What are GEO and AEO?
GEO is generative engine optimization. AEO is answer engine optimization. They overlap so much that we treat them as one job: making your business easy for AI assistants to understand, trust, and mention. Think ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the AI Overviews at the top of Google.
Why does it matter now?
More people ask a question and read the answer before they click anything. The assistant sums up the options, names a few businesses, and links its sources. If you're not in that answer, you may never get the visit. The search still happens. The shortlist just forms earlier.
What makes a business citable?
AI assistants repeat what they can find and confirm. That usually comes down to:
- Clear facts: what you do, where, for whom, and how to book
- The same details everywhere, from your site to your Google profile to directories
- Structured data that spells out those facts for machines
- Pages that answer the questions customers actually ask
- Recent reviews that describe the work in customers' own words
- Mentions on other sites, like local press, partners, and listings
None of it is a trick. It's being easy to describe accurately.
How is this different from SEO?
It isn't a replacement. Classic SEO still matters, because assistants often draw on pages that are already crawled and ranked. Your Google profile matters too, since it's one of the most trusted sources about a local business. GEO builds on both. It adds a focus on clear answers, consistent facts, and proof from other places.
How do you approach it?
We start by asking the assistants the questions your customers ask. We note who gets named and what they say about you. Then we fix what's wrong or missing: site copy, structured data, your profile, listings, and pages built around real questions. For Footed By Reesey, the same groundwork sits under her site, her Google profile, and her local search. We can't promise any assistant will cite you. Nobody honestly can. What we can do is make the facts about you clear, consistent, and easy to check, then show you what changed.
If an assistant can't describe you clearly, it can't recommend you.