Generative engine optimization (GEO) means building your website so that AI search tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews use your business as a source or name it in their answers. The goal is no longer only the top spot in a list of links, but a place inside a ready-made answer. This article explains how that works, what can actually be proven and what you can do in practice as a business in Dortmund or the Ruhr area.
What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?
Classic SEO aims to place your pages high in the list of results. Visitors then decide for themselves which result to click. With AI search, a language model reads several sources, writes an answer from them and, depending on the service, names the pages it used. The user sees the answer first and the sources only afterwards, if at all.
GEO does not replace SEO. The foundation is the same: a page that a search engine cannot read is just as useless to an AI search tool. What is new is the demand on the content itself. It has to be so clear and unambiguous that individual statements can be lifted out and cited.
| Classic SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | A place in the results list | A mention or citation in the AI answer |
| Metric | Position, clicks | Is the business named, is the page cited |
| What matters | Technology, content, links | Clear statements, unambiguous facts, easy to find |
| Common foundation | A readable, fast, clean page | A readable, fast, clean page |
GEO or SEO: do you have to choose?
No. "GEO instead of SEO" is a slogan, not a work plan. In its documentation on AI features, Google says that appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode needs no additional requirements or special optimisation, and that the familiar SEO fundamentals still apply. So if your website is easy to read, fast and helpful, you already have the foundation for both.
The difference lies in where you put your attention. With SEO you check positions and clicks. With GEO you ask: is my business named in the answer, and which sources appear there instead? If your pages are hard to find on Google so far, the SEO foundation comes first. If they rank well but are missing from AI answers, it pays to look at clear facts, structured data and listings outside your own website.
How do ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews choose their sources?
The providers do not disclose their exact methods, and those methods change. What is documented:
- AI search tools rely on a search index. ChatGPT Search uses its own crawler called OAI-SearchBot, Perplexity uses PerplexityBot. Google AI Overviews are based on the regular Google index.
- If you block these crawlers in your
robots.txt, you will not appear as a source in the respective answers. - The pages that get cited are the ones that answer a question directly. Long introductions, filler phrases and buried information do not help.
What else is weighed beyond that is not publicly documented. That is why there are no serious promises along the lines of "guaranteed to appear in ChatGPT". What you can do is create the right conditions and measure the effect.
What can you do on your website?
Answer questions directly and briefly
Phrase your subheadings as real customer questions ("How much does a website cost?", "How long does the project take?") and answer them in the first sentence underneath. The details follow after that. This lets an AI pick up the core of the answer, and a human reader finds it straight away as well.
State facts clearly
Who are you, what do you offer, where do you work, what does it cost and from what amount, how does a project run? This information belongs on the page as normal text, not only in images or PDF files. Avoid vague phrases such as "fair prices" or "tailored solutions" that say nothing at all.
Add structured data
With Schema.org markup (for example for your organisation, services, FAQ or articles) you describe your content in a machine-readable way. It does not guarantee citations, but it removes any doubt about what is on the page. The local side of the topic is covered in the article Local SEO in Dortmund.
Allow AI crawlers
Check your robots.txt. Some site builders and security plugins block AI crawlers across the board. Make a deliberate decision: model training (for example GPTBot) and search (for example OAI-SearchBot) run under separate user agents. If you want to be named in AI answers, you have to let the search crawlers in.
Offer an llms.txt
The llms.txt file is a proposal for giving AI systems a short, readable summary of a website. It is not a binding standard, and the providers do not confirm that they read it. The effort is small and it cannot hurt, but you should not count on an effect.
Be visible beyond your own website
AI answers do not rely on your company website alone. A complete Google Business Profile, listings in reputable industry directories, mentions in regional media and genuine reviews make sure the same things are said about your business in several places. Consistent details for name, address and services matter more than the number of listings.
How do you measure whether GEO is working?
This is the uncomfortable part: there is no Search Console for ChatGPT. A simple approach works well in practice:
- Pick five to ten questions your customers would realistically ask, such as "Which web designers are there in Dortmund?" or "Who can build me a customer portal?".
- Ask these questions regularly, for example once a month, in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and note whether your business is named and which sources appear instead.
- Check your analytics to see whether visitors arrive from AI services.
- Compare after three to six months. Individual answers vary from day to day; what tells you something is the trend over several weeks.
Specialised tools can run these queries for you and keep a record of the results. For a local business, a list kept by hand is enough to start with.
Is GEO worth it for small businesses?
For local service providers, tradespeople and medical practices, demand through AI search is still smaller today than through Google. The measures, however, overlap almost entirely with good SEO: clear copy, clean technology, complete company details. So you are not building two things, you are doing one thing more thoroughly. What would not be worth it is paying for promises like "number one in ChatGPT". Nobody can keep them.
Help with generative engine optimization
KSTAQ builds websites in Dortmund so that the technical foundation for search and AI search is right from the start: readable code, structured data, an llms.txt and search crawlers that are allowed in. The SEO and GEO page lists what ongoing care includes. The SEO plan costs €299 a month and can be cancelled monthly. If you want to know whether your business appears in AI answers today and what is missing, send a no-obligation enquiry.
Sources
- GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, Aggarwal et al., arXiv, 16 November 2023
- Overview of OpenAI Crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot), OpenAI
- Perplexity Crawlers (PerplexityBot), Perplexity
- AI features and your website, Google Search Central
- Intro to How Structured Data Markup Works, Google Search Central
- Robots.txt Introduction and Guide, Google Search Central
- The /llms.txt file, Jeremy Howard, 3 September 2024