NOVEMBER 2026
GEO — How to Get Your Business Cited by ChatGPT, Claude & Gemini A plain-English guide to Generative Engine Optimisation for UK small businesses. People are no longer only searching — they are asking. When someone asks an AI tool for a recommendation, your business is either in the answer or it is not there at all. This guide explains how AI tools choose who to cite, and what you can do, starting today, to be one of them. Commercefy
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01 · THE BASICS
What is GEO? GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It is the work of making your business easy for AI tools — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews — to find, understand and cite when they answer a question. Traditional SEO is about ranking in a list of links. GEO is about being the answer itself. When someone types “best plumber in Harpenden” into Google, they see ten blue links. When they ask ChatGPT “who is a good plumber near Harpenden?”, they get a short answer naming two or three businesses — with links. If your business is not one of the names in that answer, you were never in the running.
Why it matters now More people are asking AI tools for recommendations instead of scrolling through search results: which solicitor to use, which web designer to hire, which café is worth visiting. The tools answer from what they can find on the web. That means the businesses that are clearly described, well structured and widely mentioned are the ones that get recommended — and the ones that are vague, thin or contradictory online simply do not appear.
SEO and GEO are not the same job — but they overlap. Good SEO (a fast, clear, well-linked website) helps GEO, because AI tools read the same web. But a page can rank on Google and still never be cited by an AI tool, if the page never states its facts plainly enough for a machine to quote them. GEO is about making your facts quotable.
What this guide covers • How AI tools decide which businesses to cite or recommend. • A practical checklist you can work through on your own website. • The common mistakes that keep businesses out of AI answers.
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0 2 · H O W C I TAT I O N S H A P P E N
How AI tools choose who to cite An AI tool does not know your business. It knows what the web says about your business. When it answers a question, it looks for sources it can read, understand and trust — and it quotes the clearest ones.
What the tools are looking for • Clear facts, stated plainly. What you do, where you are based, who you serve, and what makes you different — written in ordinary sentences on your own pages, not hidden in a slogan. • Direct answers. Pages that open with a straight answer to the question they are about, so the tool can lift the answer without guessing. • Structured data. Schema markup (for example LocalBusiness, Organization, FAQ and Service) states your facts in a machine-readable form, so there is no ambiguity about your name, address, phone number or services. • Consistent information everywhere. Your name, address and phone number should match across your website, your Google Business Profile, directories and social profiles. Contradictions make a source look unreliable. • Mentions on other sites. Being listed and talked about elsewhere — directories, local press, partners, review sites — is independent evidence that your business is real and established. • Fresh, maintained content. Pages that are kept up to date, and new genuinely useful pages added over time, signal a live business rather than an abandoned website. • Pages a crawler can actually read. Key facts must be in the page itself — not locked behind a login, and not only inside JavaScript or images that a crawler cannot read.
How a citation happens, in short. Someone asks a question → the tool searches the web for sources → it picks the clearest, most trustworthy pages it can read → it writes an answer citing them. Every step in this guide is about making your pages the ones it picks.
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03 · DO THIS, IN ORDER
The practical checklist Work through these seven items on your own website. They are listed in the order that matters most.
1
State clear facts about the business Your homepage should say, in plain sentences: what you do, where you are based, and who you serve. No jargon, no slogans in place of facts. If a stranger cannot tell what you do within ten seconds, neither can an AI tool.
2
Write answer-first pages Every service page should open with a direct answer to the question it covers — about 40 to 60 words, before any background or sales copy. Then expand underneath with detail, examples and next steps.
3
Build FAQ pages Answer the real questions customers ask you, in their own words, one question per section. Add FAQ schema so the questions and answers are machine-readable.
4
Add schema markup Use LocalBusiness or Organization schema for your business details, FAQ schema for your questions, and Service schema for what you offer. It removes ambiguity about who you are.
5
Add an llms.txt file A plain-text file at /llms.txt on your website that tells AI tools what your site is and where the key pages are. Keep it short, factual and up to date.
6
Keep publishing fresh content Add genuinely useful pages over time — guides, answers to common questions, local pages — and update stale ones. A site that never changes looks finished; a site that grows looks alive.
7
Get mentioned elsewhere Listings in reputable directories, your Google Business Profile, local press, partners and review sites all count as independent evidence. Keep your name, address and phone number identical everywhere.
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Common mistakes to avoid These are the things that most often keep a business out of AI answers — all of them fixable.
✕ Hiding key facts in images or JavaScript If your services, prices or contact details only exist inside an image or a script, a crawler may never read them. Put facts in real text.
✕ Vague copy instead of concrete facts “We deliver excellence” tells an AI tool nothing. “We design websites for small businesses in Aberdeen” is a fact it can quote.
✕ Contradictory details across the web A different phone number on Yell, an old address on Facebook and a third version on your site. Pick one set of details and use it everywhere.
✕ Paying for a “guaranteed AI ranking” Nobody can guarantee that an AI tool will cite you. Anyone selling that guarantee is selling something that does not exist.
Book a call to get started — find out where your business shows up today on Google and in AI answers, and what to fix first.
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