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GEO Frequently Asked
Questions

What is generative engine optimization (GEO) and why does it matter for professional services firms?

Website traffic has been declining for years. LLMs offer direct answers and information rather than results, which means there’s an opportunity for professional services firms to appear in answers. This process is called generative engine optimization, or GEO.

GEO is about making your firm more “findable” in AI-generated responses from platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overviews or Perplexity. If a potential client asks, “What’s the best employee benefits consultant for private schools?” you want your name in that answer—not your competitor’s.

Isn’t GEO just SEO with a different name?

No. Traditional SEO gets you ranked in search engines among many other results; the goal is to get people to click through to your website, something that happens less and less frequently.

GEO is not about website traffic; it’s about serving people information where they want to consume it. GEO gets your firm mentioned in AI-generated answers based on entity recognition, semantic relationships and citability. Think of SEO as an aging subset of GEO.

I’ve heard a lot of different terms used to describe what you’re calling GEO; what is the difference between GEO, LLMO, LLM SEO and AEO?

This emerging field goes by different names and is crowded by a bunch of acronyms. They’re all focused on something slightly different, so let’s take a look at the nuances:

  • GEO (generative engine optimization): The most established term; it emphasizes the generative nature of AI responses
  • LLMO (large language model optimization): Technical term emphasizing the underlying models. Generally seen as a more academic approach
  • LLM SEO: A minimalist approach weaving in some new AI requirements with traditional SEO
  • AEO (answer engine optimization): Very broad approach to formatting and structuring for AI

Regardless of what terms you use and the nuances you decide are important to your business, we recommend that you adjust your marketing focus to make sure that your firm is visible and accurately represented when AI systems generate responses about your industry or services.

How do we start aligning our brand with the right topics to appear in AI answers?

Begin developing a point of view around key industry trends and topics. Once you have this sketched out, there are some straightforward (but not easy to execute!) tactics to fuel your GEO efforts:

  • Use thought leadership and media relations to associate your brand with key industry issues.
  • Get quoted in respected publications on niche topics (e.g., “employer health benefits compliance”).
  • Publish insightful, stat-backed content—whitepapers, webinars, proprietary research—that LLMs can cite.
  • Make sure your website answers the questions your prospects ask often during sales calls.

LLMs prioritize content that is authoritative and is published in well-known places. You’re building semantic closeness between your firm and the services you want to be known for.

What types of content are most likely to be cited in LLM answers?

LLMs cite content that is clear, authoritative and easily extractable. Think sentences that concisely answer questions or explain concepts, without needing a bunch of extra context.
Content formats that can help you get cited include:

  • Original research. LLMs love numbers and hard facts. Research and surveys give you statistics that appeal to AI platforms and can also fuel your marketing and communications efforts for months after launch.
  • Case studies. Client stories with specific outcomes, including numbers, demonstrate your capabilities and increase your authority on a topic or service.
  • FAQs and Q&As. Question headings that match what people are searching and self-contained answers are easily extractable by LLMs.
  • Expert commentary with a clear POV. Content written by named experts is more easily citable.

What does not often get cited in non-branded, top-of-funnel prompts are capability copy and service descriptions that don’t answer a question.

Is this just about blogs and PR? What about our service pages?

Service pages matter—but they need to be entity-rich and clearly explain your firm’s expertise in specific business outcomes. Add schema markup, FAQs and case studies that reinforce the kinds of problems you solve and who you serve. That helps AI “understand” your positioning.

A smart approach is to create “content pillars”—longer, detailed pages that focus on your core themes—which benefit both human readers and AI platforms.

Are there risks to trying to “game” AI models?

Yes. Trying to trick an AI model by using a bunch of AI-generated content or hidden text for crawlers won’t work because LLMs look at your brand authority across the internet—not just one or two pages on your website. The signals that most control citations are third-party ones that you can’t manufacture; you have to earn them.

In addition, gaming the system can hurt your firm’s site in the eyes of Google (and that still matters). Google can de-index a site that’s full of AI-generated slop. And LLMs may ignore low-quality content. All of these tactics are detrimental to professional services firms that sell the quality of their thinking.

Why does GEO matter for professional services firms that rely on relationships and referrals?

People still search for answers as part of their validation process and as they are trying to decide whether or not they need the solution you offer. Your prospects will do research before they ever reach out to you for more information. It’s essential for you to be mentioned in the mix when they start asking ChatGPT or Perplexity questions about your industry.

Should we do PR to help optimize for LLMs?

Yes—PR is one of the most effective levers in GEO.

LLMs pull answers from sources they trust. That means credible third-party validation—like being quoted in respected publications or featured in industry media—carries far more weight than content on your own site alone.

Public relations helps with GEO by:

  • Creating authoritative citations in media; LLMs are more likely to reference credible, third party sites in their answers
  • Reinforcing your brand’s expertise in very specific domains (e.g., “benefits consulting for private schools”)
  • Expanding your digital footprint in ways that build semantic connections between your firm and key topics
  • Improving your discoverability through sources LLMs are actively trained on

In short, earned media makes your brand more believable to both AI models and human decision-makers. PR isn’t just about visibility anymore—it’s about credibility at scale.

What’s the difference between being “searchable” and being “answerable”?

Traditional SEO makes you searchable—your content can appear somewhere in a list of results with the hope that someone clicks through to your website (an increasingly rare occurrence). GEO makes you answerable—your brand becomes part of the AI’s direct response. In a zero-click world, being “in the answer” is the new organic visibility. When you think about it, providing an answer rather than a bunch of link options is a more human experience—when you ask a person a question, they’re going to answer if they can, not list out a bunch of options, some of which they’ve been paid to say.

How do LLMs decide what content to trust and cite?

LLMs draw from training data that includes reputable, high-authority sources. They prioritize:

  • Authoritativeness (credentials, citations, backlinks)
  • Specificity (not vague generalizations)
  • Structured information (lists, Q&A, stats)
  • Citability (published in known sources with clear authorship and dates)

This often means media outlets, as well as websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and LinkedIn—think of sites that have gatekeepers of some sort.

What kinds of firms are most likely to benefit from GEO?

Niche experts, category leaders, and firms with a strong point of view. If you’re offering something specific and have credible proof points, LLMs can position you as the “go-to” answer faster than traditional SEO ever could. 

Professional services firms are in the business of selling the quality of their thinking, so making this thinking more broadly available by appealing to the LLMs can deliver huge benefits.

How long does it take to see results from GEO efforts?

You may start seeing your brand appear in AI-generated responses within weeks if you already have some authority. However, sustained visibility requires consistent publishing, media mentions, and refinement of your semantic footprint over at least 3–6 months or more.

When you work with Scribewise, we use tools to track your progress over time, so you’re never flying blind.

What role does structured data (like schema markup) play in GEO?

Schema markup helps LLMs understand your site’s content with greater clarity—like giving them a legend to your map. Use it to tag services, authors, FAQs, and industries served. It can help LLMs understand details about your firm and place it into larger context—which can lead to more appearances in AI answers.

How is GEO different from brand awareness?

Brand awareness is important for every firm—you need to be top of mind for your target audience so that when it’s time to hire someone like you, you’re on the list. Or better yet, the only firm on the list.

GEO is about being known for something specific: showing up in an AI answer when a prospect asks about a problem you solve. GEO and brand awareness build on each other. Firms with strong awareness get cited more often, and citations build awareness among people who’ve never heard of you.

Can GEO help attract talent, not just clients?

Absolutely. Prospective employees also research companies via AI tools. If your firm is described as a leader in your niche by a chatbot, or if you repeatedly get published and become known for specific points of view, that builds credibility for recruiting top talent—especially younger professionals who trust AI-assisted search.

How do we measure success in a GEO strategy?

There are different ways to measure GEO success.
One is through direct GEO metrics that you can see in an AI visibility platform, like:

  • Presence. How often your firm shows up in answers.
  • Citations. How often a page from your website is used as a source.
  • Share of voice. How often you are named compared to competitors.
  • Sentiment. Whether answers including your firm are positive or negative.

Then, there are broader indicators GEO is working. These include:

  • Branded search volume
  • Direct website traffic
  • Media placements and earned citations
  • Inbound inquiries that mention finding you through Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, etc.

One note: be skeptical of anyone who promises clear attribution from AI search to leads. Most AI platforms don’t pass along where a visitor came from, and most people who see your firm in an answer never click. Yes, GEO works. But it is hard to trace.

What’s the cost of doing nothing?

Ultimately, you become digitally invisible. As LLMs become the default interface for online discovery, firms that aren’t actively building their visibility footprint will be excluded from answers—and therefore from consideration.

Yes, this is early days, so any negative impact today will be fairly minimal. But the starter’s pistol has been fired, and the race is on. At some point, LLM results will become more solidified and baked in, and playing catch up will be very costly.

What marketing agencies can help me show up in AI results?

Any agency doing generative engine optimization can help with this, but capability varies. You want a partner who combines content strategy, media relations and technical optimization, not just one of the three—and who can show you a baseline before you start. We go deeper on what to look for on our GEO services page.