Ask ChatGPT “who builds custom homes in Winnipeg?” or look at the AI Overview at the top of a Google search, and you get a short answer that names a handful of businesses. Everyone else is invisible in that moment.

GEO, short for generative engine optimization, is the work of becoming one of the businesses those answers mention. It sits alongside traditional search engine optimization (SEO), and most of it builds on the same foundations.

How AI assistants decide who to mention

The companies behind these tools don’t publish exactly how answers are put together, and the details change often. The broad pattern is clear, though. When an assistant answers a question about local businesses, it leans on information it can find and cross-check:

  • pages in search engine indexes, including your own website
  • business listings such as Google Business Profile and Bing Places
  • reviews
  • other websites that mention you: directories, associations, local news, partners

Businesses that are easy to find, easy to understand and described the same way in several places are the ones assistants can quote with confidence.

GEO and SEO: what’s the difference?

SEO is about ranking in a list of search results. GEO is about being cited inside an answer. In practice they overlap heavily: a fast, clear website with useful content and consistent business details helps with both.

The difference is mostly one of emphasis. GEO rewards pages that answer questions directly, in plain sentences an assistant can lift and repeat, and it rewards being mentioned positively in places beyond your own site.

Seven practical steps

1. Make sure search engines can find you

AI assistants that look things up on the web draw on search indexes. Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, and check that your important pages are indexed. Bing is easy to overlook, but it powers Microsoft Copilot.

2. Answer the questions customers actually ask

Write down the questions people ask you on the phone: how long a job takes, which areas you serve, what happens first, whether you handle permits. Then answer each one on your website, with the question as a heading and a direct answer in the first sentence underneath.

Pages written like this are easy for people to skim and easy for an assistant to quote.

3. Describe your business the same way everywhere

Your business name, phone number and service area should match exactly on your website, your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Small differences, such as an old phone number or a slightly different name, make it harder for any system to be sure it has the right business.

4. Add structured data

Structured data (schema markup) is a small block of code that describes your business in a vocabulary machines understand. Google says no special markup is needed to appear in AI Overviews, so treat it as housekeeping rather than a shortcut: clear Organization or LocalBusiness markup that matches what the page says helps search engines and other tools identify your business correctly.

5. Earn genuine reviews and mentions

Reviews and third-party mentions are how assistants tell an established business from a name on a list. Ask every customer for an honest review, and reply to each one. Look for legitimate places to be listed or mentioned: industry associations, local business directories, suppliers you work with, community sponsorships and local press.

6. Keep your important content in the page itself

Some automated readers fetch a page’s HTML without running its JavaScript. If your services, service area or contact details only appear after scripts run, or only inside images and PDFs, they may be missed. Plain text on a fast page is the safest choice.

7. Don’t block AI search crawlers by accident

Your site’s robots.txt file tells crawlers what they may read. Some templates and security tools block AI crawlers by default. If you want to appear in AI search, check that crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot (ChatGPT search), PerplexityBot and Claude-SearchBot are allowed, along with Googlebot and Bingbot.

How to see where you stand

Ask a few assistants the questions your customers would ask, in the way they would ask them: “best kitchen renovator in Winnipeg”, “who installs heat pumps near Steinbach”. Note who gets mentioned and what sources are cited.

Answers vary from person to person and from day to day, so look for patterns over a few weeks rather than reacting to a single answer. Repeat the same questions every month and keep notes.

What GEO can’t do

Nobody can guarantee that an AI tool will recommend a particular business, and you should be wary of anyone who promises it. What GEO can do is make your business the clearest, most credible and best-documented option for the assistant to choose.

If you’d like a quick sense of where you stand, try our two-minute AI visibility self-check. For a proper look at your website, your Google presence and what AI tools say about you today, book a free consultation.