When the basics are implemented
Good GEO hygiene gives large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude more reason to reference your brand when answering the questions your audience is asking.
It's the unglamourous groundwork every brand needs in place to earn a citation, and could be the difference between being the source an LLM reaches for and being invisible to it.
No overhaul required, just the basics done properly
Here are the quick wins:
LLMs look for clear, direct answers to customer queries that they can easily read and repeat back in their own responses. Users tend to search in longer, more colloquial phrases when talking to an LLM than when typing into a search bar, so having these kinds of questions clearly laid out on your site, and answered simply, is a sensible way to boost your chances of being cited for the searches that matter to your business.
Schema markup gives AI crawlers an explicit, unambiguous description of what's on your page and who you are. It removes the guesswork for machines trying to parse your content, making it far easier for them to lift accurate information, including prices, availability and answers, straight into their responses.
Content hidden inside PDFs, images or heavy client-side JavaScript often won't be picked up by LLMs at all, many AI crawlers still struggle to render JavaScript the way a browser does. Keep your most important information as plain, server-rendered HTML text so it can easily be crawled, read and reused.
Structure pages so the most useful answer appears near the top, in plain language, before the supporting detail. Short paragraphs, descriptive subheadings and the occasional summary or "key takeaways" box make it far easier for an LLM to extract a clean, quotable answer rather than piecing one together from paragraphs of context.
None of the above matters if AI bots can't access your site in the first place. Check your robots.txt allows crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended, and consider publishing an llms.txt file to point AI systems towards your most important, citation-ready content.
LLMs don't only look at your website, they draw on how your brand is discussed across the wider web. Both linked and unlinked mentions on credible third-party sites matter (unlinked mentions appear to carry real weight with AI systems), so digital PR and earned coverage are as relevant to GEO as they are to traditional SEO.
Clear authorship, visible credentials and honest About pages help both LLMs and the humans reading their answers judge whether your content can be trusted. Cite your sources, name the people behind your content, and make it obvious why you're qualified to answer the question.
Forums, review sites and community platforms, think Reddit, YouTube, Wikipedia and Trustpilot, carry real weight with generative engines, which lean on them heavily as sources. An active, well-maintained presence on the platforms relevant to your industry is fast becoming part of GEO hygiene rather than a nice-to-have.
Content containing original research, clear statistics and quotable lines is notably more likely to be surfaced in AI answers than content without them. If you have proprietary data or a genuine expert opinion, say so clearly and make it easy to lift.
AI tools favour the most up-to-date information available, so stale content is a liability. Refresh key pages regularly, keep dates visible, and, just as importantly, start monitoring how AI platforms describe your brand today, so you can see what's working and where the gaps still are.
Put your brand in the best possible position
GEO is still young, and the platforms behind it are evolving fast, but the fundamentals above won't go out of date any time soon. Get this hygiene right, and you put your brand in the best possible position to be picked up, and cited positively, as more customers turn to AI to find the answers they need.
GEO analysis of your site
If you're interested in identifying pain points we can evaluate your performance in AI search with our tooling system and provide recommendations on how to improve and optimise performance.
