When someone asks ChatGPT for "a good plumber in Takapuna" or Google's AI Overview answers before anyone clicks a link, ranking tenth on page one is worth nothing. GEO is the work of being the business that gets named.
GEO = Generative Engine Optimisation · AIO = AI Optimisation · Same discipline, two names
For 20 years the job was simple to describe: get to the top of a list of ten blue links. That list is being replaced. Google now answers a huge share of queries directly in an AI Overview. Millions of people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot instead of searching at all.
These systems do not show a list. They give one answer and name a handful of sources. If your business is not one of them, you are not in the consideration set, no matter where you rank in the traditional results.
The good news: being cited is winnable, and right now most NZ businesses are not even trying. The signals that get you quoted are different enough from classic SEO that early movers have an unusual amount of room.
Open ChatGPT and ask for the best business in your category in your suburb. If a competitor comes back and you do not, that is the gap. It costs nothing to check and most owners have never done it.
We run the questions your customers actually ask through ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini, and record who gets named. That is your baseline.
Organisation, service, location, FAQ and review schema, done properly, so the engines know exactly what you are and can quote you with confidence.
Pages restructured so the answer comes first and the detail follows. Clear questions, clear headings, specific facts, no 800 word run up before the point.
Your name, address, phone, hours and services made identical everywhere they appear online. Contradictions make a model distrust the whole entity.
Getting your business mentioned in the sources these engines actually lean on: directories, local media, industry listings and genuine review platforms.
We re run the same prompts every month and report whether you are being named, how you are described, and whether it is getting better or worse.
| GEO / AIO | Classic SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| The goal | Be cited in the answer | Rank in the list |
| Winner takes | Most of the attention | Share of ten results |
| Content shape | Answer first, specific, structured | Long form, keyword led |
| Key signal | Entity clarity and corroboration | Links and relevance |
| Measured by | Prompt testing and citation share | Ranking position and traffic |
| Maturity | Early, and winnable | Mature, and crowded |
This is not a replacement. The AI engines are heavily influenced by what ranks and what is written about you, so solid SEO is the foundation GEO is built on. We run both together, which is why GEO is included in our Growth and National SEO plans rather than sold as a separate upsell.
Some of what is sold under that name is. The underlying shift is real though: a growing share of searches now end in an AI generated answer with a handful of named sources. The practical work of being one of those sources is genuine, measurable and different enough from classic SEO to need its own attention.
No, and be very careful of anyone who does. These systems are probabilistic and their outputs change. What we can do is measure whether you are currently being named, fix the signals that decide it, and show you the movement month by month.
We build a set of prompts that mirror how your customers ask, run them across the major engines on a schedule, and log who gets cited each time. You see the same prompts, the same engines and the trend over time.
Increasingly yes. "Find me a good electrician in Mt Eden" is exactly the kind of question people now ask an assistant instead of typing into Google. Local businesses with clear, consistent, well structured information are winning these mentions.
It is included in our Growth ($899 per month) and National ($1,499 per month) SEO plans. As a standalone service it starts at $499 per month. The initial AI visibility check is free, just ask.
We will run your top questions through the major AI engines and send you the results, free.
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