What is GEO? How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

Why GEO matters for small businesses

Customers still search on Google, but more and more of them also ask an AI assistant: 'Who's a good physio in Bath?', 'Which accountant is best for a small limited company?', 'Who can fix a boiler today?'. The assistant doesn't hand back ten blue links. It gives a short answer, often naming two or three businesses.

If you're one of those names, you've won a warm lead before they've even visited your website. If you're not, you may never know the customer existed.

SEO vs GEO: what's the difference?

The two overlap heavily. Many AI assistants search the web in real time and lean on the same signals as search engines. Good SEO is the foundation, and GEO builds on it.

How do AI assistants decide who to recommend?

No AI company publishes the exact recipe, but the patterns are consistent. AI assistants favour businesses they can:

• Understand: a clear statement of what you do, who for and where, repeated consistently.
• Verify: the same name, address, services and details across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles.
• Trust: genuine reviews, real credentials, and mentions on other reputable sites.
• Quote: short, direct answers to the questions customers actually ask.

10 steps to improve your AI visibility

1. Write a one-sentence definition of your business and use it word for word on your homepage, About page and profiles. For example: 'Harbour Physio is a physiotherapy clinic in Bath specialising in sports injuries and back pain.'
2. Answer real questions on your site. Add an FAQ to each service page, and put the answer in the first sentence.
3. Create a page for each service (and each town you serve) instead of one long list.
4. Add structured data (schema). This machine-readable code tells search engines and AI exactly what your business is, where it is and what you offer.
5. Complete your Google Business Profile, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect, with identical details.
6. Collect reviews continuously. Recent, detailed reviews are a strong trust signal, for people and machines alike.
7. Get mentioned on trusted sites: local press, industry bodies, supplier pages, podcasts and directories.
8. Let AI crawlers in. Check that your robots.txt doesn't block GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended.
9. Publish an llms.txt file: a short, plain-text summary of your business and key pages, written for AI assistants.
10. Keep it fresh. Update key pages when prices, services or opening hours change, and publish helpful content regularly.

What is llms.txt?

llms.txt is a simple text file at the root of your website (yourdomain.co.uk/llms.txt) that summarises who you are and links to your most important pages, in clean Markdown. It's a proposed convention rather than an official standard, and not every AI tool reads it yet. But it's quick to create, costs nothing, and helps any assistant that does look for it. Here's ours as an example.

Do small businesses really need GEO yet?

If your customers research before they buy (clinics, trades, professional services, hospitality), then yes. It's early days, and that's the opportunity: most of your competitors haven't started. The steps above also improve your Google rankings, so none of the effort is wasted.

Want to know how AI sees your business today? Request a free visibility audit and we'll check ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google for you.