GEO: how to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity

‘What’s the best fondue restaurant in Geneva?’, ‘Which estate agency should I use to sell in Lausanne?’, ‘A reliable electrician in Nyon?’ Your customers are increasingly asking these questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews. The answer doesn’t list ten links: it names a few businesses. If yours isn’t one of them, you don’t exist for that user.

GEO, short for Generative Engine Optimization, brings together the techniques that increase your chances of being cited by these generative engines. It is the natural extension of SEO.

SEO and GEO: what’s the difference?

SEO aims to rank your pages in Google’s results. GEO aims to get your business mentioned, described accurately and recommended in AI-generated answers. Both share a common foundation (a clear, reliable, well-structured website), but GEO gives more weight to your overall online reputation and the factual clarity of your information.

How do AI tools choose whom to cite?

Assistants combine what they learned during training with, increasingly, real-time web searches. They favour sources that describe a business clearly, information confirmed by several independent sources (website, Google profile, directories, press, reviews) and content that directly answers the question asked. Nobody fully controls these answers, but you can significantly improve your chances.

1. Make your business ‘understandable’ in one sentence

Who are you, what do you do, for whom and where? This information should appear clearly on your home page and your About page, worded the same way everywhere. An AI tool that reads ‘seasonal bistro in Carouge, open Tuesday to Saturday evenings’ knows exactly when to recommend you.

2. Consistent information across the web

Name, address, phone number, opening hours, services: the same information must appear on your website, your Google Business Profile, local.ch, search.ch, your social media and industry directories. Contradictions make AI tools cautious, and a cautious AI doesn’t cite you.

3. Content that answers real questions

AI tools readily reuse clear, factual answers. Create pages and FAQs that answer your customers’ questions: indicative prices, lead times, areas covered, specialities, terms. Structure them with explicit headings, lists and short paragraphs. Good GEO content is also good content for your visitors.

4. Structured data

Schema.org markup (LocalBusiness, Restaurant, Hotel, RealEstateAgent, FAQPage, Service…) describes your business in a machine-readable format. It doesn’t guarantee a citation, but it reduces the risk of misinterpretation and strengthens the consistency of your information.

5. Reviews and external mentions

When several independent sources speak well of you (Google reviews, guides, local press, blogs, partners), AI tools gain confidence. Encourage reviews, nurture your local press relations and get listed in the relevant directories and rankings for your industry.

6. A technically accessible website

Some AI crawlers don’t read content loaded in JavaScript or hidden in PDFs well. Make sure your important copy is in HTML, that your website is fast and that your robots.txt file doesn’t accidentally block the AI crawlers you want to let in. An llms.txt file, an emerging standard, can also be added, without expecting miracles.

How do you measure your visibility in AI tools?

There is no ‘Search Console’ for AI yet. In practice, we combine three methods: regularly testing a list of typical questions in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and noting whether you are cited; tracking visits from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai or gemini.google.com in Google Analytics; and asking new customers how they found you.

Frequently asked questions

Does GEO replace SEO?

No, it complements it. A website that ranks well on Google already has a strong foundation for AI tools, which often rely on search engine results.

Can you pay to appear in ChatGPT?

The organic answers of AI assistants can’t be bought. Visibility is built through the quality, consistency and reputation of your information.

Is GEO useful for a small local business?

Yes, especially so: on precise local questions, competition is low and a well-described SME can be cited quickly.

Get your business ready for AI search

360 Web Agency helps businesses in French-speaking Switzerland with their visibility in AI search, alongside SEO. Contact us to find out how AI tools talk about you today.