Generative Engine Optimization, AI Search Visibility, Schema Markup, Content Strategy, AI SEO
Table of Contents
TL;DR
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) copywriting helps service businesses get recommended by AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s AI suggestions. SEO improves ranking, but GEO improves visibility. Some strategies that are working include authority-building, schema markup, answering user questions, focusing on user intent, integrating authoritative data, distributing content on platforms where ai “learns,” and leveraging social proof. Currently, there’s limited ways to track traffic from AI, but several manual methods are working, like asking customers, running AI searches yourself, and tracking what’s available on Google Analytics.
What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is using techniques that make your content visible to AI-driven search engines and chatbots.
Before AI went mainstream, 87% of shoppers were doing online research before buying. Half checked out to Amazon first, but brand websites, retailer websites, and Google were other popular spots (Power Reviews, 2023).
Post AI, a staggering 58% say they’re using generative AI instead of search engines for product recommendations (Cap Gemini, 2025).
Businesses can’t ignore AI visibility anymore. It’s where their leads are shopping.
Imagine a potential client asking AI for the best [your service]. Will it mention your business, or someone else’s?
Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overviews are quickly changing how people find services. The good news is that getting your website featured on AI tools is completely doable.
This guide walks through Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and how smart copywriting + technical structure can make AI recommend you.
In short, GEO means crafting your website copy so tools like ChatGPT, Google’s SGE, Bing Chat, Claude, etc., can find it and include it in their answers.
Just as traditional SEO aims to get you on page one of Google, GEO copywriting aims to get you mentioned or cited by an AI when it generates an answer. It’s about making your content “AI-ready” – organized packets of writing that AI sees as both relevant and authoritative.
Generative engines don’t simply list links, a la Google. They compose answers. It’s the difference between a librarian finding a book relevant to your internet and someone prepping a whole presentation for you.
If someone asks, “How can I fix a leaky pipe?” a generative AI might synthesize advice from multiple sources – ideally mentioning a helpful plumber’s guide (that could be yours!).
Better yet, if someone asks, “Who can help me fix a leaky pipe?” a generative AI might suggest your business.
GEO copywriting helps your content become one of those sources.
In this guide, we’re covering the practical elements of GEO that you can apply to your own website to help your AI visibility:
- GEO vs SEO – what SEO strategies support GEO
- How generative AI platforms choose what to feature
- Frontend GEO – things that both humans and AI can see
- Backend GEO – things that only AI and algorithms can see
- Real world examples
- How to know if your GEO efforts are working.
Let’s get started.
Why Do Businesses Need GEO Copywriting?
Because if AI chatbots don’t mention your business when users ask for the services you offer, you’re opting out of the current largest shopping platform.
“If ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Grok don’t name you when someone asks, ‘Who fixes mold in Sacramento?’ — you’re invisible. And that invisibility is costing you contracts.” – Frank Masotti, founder of Generative Search Visibility
In the past, not ranking on Google was a big problem. Now, not showing up in AI-driven recommendations is the new blind spot.
Even Google’s own AI answers (SGE) are stealing clicks from the old blue links.
Early data shows some publishers expect AI “answer boxes” to cut their organic traffic by 20% to 60% (AdWeek).
Shoppers are treating AI suggestions like a friend’s suggestion. And they’re forking over real money.
GEO copywriting directly tackles this new reality. It makes sure your company’s expertise, service offerings, and unique value points are present wherever AI is pulling its answers.
That might mean the difference between a future customer hearing your name from ChatGPT, Alexa, or Siri – or never hearing about you at all.
How Is GEO Different From SEO?
SEO is about ranking high on search engine results pages – GEO is about being included or referenced in AI-generated answers. AI often uses search engines to reference content for generated answers, so good SEO tends to support good GEO.
In practice, traditional SEO focuses on pleasing algorithms like Google’s – think keywords, backlinks, meta tags, and all the tactics to climb the rankings.
Generative Engine Optimization, on the other hand, focuses on packaging up your content so it’s a go-to source for AI models that assemble answers on the fly.
Instead of vying for the #1 spot on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP), you’re vying to be quoted, cited or paraphrased by the AI.
It creates some critical differences in how we need to approach copywriting and content:
Answers Found vs. Answers Built
A search engine finds and ranks whole webpages.
A generative AI reads content and weaves together bits from various pages to answer a question.
GEO means writing content that an AI feels confident pulling from – content that directly answers questions, is well-structured, and authoritative enough to be quoted.
Keyword Strategy vs. Sitewide Knowledge
SEO traditionally revolves around keywords and link authority.
GEO isn’t so interested in matching longtail keywords. It wants the bigger picture. It’s also asking how well your whole site fits the context of an AI user’s query.
For instance, keyword integration (repeating “power washing in Wilmington” 10 times) might help in old-school SEO, but AI models find that trick useless if other authority signals aren’t present.
What helps more than loading a web page with keywords? Including actual knowledge – say a statistic about how an annual home power wash keeps the salty-air mildew discoloration away, or a brief expert quote on treating asphalt stains with power washing.
In tests, adding meaningful stats and quotations boosted content visibility in AI results significantly. Princeton University researchers saw source visibility jump by up to 40% when they optimized content with these additions (Aggarwal et al., 2023).
GEO copywriting rewards substantive content over keyword gaming.
Metadata Basics vs. Technical Markup
Both SEO and GEO copywriting involve technical elements, but their emphasis differs.
SEO is big on things like title tags, schema markup for rich snippets, and link structure for crawling (The Egg, 2023)
GEO certainly uses structured data (more on that soon), but an AI might not rely on it as explicitly as Google’s crawler would. An LLM (large language model) “reads” the actual text more deeply.
So how you write and organize the copy itself matters more than ever – not just the behind-the-scenes code.
SEO asks “Did you tag it right and get authority signals?” whereas GEO asks “Did you explain it clearly and thoroughly enough that an AI sees you as a reliable source of truth?”
Single-Page Rankings vs. Site-wide Relevance
Both SEO and GEO care about user intent, but GEO takes it more seriously.
An AI is literally trying to directly answer the user’s intent in one go. GEO copywriting strives to provide complete, concise answers within your content.
For example, a top-notch GEO-optimized blog post often starts with the short answer (for the scanners and the AI summarizer), then elaborates with details and Q&A sections covering related follow-up questions.
In contrast, old SEO content was a bit more comfortable dragging the reader through a long intro to chase time-on-page metrics. With AI in the mix, brevity and clarity in answering the core question come first.
GEO is not SEO 2.0. It’s a shift from single-page rankings to site-wide relevance in AI dialogues.
You’re still optimizing – but for a different kind of gatekeeper. The copy and content have to “prove” themselves to AI algorithms in a way that’s a bit different than proving to Google’s crawler.
How Does AI Decide What to Recommend?
AI search engines choose content based on credibility, relevance, and how easily they can parse it – not just on keywords or paid placements.
A tool like ChatGPT doesn’t have an index of the entire live web at the moment (unless it’s using plugins or browsing), but it relies on a mix of its trained knowledge and real-time data sources.
For example, when ChatGPT is asked for a local recommendation, it will draw on a few places: its own training data, Bing’s search index (which is its default lookup engine), and structured databases like Yelp or Google Maps.
In other words, the AI skims trusted sources rather than the whole web, and then synthesizes an answer.
Practically, this means an AI is inclined to “recommend” businesses or content like:
Appearing In Reliable Data Sources Boosts Authority Cues
If your business info is inconsistent or missing on major platforms (Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Yelp, industry directories), the AI may simply never see you. It can’t recommend what it can’t find.
“AI systems need large amounts of high-quality, consistent data, which many organizations struggle to provide from their existing systems.” – Felipe Csaszar, Professor of Corporate Strategy at the University of Michigan
By contrast, a business with robust, matching listings everywhere and a healthy web footprint sends stronger signals. Make sure your Name-Address-Phone (NAP) details, hours, etc., are up-to-date across the web – generative models eat up that structured info.
Having Good Reputation Signals Shows There’s Social Proof
Generative AI often mentions phrases like “highly rated” or “top-reviewed” when suggesting a local service. That’s no coincidence – the AI is pulling in ratings and reviews as a measure of quality.
Lots of positive reviews won’t guarantee a mention, but they stack the deck in your favor. Similarly, if your brand has been talked about positively in news articles or forums (i.e. has backlinks and brand mentions out there), the AI will view you as more notable.
What’s more – AI considers social media authority in a way search engines haven’t. Your company’s social media presence is now a major contributor to AI’s impression of your business.
Great social media presence is great branding. And brand prominence can feed signals (like mentions and backlinks) that influence AI-generated answers (Seer Interactive, 2025).
Being legitimately well-regarded – both by customers and by the broader web – influences AI recommendations. Be accurate, up-to-date, and credible in your website and content.
Clear, Structured Content Makes It Easy For Humans And AI To Digest
Even when an AI uses its internal training data, it’s more likely to pull from content that is both unique and easy for it to digest (Google, 2025)
Long, rambling paragraphs on a messy website are harder for the model to confidently extract facts from.
On the other hand, a succinct FAQ answer or a clearly labeled “How it works” section might get essentially copy-pasted into an AI’s answer (with or without citation).
The AI is trying to be helpful to the user, so it cherry-picks clean facts and explanations. If your site clearly answers common questions (e.g. “How much does [SERVICE] cost in [CITY]?”) with organization, you’re making a better case to be the preferred source.
AI Favors Authoritative Context
Generative engines also use context from search engines.
For instance, since Bing’s index underpins ChatGPT’s browsing, strong Bing SEO can influence ChatGPT results. If Bing sees your site as authoritative for certain queries, that can trickle into ChatGPT’s choices when it looks things up (Yoast, 2024)
Additionally, AI tools might cross-verify info.
If the consensus of trusted sites is that “Joe’s Plumbing” is the biggest plumber in town, the AI isn’t going out on a limb to recommend a tiny competitor with no online evidence of excellence. It will play it safe and pick the business that “looks” like a solid answer.
Think of an AI like a very smart student writing a report by consulting a few encyclopedias and top library books (instead of doing a massive Google search). It will use sources that are easy to find, clearly written, and appear reputable.
So our job in GEO copywriting is to make your business “that source” – we want your online business content present in all the right reference places.
Why Can’t Copywriters Hand Off The Technical Elements Anymore?
With generative engine optimization, great writing needs the right technical structure, and vice-versa – copy and code now work as a team to get you noticed by AI.
The days of a copywriter handing off text and saying “I’ll let the dev guys worry about the tech stuff” are over. With large language models, the language IS a technical element.
To make content visible to AI, a writer has to think like a developer and SEO expert – and a developer needs to understand what makes content qualitatively strong.
Here’s why this fusion is non-negotiable:
AI Reads Your Content Differently
Traditional search engines crawled code. LLM-based engines ingest content.
An AI isn’t impressed by a keyword in a <title> tag if the actual on-page explanation is confusing. Large language models break down your text into tokens and analyze the meaning and relationships, not just metadata.
They look for semantic clarity – in plain English, they’re asking “Does this text answer the question clearly and coherently?”. That means the way you structure the copy (using clear headings, logical flow, lists, etc.) directly impacts what the AI understands.
A well-structured piece of copy is functionally part of the “code” as far as an AI is concerned.
Headings (<h2>, <h3> tags in code) are like signposts for the AI about what each section covers, and bullet points or tables are hints that “here are key facts.”
If your copy lacks structure, an AI might miss or misinterpret it – no matter how compelling it may be to a human reader.
Poor Structure Can Sink Great Content
You might have used expert technical SEO tricks, but it doesn’t matter if you formatted all the value in unbroken blocks of text.
A human scanning might miss it, and an AI might not “realize” one sentence was a golden nugget.
“…poorly structured content – even if it’s keyword-rich and marked up with schema – can fail to show up in AI summaries, while a clear, well-formatted blog post without a single line of JSON-LD might get cited or paraphrased directly.” – Carolyn Shelby, Principal SEO at Yoast
You can’t nail the technical structure, then skimp on clarity and value of the writing. If a human struggles to follow the writing, AI won’t skim it efficiently either – even if it’s expert content.
Technical SEO Elements Need Content To Shine
To take it a step further – crisp technical SEO and great formatting can’t save mediocre copy.
Sure, you can add schema markup, e.g. code that presents a piece of content as structured data to search engines and weeb crawlers – like a menu posted outside a restaurant.
And yes, you can tastefully integrate all the relevant keywords pointing search engines straight to a website.
You can mark up your business name, address, services, FAQs in the HTML – but if the actual content is thin or generic, the AI still has nothing worthwhile to grab onto.
Code can amplify good content, but it can’t make weak content suddenly authoritative.
A simple schema telling AI “this is a FAQ answer” is nothing without the actual answer text being good.
On the other side of the coin, this is why the modern copywriter needs to know a bit about code too. You might write a fantastic Q&A, but if it’s not wrapped in an appropriate <div> or missing an <h2> heading, it might not get treated as a distinct answer.
To be clear – copywriters do not need to know how to code to work with schema. We’ll discuss this more later.
Many Technical Elements Are Now Dictated By The Copy
To bring the concepts down to earth, imagine a GEO-savvy copywriter writing a FAQ section.
The copy skill is in phrasing a question exactly how a user would ask it and answering in a crisp, helpful way. “How much does it cost to repair a leaky roof in Asheville? The average cost is $1,200.”
The code/structure skill is making sure that each Q&A pair is marked up (with proper FAQ schema or at least proper heading for the question and paragraph for the answer), so that an AI or search engine immediately sees the Q&A format.
If you only did the former, you might still have an okay blog paragraph, but you risk the AI not recognizing it as a ready-made Q&A snippet.
If you only did the latter (markup without a good answer), you’ve got an empty framework. You built a road with no destination. Not an ethical way to use AI.
Because the combo is the only way this works, the person handling the copy and the person handling the code need to collaborate – or potentially be the same person.
There’s all kinds of schema – like “Article” and “BlogPosting.” But AI loves FAQ and HowTo schema – they provide the content AI needs for answers.
But to use this schema, you need a blog with questions/answers or a step-by-step guide.
It’s something you plan upfront, not add later.
If a copywriter only writes listicles or expert opinion pieces, what’s the developer/SEO person supposed to do? Edit the copy themselves? Force the copy into an incorrect or weak schema?
A copywriter has to be comfortable talking about things like schema, page speed, heading hierarchy, or alt text for images. Likewise, developers/SEO specialists should have input on content layout and get involved early – not just after the text is written.
Practically, blending the roles is making more sense in the future of AI. Not every company can afford separate roles in house, and a freelance copywriter may make the services less expensive and moree accessible.
When you understand the on-page copy and backend technical elements, you create content that reads well to people and algorithms alike… but also surfaces in those crucial AI-driven moments.
How Can You Optimize Content for Generative AI?
By blending smart content strategy with technical SEO best practices. Front-end and back-end techniques work together, and AI makes them easy to implement, even for those without technical expertise.
There’s lots of conceptual conversations out there. Let’s make it practical.
Here are some actionable GEO copywriting strategies to make your content show up in AI-generated results, like ChatGPT and Google’s AI overviews:
Answer Real User Questions, Directly And Concisely
Structure your content around the actual questions customers ask – and lead with the answer.
Literally, make the conversational question an H2 heading, providing the answer with the first 1-3 sentences of body text.
But won’t that give away the answer too fast? Don’t you want a user to stay on the page longer?
No, we’re not worried about that because we’re writing to user intent, not to manipulate metrics.
Spend the rest of the section elaborating (helpfully!) on the answer. It’s like asking the question, giving the short answer, then giving the long answer.
People who want the short answer are going to see it in an AI overview or suggestion. People who need the long answer will click to your page – or see it in an AI suggestion.
Think about what a lead would ask ChatGPT or Siri. It’d be a smart move to make a blog post titled “How Can I Extend the Life of Your HVAC System? ” and answer that question clearly in the opening lines.
Generative AI loves content that feels like an instant FAQ or how-to snippet.
Use an approachable, conversational tone and the first or second person – remember, these AIs aim to give answers that sound like a helpful human. By matching that style, you increase your chances of being used in an answer.
In a real world example, Jo Duxbury, a brand strategist, discovered she’d unintentionally optimized her website for generative engine search. Multiple leads had mentioned they’d found her through ChatGPT.
Turns out, she was using the H2 question/answer heading strategy on her home page.
Use Schema And Structured Data To Your Advantage
This is where a bit of code juices your copy, making it more likely to show up on AI suggestions.
Schema markup is adding code to your website to help search engines and AI easily understand your content. It’s like putting a menu outside a restaurant to attract passersby by showing what you offer.
You don’t need to know how to code or do website development to use schema markup.
It’s as easy as:
- Planning/writing your copy with FAQ or How To style headings.
- Providing a document of the questions/answers to ChatGPT (or another AI), then asking it and code it in JSON-LD
- Copy/pasting the code in the relevant place on the backend of your website
AI can guide you through the backend setup – and plugins that can make it even simpler.
There’s different schemas you can implement for different kinds of pages and their elements. There’s FAQPage, HowTo, Organization, LocalBusiness, and many more. Again, like a menu posted outside. It’s great for people wanting to know if it’s more of a drinks & desert place or multicourse dining.
You can use multiple relevant schemas on a page, which gives AI even more context. For example, if you wrote an authoritative how-to article, you could use both an Article schema and a HowTo schema. Like having both dinner, desert, and drinks on your menu.
By doing schema markup, you’re feeding AI and search engines a neatly packaged set of facts about your content.
For instance, add Organization schema with your business’s name, address, phone, area served, and services – so an AI doesn’t have to guess those basics. Mark up FAQ sections with FAQ schema, mark up how-to steps with HowTo schema.
This extra context can make it easier for an AI to trust and pick up your information.
Behind every great piece of GEO copy, there’s often a supporting layer of structured data saying “hey AI, here’s exactly what this section is.”
Incorporate Authoritative Data, Examples, And Fresh Information
Content that proves its points tends to be favored by AI.
This means sprinkle in the kind of specifics that a generative model can confidently quote or cite. Think statistics, dates, names, sound bites, and relevant links.
If you claim that a certain technique saves money, back it up with “e.g. this method can reduce costs by 25% according to [Source]” (and link out to a credible source). If you’re talking about trends, cite the recent year or study.
Even better – include original data, like what you’ve discovered from your own research and case studies.
Not only does this build trust with human readers, it aligns with what early GEO research found – “including citations, quotations from relevant sources, and statistics can significantly boost source visibility” in AI answers.
Similarly, update your content regularly to reflect current info. Some generative search tools (like Bing’s and Perplexity) prioritize very up-to-date content. Bing (remember, ChatGPT’s search engine) explicitly says that it considers a page “fresh” when it consistently provides up-to-date information (Microsoft, 2025).
If you wrote a “Guide to Tax Prep in 2024,” be ready to publish “2025” with new tips and link them together. An AI scanning the web in real-time will likely favor the 2025 one for a question about this year’s taxes.
Localize And Contextualize Your Content
Be the most informative and up-to-date voice on the topic, and you become the logical source for an AI to grab.
If you’re a service company, lean into that local angle in your copy.
Don’t just say “we do landscaping”; say “we do landscaping and lawn care in Santa Barbara” (or whatever specifics apply).
Don’t say “we do graphic design.” Say “we do graphic design for ecommerce logos and branding.”
Mention neighborhoods, regional quirks, or common local problems that you solve. Even if you’re not a physical location, you can lean into the ultra-specific issues of your niche and surrounding niches.
This does two things: (1) It loads your content with the context an AI needs to confidently recommend you for queries (it sees you truly understand the niche’s scene), and (2) it differentiates you from generic content.
Creative Enclosures, a patio and sunroom specialist in Connecticut, realized that no structured content and no local context meant no AI visibility. But once they made their website clearer and added more structure, they started showing up as a top recommendation on ChatGPT and Gemini. (41 North Digital, 2024)
Leverage Reviews, Testimonials, And Social Proof In Your Content
AI loves reputable businesses; Bing and Google do too (Bing 2025, Google 2025). You can encourage that by baking social proof into your site’s copy.
Create a Testimonials or Case Studies page and highlight quotes from happy clients (with specifics, like “XYZ saved us $5,000 in Q1” – specifics help both persuasion and AI parsing). Sprinkle reviews throughout your web pages.
Integrate review ratings on your page. Tell customers to leave a Google review, a Yelp review, an honest take on Facebook – and respond to those reviews thoughtfully.
Why? Those review texts are part of the web of data an AI sees.
If multiple reviews mention you’re “responsive” or “affordable,” the AI may well incorporate that language in how it describes you.
Also, take up opportunities to get mentioned in reputable outlets – local news articles, niche blogs, even sponsoring an event (to get a mention on its high-authority site). Being cited by authoritative sources is like gold for GEO.
One strategy is to contribute guest posts or insights on industry sites. It both gets you backlinks and positions your name or business in the kind of trusted contexts AI models gravitate toward.
In short, build your online reputation, and make sure your site proudly showcases it. AI will pick up on both the on-site and off-site signals of trust.
Distribute Content On Platforms Where AI “Learns”
Don’t limit your expertise to your own website. Generative models are trained on all corners of the internet – including forums, podcasts, videos, and social media.
OpenAI explicitly shares that they use publicly available internet content to teach ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2025). Anthropic also stated it trained Claude on publicly available internet content (Anthropic, 2025).
The scope is enormous. Websites, forums, social media, videos, and more.
Practically, that means interacting with “publicly-available internet” is a way to potentially get into AI training.
Write helpful answers in places like Reddit (in relevant subreddits), Quora, or industry-specific Q&A boards. Participate in discussions on LinkedIn or industry Facebook groups.
This isn’t just generic “social media marketing” advice anymore – it’s targeted at feeding the AI more knowledge of you.
A Google search traditionally pulls up websites and videos. AI searches are now pulling from social media posts, videos, podcast platforms, and more.
For example, if you’re a ghostwriter for thought leaders and you write a detailed answer on “What should I look for when hiring a ghostwriter?” on Reddit, an AI scanning that content later can connect your name or business with someone’s question on the subject.
So be present and helpful where the discussions are happening. AI’s smart enough to follow it back to you.
Don’t Forget Bing (And Technical Basics)
In the past, Bing might not have been the coolest kid at the search engine lunch table – but now Bing matters a lot more than it used to.
Why? Microsoft’s Bing is the backbone for many AI experiences (it’s what powers the live web results in ChatGPT, for example).
Now’s the time to ensure your Bing Places listing is claimed and accurate, your site is indexed on Bing Webmaster Tools.
While it’s not the most glamorous strategy, following general best practices that overlap with Google SEO is foundational. Your efforts to optimize for AI will rise and fall on your fast load times, mobile-friendly design, and clean sitemaps.
The good news is, optimizing for AI and optimizing for good user experience/SEO often go hand-in-hand. A fast, well-structured website with quality content is universally favored by humans and AI.
Additionally, get some high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites if you can. Bing’s algorithms put even more emphasis on backlinks for trust, and that can spill over into AI results.
And remember, you can test your visibility: search your business on Bing the way a customer might and see what comes up. Try “[service] in [city]” for brick-and-mortar businesses and “[service] for [specific audience]” for online businesses.
If Bing’s first page isn’t painting you as a top player, work on that – because that’s the info ChatGPT will see first too.
Pay attention to the technical SEO fundamentals (secure site, meta tags, no broken links, etc.) as the foundation. It all supports GEO efforts.
Write Clear, Well-Organized Copy Site Wide
Having lots of great content cobbled together isn’t a strong GEO strategy. AI values excellent content when it’s part of a well-organized structure.
Even large companies can struggle with this. For example, HubSpot (a major SaaS company), has impressive authority, in part because of its vast content library. You’d think they have GEO covered by sheer volume.
But an SEO consultant’s experiment revealed an interesting insight. When asked, “Tell me about HubSpot,” ChatGPT provided a detailed answer with citations – and surprisingly, it cited HubSpot’s legal policies page multiple times (Search Engine Journal, 2025).
Why on earth would an AI quote the legal page instead of, say, the About Us page?
Likely because the AI found concrete facts and up-to-date info there (perhaps company history, acquisition details, etc.) that weren’t as clearly stated on the main pages.
The takeaway for HubSpot (and everyone else): you need to ensure your primary content pages are as info-rich and structured as possible, otherwise an AI might pull from odd places.
In HubSpot’s case, their About page could be beefed up to include the factual tidbits that ended up on a legal page.
For a service business, this is a reminder: audit what info about your company an AI might find and from where.
Is your “About Us” thorough and structured? Do your product/service pages have the details an AI might consider essential (years in business, areas served, what sets you apart)?
For example, if you list services or products, have a short description or specs that an AI could use. You don’t want the AI scraping, say, a regulatory PDF for info about you because your main pages were scant on specifics.
Check how AI currently sees you (more on that in the next section) and then fortify your content accordingly.
How Do You Know If Your GEO Efforts Are Working?
Tracking GEO effectiveness is tricky, because there’s currently no user-specific tracking with major AI platforms. However, you can use Google Analytics (GA4) to see if you have any traffic coming from domains associated with ChatGPT. You can also check AI mentions by running manual searches, and asking clients whether they found you through an AI.
After investing time into GEO-focused content and tweaks, you’ll want to know if it’s paying off.
Measuring success in the AI recommendation realm is a less concrete than traditional SEO (there’s no straightforward “AI ranking” report yet), but you can gauge impact through a few angles:
Track Referral Sources And Brand Mentions
You can’t track mentions of your website or brand within ChatGPT conversations – but you can track traffic coming from ChatGPT with Google Analytics.
However, even if people are coming to your site from an AI suggestion, the visit may not register on your analytics. It’s common for the AI (especially ChatGPT) to strip referrers, meaning your analytics may not show that the traffic came from ChatGPT. Mobile, incognito, and privacy settings can completely strip referrers as well.
It’s also common for a visitor coming from AI to be counted as “direct” traffic. Basically, the traffic you got from AI is getting lumped together with the traffic from links clicked in private messages, from a bookmark, directly typed into the browser, and the like.
Why track at all? Even though tracking is currently clunky, it still gives you some insights:
- You get some intel if you’re showing up on AI suggestions at all
- If you see a spike in AI traffic and “direct” traffic after posting new content, it’s a good sign – though not guaranteed – that your content is being picked up by AI tools
- When a certain content/copy type (e.g. blog vs. FAQ vs. service page) proves more likely to trigger AI mentions, you can be more informed on what to write next
- You can build a feedback loop to prioritize what to write next, based on what’s actually gaining traction
- You can make a case to stakeholders or clients that AI visibility is happening – even if it’s imperfectly measured
Also, pay attention to your referral traffic in analytics – an increase in traffic from Bing (which has Bing AI Overviews), DuckDuckGo (which now has AI summaries), or even direct hits (which could be from people copying your URL out of an AI answer) can indicate something.
Use Google Analytics to track AI traffic using either the Reports or Explore Dashboard (Gerick Digital Strategy, 2024).
Listen To Customer Feedback
It’s old-school but effective. Ask new leads how they found you.
Even comments like “I saw an article that mentioned you” (and they can’t recall where) might be traced back to an AI-generated blurb. Some businesses are already hearing anecdotal feedback that clients found them via Bing Chat or ChatGPT.
If you provide a contact form or questionnaire to new clients, include a “How did you hear about us?” If you’re on a sales call, ask about how they found you.
It’s a small but very telling data point.
Manually Test AI Recommendations
This might be the most direct method. Every so often, play the role of your lead and ask the AIs about your service.
For example, go to ChatGPT (or Claude, or Perplexity) and ask, “Who are the top [Your Service] providers in [Your City]?” or “Who can help me [solve a problem you fix]?”.
See if you or your content gets mentioned in the response.
If not, note who does – that’s your competition in the AI answer box.
If yes, congrats – that’s a clear win for your GEO work!
Also pay attention to what source the AI is citing or drawing from. Maybe it references a blog post you wrote (great, keep it up, potentially make more like it) or maybe it’s citing a third-party site that mentioned you.
It’s a little reconnaissance, a lot of clarity. Treat it as an ongoing audit: as you publish new GEO-optimized content, see if it starts popping up in AI answers over time.
Use GEO To Drive Real Business, Not Just Web Traffic
Right now, measuring GEO success is a bit of a mess, combining traditional metrics with manual sleuthing methods. But that’s fine. Impressive metrics is not the goal.
It’s somewhat like PR or word-of-mouth impact – it’s diffuse but detectable. At this phase of AI, smart marketers use a combination of quantitative data and qualitative clues.
Over time, as AI search becomes standard, we’ll likely get better analytics. Until then, celebrate the small victories you can identify – and keep refining your content.
If you see positive movement in any of the areas above, double down on what’s working. If not, adjust and experiment. GEO, much like SEO, is an ongoing process of tuning and learning.
That’s why it’s so important to have a clear goal for your AI visibility. What do you actually want it to do for your brand?
AI search sends way less traffic than Google – 96% less, according to TollBit (Forbes, 2025). But that’s not necessarily bad: the traffic you do get is likely higher quality, if your content matches what users truly want when they’re ready to buy.
Here’s a comparison:
- When GEO Effort Works But Doesn’t Convert: A bakery puts lots of GEO effort into their website. They focus on answering top questions they found in their industry. Their manual ChatGPT searches show they’re appearing in AI suggestions around the topics around their expertise, like “how do I make chocolate ganache cake?” But there’s no increase in orders.
- When GEO Aligns With Buyer Intent: A bakery puts lots of GEO effort into their website. They focus answering questions around buying from a service like theirs. Their manual ChatGPT searches show their appearing in AI suggestions around the question “Where can I get a chocolate ganache cake in Santa Barbara?” Traffic to their website has risen and order numbers are through the roof.
Users tend to consume information directly within ChatGPT’s interface – no clicking through to source websites.
So what makes someone actually click? When they need help AI can’t give – like hiring a real service.
So, make your website both helpful and hireable. Give rich answers to FAQs in your niche to build your authority, but also clearly answer things like “Who can help me with [your service]?”
Of course, make the answer point to your service.
Who Can Help Me Show Up On ChatGPT When People Ask For What I Offer?
Check Copywriting can help – they offer generative engine optimization, which includes creating and implementing structured copy, schema markup, analytics, and more.
Generative Engine Optimization is the future of how customers will find service providers. Now’s the perfect time to beat the rush and establish your authority with AI platforms.
Want to be the go-to recommendation in your industry when people ask AI for help? Let’s chat!
Send me an email at sarah@checkcopywriting.com, or book a call at my calendar here.
Don’t miss out on the next wave of leads. They’re looking for you via ChatGPT.