What Is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)? 2025 Guide

Your website might be crawling, but is it getting the bots talking?

As of 2025, 71% of Americans use AI to search for information online. And while search engines like Google are still go-to channels for most, AI platforms are quickly gaining ground. 

That doesn’t spell out gloom and doom for your optimization efforts. It does, however, spell out G.E.O. (generative engine optimization) and a new approach to gaining content and brand visibility. Even better news: You can optimize your content for AI platforms, too—though it works quite a bit differently than SEO. 

GEO is the emerging practice of structuring content so that AI-driven engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Bing cite, summarize, or link to your brand in their responses.

In short: If you’re not part of the answer, you’re disqualified from the buyer’s journey.

In this guide, we walk you through why GEO is so important, how it differs from SEO, and how to start optimizing your content for AI platforms. If you’re ready to get bots boasting about your brand, read on.

Why GEO matters right now (and will matter in the future)

GEO is becoming increasingly important because a growing number of searchers are using AI platforms to find answers and products online, rather than via traditional search engines.

AI platforms already drive 6.5% of organic traffic and are projected to hit 14.5% within the next year. At first glance, that might not seem like much, yet generative engines have entered the top traffic drivers to sites in both the US and Europe.

Google still dominates the share—no surprise there.

But, what’s interesting is the demographics of searchers using AI. Generative models mainly attract younger users, such as Millennials and Zoomers, who often skip search engines entirely.

 It’s no longer enough to optimize for search engines. You now need to optimize for answer engines. 

And while many of these fresh new searchers may not fall into your ICP today, they certainly will tomorrow. If you’re not showing up in AI-generated answers, you’re not on future buyers’ radars—let alone their journeys. 

How GEO differs from SEO

GEO differs from SEO because it earns you brand references rather than traditional rankings. 

Instead of Google crawling your website, your content becomes training material for AI models to provide precise and helpful answers. Do GEO right, and your brand will become an indispensable part of that answer. Bots will reference your business’s content via source links or even namedrop you as part of their response to user queries.

In short: While SEO optimizes your visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs), GEO ensures you’re visible in AI-generated outputs—summaries, citations, and top recommendations in popular AI chatbots. 

Aspect	Traditional SEO	Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Discovery	Search > Click	Ask > Answer
Content Focus	Keywords	Topics + Entities
Structure	HTML optimization	Structured data, TL;DRs, semantic markup
Trust Signals	Backlinks	Author credibility, named mentions
Measurement	Traffic, rankings	Citations, AI visibility

For SEO (and soon to be GEO) specialists and content marketers, here are the most important differences to consider: 

• Keywords vs. Context: SEO focuses on exact-match keywords. GEO emphasizes semantic richness—entity mentions, contextually related terms, and question-answer structures.
• Backlinks vs. Bio Credibility: Traditional SEO loves backlinks. GEO engines prioritize who wrote the content and whether they’re a credible expert.
• Crawlable HTML vs. Machine-Readable Schema: HTML tags matter in SEO. But for GEO, it’s all about structured data—schema types that clearly signal content purpose to AI.
• Pageviews vs. Prominence: You can rank #1 and get 50% of clicks. In GEO, being mentioned once in a top AI answer is more valuable than a dozen uncited impressions.

Why GEO is the next big step for brand discoverability  

Younger generations aren’t the only ones using AI to search for answers. CMOs, product leaders, and technical evaluators are also asking generative platforms hyper-specific, contextual, and nuanced questions like: 

“What’s the best GDPR-compliant payroll system for European startups?”

Note that the answers you gain from questions like these would usually come from thought-leadership articles ranking on the first page. As such, the AI discovery shift is especially urgent for tech brands across verticals.

If your site doesn’t appear in the answer, you miss out on potential leads.  That’s why GEO visibility is your ticket into AI-native consideration funnels.

The following discovery cases are where GEO can win you brand discoverability :

• High-intent: Users aren’t browsing—they’re problem-solving
• Zero-click: The answer might be served without a traditional visit to search engines
• Trust-driven: Cited brands earn baked-in credibility

Once you’re cited by an LLM, your presence compounds. But if you’re not optimized from the start, your visibility fades.

6 Best practices to optimize for SEO

AI engines don’t index like Google. They interpret. In a nutshell, aim to make your content:

• Quotable
• Structured
• Credible

Here are the six best practices to do exactly that. 

1. Keep Content nuanced, fresh, and entity-rich

Searchers aren’t taking to LLMs for general and broad information. Instead, they ask specific questions that would take considerable time and effort to research in the SERPS. If you want AI platforms to cite you, you’ll need to get granular and double down on the details: 

• Use specific vertical terms: “Email deliverability for fintech,” not just “email tools”
• Add visible last-updated dates: This shows platforms that your insights and industry knowledge are still valid
• Refresh quarterly: Including stats, screenshots, and infographics. 

2. Add structured Data

Structured data makes it easy for LLMs to both understand and cite your content in the form of precise responses. AI platforms rely on clear, structured metadata to fully grasp what you’re writing about and easily turn free-flowing narratives into bite-sized answers. 

The best ways to ensure this include: 

• Implement schema: Such as FAQs, how-Tos  products,  and authors
• Use server-side rendering (SSR): A technique in which your web server produces the final HTML for each page request and sends that pre-rendered markup to the browser. Validate with Google’s Rich Results tool: This tool validates your content against Google’s “rich results” rule sets and shows you a pass or fail report

3. Write clear, quotable content

Generative AI platforms look for self-contained and well-defined content they can easily lift. Every section should be a ready-to-reuse soundbite, almost like an elevator pitch that a robot could repeat while making its daily rounds. 

Here’s the best approach we use at Skale:

• Lead with answers. Use “What is X?” and “How to do Y” structures to make your content quotable
• Add TL; DRs, bullet lists, and stat boxes: Bring the summaries, main points, and studies upfront so models can parse those value-packed morsels and win you verbatim messages. 
• Think “Would ChatGPT quote this?”: A good testing method is singling out definitions, paragraphs, and chunks of text. If they can stand up to direct user questions, you’ve got yourself a quotable piece of content.

4. Get cited in listicles

If you’ve popped ChatGPT a prompt or two, you’ve probably noticed that it loves listicles. AI models often give easily digestible answers in the form of a top-numbered list—even if it wasn’t prompted for that format. Here’s what the Skale team recommends:

• Publish your own: “Top AI Compliance Tools for HRTech” and “Top alternatives to Figma” are examples of articles that AI often mimics in its responses. 
• Pitch to industry publications and expert roundups: And get your product or service mentioned in other credible blog posts. 

5. Show real expertise

As it turns out, Google’s E.E.A.T. guidelines count for AI models too. Your blog posts’ authority, credibility, and “quote-worthiness” depend on how much value they directly provide for your readers. This is where SEO and GEO overlap. Quality content is still a must! 

Consider the following tips: 

• Use named authors with bios, credentials, and schema.
• Link to their guest posts, webinars, or podcast appearances.

6. Track GEO performance

GEO is one of the classic cases of: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” That’s why you should monitor your progress, just like with any other channel. Here are a few strategies to consider: 

• Monitor backlinks: Are engines like Otterly or Perplexity AI linking back to your website as a source? 
• Use Regex in GA4 for referrals from AI engines Setting up custom filters in Google Analytics 4 with regular expressions can help you spot visitors who arrived at your website via AI.
• Survey your new leads: If leads have to complete a sign-up form to qualify, make sure to include the “How did you hear about us?” and even offer AI as an option in a dropdown menu.

How to optimize for specific LLMs

Each LLM prioritizes content differently, based on how it interprets structure, citations, and context. Optimizing specifically for each engine can significantly boost your chances of being cited in AI-generated responses. 

Here are our platform-specific guidelines to consider when optimizing for LLMs.  

ChatGPT (OpenAI)

• Prioritize structured summaries and TL;DR sections at the top of articles.
• Use consistent formatting with headers, bullets, and short paragraphs.
• GPT-4 favors high-E-E-A-T content: include named authors, original research, and schema-enhanced data.
• Favor content that answers multi-intent queries clearly (e.g., “Best time-tracking software for dev teams working remotely”).

Perplexity

• Prefers transparent citations and clear editorial structure.
• Include original statistics and structured comparisons.
• Format for scanability with short, declarative statements.
• Optimize URLs with clean slugs (e.g., /compare-top-crm-tools-2025).

Gemini (Google)

• Use structured schema (FAQ, How-To, Product, Video).
• Include alt-text for visuals and transcripts for video/audio.
• Create multimedia-rich content with contextual headings (e.g., step-by-step with annotated images).
• Optimize for multimodal discovery: align your YouTube, blog, and GMB content.

Bing Copilot

• Pulls from Microsoft’s ecosystem (LinkedIn, Office, Edge). Optimize these profiles and author pages.
• Include whitepapers, long-form comparisons, and authoritative quotes.
• Use bolded takeaways, FAQs, and key stat blocks.
• Structure content for both depth and snippet-style surfaceability.

Reddit as a Visibility Engine

Reddit has become a high-authority source in the eyes of AI models. LLMs often pull answers from Reddit threads due to their perceived authenticity, diversity of perspectives, and specificity of context.

Here’s why Reddit matters for GEO:

• Threads rank prominently in both Google and AI-generated responses.
• Many LLMs are trained on datasets that include Reddit comments and discussions.
• Content shared on Reddit is more likely to be cited in AI summaries if it receives upvotes or sustained engagement.

To take advantage:

• Share or seed discussions linking to your high-E-E-A-T content.
• Participate authentically in niche subreddits where your audience hangs out.
• Use Reddit Search and tools like GummySearch or Keyworddit to find common questions in your vertical—and answer them on your site.

Don’t ignore Reddit visibility—it can dramatically increase your odds of being cited by AI engines.

How To Track Performance from LLMs

Tracking GEO performance is still evolving, but here’s how to measure AI visibility today:

Use Dedicated LLM Monitoring Tools

• Otterly.ai: Tracks AI-generated citations, mentions, and summaries.
• Perplexity Metrics: Monitor backlinks and visibility through advanced search syntax.
• Surfer SEO’s LLM Visibility Tools: Offers AI exposure insights and competitive benchmarks.

Monitor AI Referral Patterns

• Use Regex filters in GA4 to identify AI engine traffic (e.g., from Perplexity or Bing Copilot).
• Build custom reports in analytics platforms like Looker Studio.
• ​​Paste this regular expression to track common AI platforms:
  .*chatgpt\.com.*|.*perplexity.*|.*gemini\.google\.com.*|
  .*copilot\.microsoft\.com.*|.*openai\.com.*|.*claude\.ai.*|
  .*writesonic\.com.*|.*copy\.ai.*|.*deepseek\.com.*|
  .*huggingface\.co.*|.*bard\.google\.com*

Ask and Attribute

• Add attribution fields in lead forms: “Did you find us via ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini?”
• Use survey tools and CRM notes to track self-reported AI discovery.

Analyze Zero-Click Impact

• Use impression data and heatmaps to understand scroll behavior and content engagement.
• Track assisted conversions to understand AI’s influence on discovery, even if it doesn’t produce an immediate click.

Is G.E.O Becoming the Dominant E.O?

SEO isn’t enough anymore. 

And while ranking certainly has its place, the rise of AI tools is already fundamentally changing the way we search for and consume content. That means SEO specialists and content managers will need to adapt their strategies to remain visible and relevant in the eyes of ICPs.

GEO is the best way to do it. Focus on creating quotable, entity-rich, and structured content for machines to convert into precise responses. Get the bots namedropping your brands, and your humans will no doubt follow suit.