What Is GEO, and Do You Need It Too?

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation, is the practice of making your content the source that AI engines cite when they answer questions: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews, Gemini and Claude. Where SEO's goal is a ranking on a results page, GEO's goal is a mention inside the answer itself. If your buyers ask AI tools questions before they buy (and in B2B, most now do at some point), then yes, you need GEO alongside SEO. The encouraging news: they share about 70% of the same work, and the remaining 30% is mostly writing more clearly.

How is GEO different from SEO?

SEO earns a position in a list; the searcher clicks through and your website does the persuading. GEO earns a citation in a synthesised answer; the AI does the persuading and may or may not send a click. That changes what "winning" means. In SEO, being #3 still captures traffic. In GEO, an answer typically cites only a handful of sources. You're either in the answer or you're invisible. It also changes what content works: SEO historically rewarded comprehensive pages targeting keywords; GEO rewards precise, extractable answers to specific questions, backed by evidence and attributable expertise. And crucially, the two winner lists have diverged. Research suggests the overlap between top Google rankings and AI-cited sources has dropped from roughly 70% to under 20%, so you can rank well and still be absent from the answers.

What do AI engines actually look for in a source?

Patterns consistent across the current research:

Direct answers early, with the primary question answered completely in the first ~200 words rather than built up to.
Extractable blocks, meaning self-contained paragraphs of roughly 40–60 words that answer one sub-question each and survive being quoted alone.
Question-form headings that match how people actually phrase queries.
Evidence density, including statistics, dates, named sources, and original data where you have it.
Comparisons and structure (tables, lists and clear contrasts that are easy to synthesise).
Trust signals beyond your site: mentions across reviews, directories, industry press, podcasts and communities.

Notice what's absent from the list: keyword density, exotic technical tricks, and volume for its own sake.

Where do SEO and GEO overlap, and where do they diverge?

Shared foundations: a technically healthy site, genuine topical authority, quality backlinks, clear information architecture, and content that actually answers what people ask. Do these well and you're most of the way to both.
GEO-specific work: restructuring content into answer-first formats; adding FAQ sections and schema markup; building the off-site mention footprint deliberately; naming and credentialing authors; and monitoring AI answers the way you once monitored rankings, by asking the engines your buyers' questions monthly and tracking who gets cited.
SEO-specific work that still matters: commercial keyword targeting for the high-intent searches where people still click through to compare, contact and buy.

So what should a business actually do, in what order?

A sensible sequence for a B2B business starting now:

Baseline. List the 20 questions your buyers ask, put them to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and record who gets cited.
Retrofit. Take your ten most important existing pages and restructure them answer-first, with question headings and an FAQ block.
Publish new answer-shaped content targeting the questions where no good NZ source exists yet. In most niches, that's most of them.
Build mentions: reviews, industry directories, guest expertise, podcast appearances. AI engines treat external validation as a proxy for trustworthiness.
Re-test quarterly and treat "share of AI answers" as a KPI alongside rankings.

None of this requires abandoning SEO; it's the same programme with a second scoreboard.

Do you need a GEO specialist, or can your current provider do it?

Ask your current SEO provider three questions: how do they track AI-answer visibility, what structural changes have they made to your content for AI citation, and what's their approach to off-site mentions? Confident, specific answers mean you're covered. Blank looks, or a pitch to sell you the same SEO retainer with "AI" appended to the invoice, mean the capability isn't there. GEO isn't yet a mature discipline with settled credentials, so judge providers on whether they can show you AI answers currently citing their clients.

Frequently asked questions

Is GEO just SEO rebranded? About 70% of the work overlaps. The other 30% (answer-first structure, citation tracking, mention building) is genuinely new, and it's where the current advantage lies.

Can you measure GEO results? Yes: share of AI answers citing you across your question set, AI-referred traffic (increasingly visible in analytics), and "heard about you from ChatGPT" in self-reported attribution.

How long does GEO take to work? Often faster than SEO. AI engines refresh continually, and well-structured content can appear in answers within weeks. Off-site mention building takes months, like link building always has.

Will GEO still matter if the AI tools change? The engines will change; the principle won't. Clear, evidenced, well-structured expertise has now been rewarded by every generation of search technology in a row.