GEO / AI Search Optimisation
When AI answers the question, be the source it cites.
Start with a $1,450 GEO Audit. We measure where you currently appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews, audit your schema and entity data, and hand you a prioritised roadmap. Two weeks.
No retainer commitment on the audit.
What changed
Ten blue links became one answer.
A buyer used to compare a page of results and choose. Now they ask a question and receive a synthesised answer that names a handful of sources. Everything not named is invisible, regardless of where it ranks.
That is a different competition. Ranking well and being cited well overlap but are not the same job, and most agencies are still selling only the first one.
The difference
GEO and SEO share fundamentals, then diverge.
Roughly eighty percent of the groundwork is common: content quality, topical authority, structured data, site health. The last twenty percent is where engagements succeed or fail.
SEO optimises for a ranked position
- Target: page one of a results page
- Unit of success: a clicked link
- Measured in rankings, sessions, CTR
- Wins by relevance and authority to a query
- Content structured for scanning
GEO optimises for being quoted
- Target: named inside a generated answer
- Unit of success: a citation
- Measured in citation share and prompt coverage
- Wins by extractability and verifiable claims
- Content structured for machine retrieval
How selection works
What decides which sources get named.
Models retrieve, then synthesise. Retrieval favours content that states things plainly, answers a question directly in its opening sentence, carries structured data that removes ambiguity, and is corroborated elsewhere on the web.
That is why a page can rank on Google and never be cited. Ranking rewards relevance to a query. Citation rewards being the easiest correct thing to quote.
The work
Six workstreams, run every month.
Not a schema plugin and a monthly report. The audit tells us which of these is weakest, and the retainer works through them in order of impact.
Entity and schema
Organization, Service, FAQPage, Product and Breadcrumb markup implemented so machines read your business without guessing.
Answer-shaped content
Pages restructured so each question is a real heading with a direct answer beneath it, which is the unit models extract.
Claim verifiability
Every assertion given a source, a number or a demonstration. Unsupported adjectives do not survive synthesis.
Corroboration
Third-party mentions, listings, profiles and PR so the same facts about you appear in more than one place.
Prompt coverage
A tracked set of the questions your buyers actually ask, monitored across engines rather than a keyword list.
Technical retrieval
Crawlability for AI agents, clean HTML, llms.txt, fast server rendering and no content hidden behind scripts.
Measurement
Citation share, not vanity metrics.
We track a fixed prompt set across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews, and report how often you are named, in what position, and against which competitors.
That baseline is set in month one and never quietly redefined. Where a competitor is being cited instead of you, the report says so and the roadmap responds.
Timeline
What to expect, and when.
GEO compounds like SEO. Anyone promising citations inside a month is either targeting prompts nobody asks or misrepresenting the work.
Month 1
Baseline and foundations
Audit findings implemented: schema, entity data, technical retrieval fixes. Citation baseline recorded across the prompt set.
Month 2 to 3
Content restructuring
Existing pages rebuilt into answer-shaped form. First movement usually appears in Perplexity and AI Overviews, which refresh fastest.
Month 4 to 6
Authority and corroboration
Third-party mentions and digital PR compound. Citation share climbs across the slower engines.
Month 6 onward
Expansion
Prompt set widens, new clusters targeted, competitor displacement becomes the working metric.
Pricing
Published GEO pricing.
Market rates for agency GEO run from roughly $1,500 to $50,000 a month. These sit at the boutique-specialist end, where the work is senior and the scope is real.
GEO Audit
Find out where you stand.
$1,450
one-time
- Baseline citation measurement
- Schema and entity audit
- Prompt-set research
- Competitor citation benchmark
- Prioritised roadmap
- Yours to keep
GEO Foundation
Fix the fundamentals.
$2,450
per month
- Everything in the audit
- Schema implementation
- Entity optimisation
- Four pages restructured monthly
- Citation monitoring
- Monthly report
Most chosen
GEO Growth
Build authority and coverage.
$4,450
per month
- Everything in Foundation
- Content production
- Corroboration and listings
- Multi-platform tracking
- Competitor displacement work
- Monthly strategy session
GEO Authority
Multi-market, high velocity.
$8,450
per month
- Everything in Growth
- Multi-market coverage
- Digital PR programme
- Full technical implementation
- Weekly reporting
- Priority turnaround
All prices in USD. Monthly packages billed first month at checkout, invoiced thereafter, three-month minimum.
Fit
Where GEO pays back, and where it does not.
Being direct saves a call. GEO is powerful for considered purchases andclose to useless for impulse ones.
Worth doing
- Considered B2B purchases with real research before contact
- Categories where buyers ask comparison and how-to questions
- You already have substance worth citing
- Competitors are being named in answers and you are not
- You can sustain six months before judging it
Not yet
- No product-market fit and nothing verifiable to claim
- Impulse or purely local purchases
- You need leads inside four weeks
- Nobody internal can supply expertise for content
- Budget only stretches to schema and a report
Questions
Common questions.
Definitional answers, because these are the questions AI systems get asked too.
What is GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation?
GEO is the practice of making a brand visible and citable inside AI answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Where SEO targets a ranked position on a results page, GEO targets being named as a source inside a generated answer.
How is GEO different from SEO?
They share roughly eighty percent of their fundamentals: content quality, topical authority, structured data and site health. GEO adds answer-shaped content structure, entity and schema precision, verifiable claims and third-party corroboration, and it is measured in citation share rather than rankings and sessions.
How much does GEO cost?
Agency GEO services generally run from $1,500 to $50,000 per month in 2026, with boutique specialists commonly charging $3,000 to $8,000. marive publishes fixed pricing: $1,450 for a one-time GEO Audit, then $2,450, $4,450 or $8,450 per month depending on scope.
How long before we appear in AI answers?
Perplexity and AI Overviews often reflect changes within four to eight weeks because they refresh quickly. ChatGPT and Gemini typically take three to six months, since they depend more on corroboration across the wider web. Anyone promising citations in thirty days is misrepresenting the work.
Do we still need SEO if we do GEO?
Yes. Traditional search has not disappeared, and most of the groundwork serves both. The sensible approach is one organic programme covering ranked results and AI citations together, rather than two separate contracts duplicating the same technical and content work.
How do you measure GEO results?
We track a fixed set of prompts your buyers actually ask, run across the major engines, and report how often you are cited, in what position, and against which competitors. That baseline is recorded in month one and never redefined mid-engagement.
Will schema markup alone get us cited?
No. Schema makes your content easier to parse, which is necessary but not sufficient. Models cite sources that are easy to extract and corroborated elsewhere. Packages that consist of schema plus a report are selling table stakes as a programme.
Can you work alongside our existing SEO agency?
Yes. In practice we handle entity, schema, answer structure and corroboration while they continue with rankings work. Where the two overlap, we agree the split at kickoff so nothing is done twice or left undone.
Related services
Adjacent work.
SEO & Content Marketing
The ranked-results half of organic.
Brand Strategy & Positioning
Coherent claims make a coherent entity.
Full-Service Digital Marketing
GEO inside a complete programme.
Find out if AI is recommending your competitors.
The GEO Audit costs $1,450 and takes two weeks. You get a measured baseline across every major engine, a schema and entity audit, and a roadmap you keep.