Generative Engine Optimization: how to get your brand cited by AI.

For two decades, being found online meant ranking on Google. That is changing fast. A growing share of people now put their question to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google’s own AI overviews — and act on a single synthesised answer rather than a page of blue links. If your brand is not part of that answer, you are invisible to that buyer, no matter how well you rank in the classic results.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the discipline of making your brand visible and cited inside those AI-generated answers. It is the natural successor to SEO, and the brands that take it seriously now will own a position that is far harder to displace later.

How GEO differs from SEO

SEO optimises for a ranking: ten links, and you fight for the top three. GEO optimises for a citation: the model reads many sources, forms one answer, and decides which brands to name and link. You are not competing for a position on a page — you are competing to be considered a trustworthy, quotable source on a topic.

That changes what matters. Keyword density and backlinks still help indirectly, but the model rewards something closer to genuine authority: clear, factual, well-structured content that directly answers real questions, and a consistent, recognisable presence across the web.

What actually moves the needle

• Answer real questions directly. Models lift the sentences that most cleanly answer a query. Lead with the answer, then explain — the inverted-pyramid style journalists use.
• Structure for machines. Clean headings, short self-contained paragraphs, and schema markup (FAQ, Article, Organization) make your content easy to parse and quote.
• Be specific and factual. Concrete numbers, definitions, and named entities are more citable than vague marketing language. Models avoid quoting fluff.
• Build topical depth. One thin page rarely gets cited. A cluster of genuinely useful content on a theme signals that you are a source worth trusting.
• Show up off-site too. Models are trained on the open web. Mentions in credible third-party places — directories, interviews, reputable communities — reinforce that your brand is real and relevant.
• Let the crawlers in. If your robots file blocks AI crawlers, you opt out of being cited. Allow them, and publish a clean sitemap.

Why now

GEO today looks a lot like SEO did in its early years: the rules are still loose, the competition is thin, and a focused effort goes a long way. The brands that establish themselves as the cited answer in their category — before everyone else catches on — will be the default recommendation when a buyer asks an AI which company to choose.

How FIB approaches it

We treat GEO and SEO as one system rather than two projects. That means the technical foundations, content built around the questions your buyers actually ask, structured data, and the topical depth that makes you a source models trust — measured against whether your brand actually shows up in the answers that matter. If you want to be the name an AI recommends in your market, get in touch.