pick it up.

5. Recency. 

A site that publishes regularly gets pulled more often. AI engines pull from live data. Stale sites drift out of the response set.

What to do: publish or update something every couple of weeks. A blog post. A new case study. A fresh FAQ entry. Doesn’t have to be huge. Has to be regular.

The 3 small changes for small businesses

If you do nothing else, do these three things.

Change 1. Add a real FAQ to every service page. 

Pick the five questions people actually ask you. Write them out. Answer each in 80 words, plainly. Use your own business name in at least two of the answers. Let WordPress handle the schema markup automatically.

Change 2. Get five third-party mentions in the next 90 days. 

Apply to be listed in a local directory. Comment thoughtfully on three industry blogs. Pitch one article to a local publication. Get on one podcast as a guest. Each of these creates a citation that AI engines crawl.

Change 3. Update your About page. 

Make it clear: who you are, what you do, where you’re based, who you serve. AI engines read this page and use it to summarise your business. If yours is vague or full of inspirational quotes, the AI will give a vague summary. If it’s specific, the AI is specific.

Reality check

GEO doesn’t pay off on day one. Most of what we’ve tested takes 4 to 12 weeks before AI engines start citing a business consistently. Slower than paid ads. But the citations compound. Once you’re in the response set, you tend to stay there as long as you keep the site fresh.

You also can’t game it the way some agencies are claiming. There’s no “top 3 spot” to buy. AI engines are explicitly trained to ignore manipulation. The boring path of structured content, real mentions, and consistent updates is the only one that works.

GEO is one of the things we set up for clients at Coastara. If your website is invisible to ChatGPT and you’d like that to change, message us on WhatsApp. Happy to walk you through what we’d do for your business specifically.