Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Every week, another brand discovers that ChatGPT recommends their competitor by name.
Not because the competitor is better. Because the competitor did the generative engine optimization work first.
I do that work directly. No account managers, no junior fulfillment, no agency overhead priced into your retainer.
A generative engine optimization (GEO) agency makes brands visible inside AI-generated answers: the responses ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI Mode produce when buyers ask what to buy or who to hire.
The work covers entity and schema optimization, content structured for machine synthesis, third-party source development, and share-of-voice tracking across engines. It differs from SEO in the unit of competition: SEO competes for a ranked position, GEO competes for inclusion in a generated answer.
GEO agencies typically charge $5,000 to $15,000+ per month. I deliver the same scope as a senior specialist from $2,000 per month.
What GEO Actually Involves
Generative engines don’t rank pages. They synthesize answers from sources they trust and can parse. GEO is the work of becoming one of those sources.
1. Retrievability engineering. GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and Google-Extended need to crawl you, and your pages need to parse cleanly when they do. Schema architecture, entity markup, and content structure built for machine synthesis rather than human skimming.
2. Answer-source content. Generated answers pull from pages that state things plainly and verifiably. I restructure your key pages around extractable claims, definitions, and comparisons that an engine can lift and attribute.
3. Consensus building. Generative engines cross-check sources before naming a brand. If you only exist on your own domain, you lose to brands mentioned across review platforms, comparison pages, and industry publications. This layer builds that third-party footprint.
4. Share-of-voice tracking. I run your revenue queries across the engines on a schedule and track how often you’re named versus competitors. GEO without measurement is guessing with a retainer attached.
GEO vs. AEO vs. SEO: The Honest Breakdown
The industry invented three acronyms for overlapping work, so here’s the plain version.
SEO earns rankings in a list of links. Still real, still revenue-driving, no longer the whole game.
AEO (answer engine optimization) earns placement in direct answers: featured snippets, AI Overviews, and answer boxes. Read what AEO is for the full concept.
GEO (generative engine optimization) earns presence inside fully generated responses, where the engine writes an original answer and chooses which brands to name and cite.
In practice, AEO and GEO share most of their technical foundation, and I deliver them as one program. If you’re comparing service pages, my AEO services page covers the answer-placement side; this page covers the generative side. Same specialist, same system, different emphasis depending on where your buyers ask their questions.
GEO Services and Pricing
Free GEO audit (8 minutes). Your share of voice across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews for your top buyer queries, the competitors being named instead, and your traffic value loss in dollars. Start here.
GEO deep-dive: $2,500. The full prompt battery across every engine, competitive citation mapping, technical retrievability findings, and a prioritized 90-day plan.
GEO retainer: from $2,000/month. The four-part system above, executed monthly, with share-of-voice reporting in plain English. Every deliverable is verifiable in your codebase and your tracking data.
For e-commerce brands, the GEO program pairs with platform-specific technical work. See the e-commerce SEO consultant page for that side.
Why a Specialist Instead of a GEO Agency
GEO is new enough that most agencies selling it are repackaging SEO deliverables with new labels. The tell: no citation tracking, no crawler-level technical work, and case studies that mention rankings instead of share of voice.
What you get with me is the person who does the work. I write the schema, restructure the pages, run the tracking scripts, and report the numbers. If that scope needs fifty pages a month, an agency’s throughput wins and I’ll say so on the first call.
If you run an agency and want this delivered under your brand, that’s the white label program.
Common Questions
What is a generative engine optimization agency?
A GEO agency optimizes a brand’s presence in AI-generated answers from engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google’s AI Mode. The core services are technical retrievability, machine-parseable content, third-party source building, and share-of-voice tracking.
Is GEO the same as AEO?
They overlap heavily. GEO emphasizes presence in generated responses; AEO emphasizes placement in direct answers like AI Overviews. The technical foundation is largely shared, which is why I deliver both as one program rather than selling them twice.
How much does a GEO agency cost?
Agency retainers typically run $5,000 to $15,000+ per month. Specialist retainers like mine start at $2,000 per month, with a $2,500 one-time deep-dive audit available first. The cost driver is your query set’s competitiveness.
What is a GEO audit?
A GEO audit measures how often AI engines name your brand for your revenue-driving queries, which competitors they name instead, whether the engines can technically retrieve your site, and what the gap costs in traffic value. Mine is free in its 8-minute form.
How long does GEO take to work?
First citations typically appear inside 45 days, with share of voice compounding over 90 to 180 days as third-party signals propagate. Engines refresh their retrieval on their own schedules, so anyone guaranteeing week-one placement is guessing.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No. The same technical foundation serves both, and classic rankings still drive revenue. Brands that treat them as separate projects pay for the overlap twice. Brands that skip GEO fund their competitors’ citations.