What Is GEO, and Why Should Small Businesses Care?
A customer who wanted a physio used to type “physio near me” into Google, scan the map, and click a few websites. Now a growing number of them ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s own AI answer instead, and they get a short paragraph back with two or three names in it. If your business isn’t one of those names, you never got the chance to compete.
That shift is what Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is about. It isn’t a replacement for SEO, and it isn’t a gimmick either. It’s the work of making sure AI tools understand your business well enough to recommend it.
What GEO actually is
The term comes from a 2023 research paper by a team at Princeton and collaborators, later presented at the KDD 2024 conference. They described “generative engines” as tools that read several sources, then write one combined answer, and they noted the obvious problem: website owners have almost no say in whether they get mentioned. GEO was their name for the work of improving that visibility. In their tests, the best techniques lifted a source’s visibility in AI answers by up to 40% (Aggarwal et al.).
The easiest way to see the difference from SEO is to look at what you’re trying to win:
| Traditional SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The goal | Rank high in a list of links | Get named or cited inside the answer |
| What the customer sees | Ten blue links and a map | A paragraph with a few recommendations |
| How success shows up | Clicks and website visits | Mentions, citations, enquiries that say “ChatGPT suggested you” |
| What the engine rewards | Relevance, links, technical health | Clear facts, credibility, consistency across the web |
The two overlap heavily. Most AI answers are built from pages that search engines have already crawled and trust, so a site with weak SEO rarely does well in AI answers either. GEO adds a layer on top rather than starting from scratch.
Why small businesses feel this first
Fewer searches end in a click than ever before. SparkToro’s research found that 68% of US Google searches in early 2026 ended without anyone clicking through to a website, up from about 60% in 2024. A separate controlled experiment found that when Google showed an AI Overview, organic clicks fell by 38% (TechWyse summary of both studies). Most of this data is American, but Australian search behaviour tends to follow the same curve a little later.
For a large brand, losing some clicks is a line item. For a small business, it can be the difference between a full week of bookings and a quiet one. Small operators usually rely on a handful of services and one local area, so there are only a few questions that really matter to them. If an AI answer handles those questions without mentioning you, there’s no page two to fall back on.
There is some good news in the same research. Local business searches, branded searches and “ready to buy” searches still send clicks far more reliably than general information queries. And when a business is cited inside an AI answer, it tends to do better on that search, not worse. The opportunity hasn’t disappeared. It has moved.
What AI tools look for before they mention you
No AI company publishes its exact recipe, but the pattern is fairly consistent. These tools are trying to give an answer they won’t be embarrassed by, so they lean on businesses they can describe with confidence.
- Clear, specific facts. In the Princeton tests, adding statistics, quotes and references to a page were among the most effective changes. A page that says “we’ve fitted 1,200 solar systems across Logan since 2015” gives an AI something to repeat. “Quality service you can trust” gives it nothing.
- Consistency across the web. Your name, address, phone number, services and hours should match on your website, Google Business Profile, Facebook and industry directories. Conflicting details make you look less certain to recommend.
- Other people talking about you. Reviews, local news coverage, supplier pages, community groups and industry associations all act as outside confirmation. AI tools give a lot of weight to what others say about a business, not just what it says about itself.
- Pages that answer real questions. Customers ask AI tools full questions, like “how much does a bathroom reno cost in Brisbane?” A page that answers that plainly, near the top, is far easier to quote than one buried under a sales pitch.
- A website the tools can actually read. Some sites block AI crawlers by accident, or hide key information inside images and PDFs. If a crawler can’t read it, it can’t cite it.
What doesn’t work is the old habit of repeating a keyword over and over. The researchers found that tactic did little to improve visibility in AI answers.
Where to start
You don’t need a new budget line to begin. Most of this is tidying up what you already have.
- Ask the AI tools about yourself. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and ask the questions your customers would ask, such as “best electrician in Toowoomba”. Note who gets named, and whether anything said about you is wrong.
- Fix your Google Business Profile. Fill in every field, choose accurate categories, add real photos and keep your hours current. It’s one of the most-read sources for local answers.
- Make your details match everywhere. Check the directories and social profiles that list you, and correct anything out of date.
- Rewrite your key service pages. Lead with a direct answer, then back it up with specifics: prices or price ranges, suburbs you cover, years in business, licences and real numbers.
- Add an FAQ built from real enquiries. Use the questions customers actually ask on the phone or by email, in their own words.
- Build steady reviews. Ask happy customers to mention the service and the area in their review. It helps people and AI tools alike.
- Get mentioned elsewhere. Sponsor a local club, join your industry association, contribute to a local news story. Each credible mention adds weight.
- Track the right signal. Add “AI assistant” as an option when you ask new customers how they found you. Over time, that tells you more than website traffic alone.
Keep it in perspective
GEO gets talked about as though SEO is finished. It isn’t. AI answers are still built largely from websites that search engines trust, so the basics of good SEO remain the foundation. What has changed is the finish line. Ranking well is no longer enough on its own; your business also has to be easy for a machine to understand, verify and recommend.
The businesses that will do well here aren’t necessarily the biggest. They’re the ones whose information is clear, accurate and backed up by real customers. For most small businesses, that’s an advantage worth claiming early.
Sources
