Someone in Hawthorn asks ChatGPT “best accountant near me for a small trades business.” ChatGPT doesn’t hand them ten blue links. It hands them a paragraph answer with three named firms and links to the sources it pulled from.
If your accounting practice isn’t one of the three, you don’t exist in that conversation. Not later on page two, not “fighting for the click.” You’re just not there.
That’s the thing most small business owners I talk to haven’t quite clocked yet. It’s not that AI search is coming. It’s already here, your competitors are showing up in it, and being quotable enough to make it into the answer is now part of the job. That’s what GEO is about.
This is the long version of the conversation I have with every new client who asks me whether they need to “do something about AI.” Yes. But probably not as much as the people selling AI SEO packages want you to think. Here’s the honest version.
Start here
Outcome: make your business easier for AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews to understand. Time: about two hours. Cost: nothing, if you write the schema yourself.
Do first: the homepage opening sentence · your Google Business Profile · crawlability · one real FAQ section.
Leave for later: llms.txt · new “GEO tools” · ongoing “AI SEO” packages.
Done when: your main pages say what you do, who you do it for, and where — and your key pages are crawlable and indexable.
What is GEO?
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring your website content so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini can find it, understand it, and cite it in their answers. The term comes from a 2023 Princeton paper by Aggarwal, Murahari and colleagues that introduced GEO as a discipline and measured which techniques actually improve citation rates in generative search (arXiv:2311.09735, published in KDD 2024).
The short version: AI engines don’t rank your site like Google does. They read across many sources, pick the ones that give them a clean, credible, specific answer, and then paraphrase or quote those sources in their response. Getting cited is the new getting ranked. GEO is how you make that more likely. More likely is the honest framing, too. Nobody can promise you a citation, and anyone who does is selling something.
It isn’t a replacement for SEO. It’s an extension of it. You still want to rank in traditional search. You just also want to be the source the AI tool pulls from when someone asks a question in natural language instead of typing keywords into a box.
Why does GEO matter in 2026? Four numbers you need to hear
Four numbers tell the story.
1. ChatGPT crossed 900 million weekly active users in February 2026. That’s more than double the 400 million from a year earlier (Search Engine Land, Feb 2026). OpenAI also reports more than 50 million consumer subscribers and over 9 million paying business users. This isn’t a niche tool anymore. That’s roughly one in six of the world’s internet users, every week.
2. Google AI Overviews now show on 16-48% of searches, depending on the study. Semrush’s research tracked Google AI Overviews appearing on around 16% of queries in late 2025, with informational queries still the most likely to trigger them (Semrush AI Overviews study, 2025). BrightEdge’s tracking showed AIO surging from roughly 30% of queries in early 2025 to 48% by February 2026, with education queries jumping from 18% to 83% (BrightEdge one-year review, Search Engine Journal summary). Use the range. One number alone hides the story.
3. Click-through rates drop 47-61% when an AI Overview appears. Pew Research found users click a traditional search result on just 8% of visits where an AI summary appears, versus 15% where none does — roughly half as often (Pew Research, July 2025). Seer Interactive measured a 61% drop in organic CTR on SERPs with AIO present (Seer, Sept 2025). Ahrefs measured a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page in its December 2025 re-run (Ahrefs). The upside, from the same Seer dataset: brands cited inside the AI Overview itself see a 35% higher organic CTR than uncited brands.
Three separate studies, three different methodologies, roughly the same picture. When an AI summary sits at the top of the page, a large share of the clicks that used to reach the results below it never happen. Being cited inside the answer is the consolation prize worth having.
4. One in four consumers now count AI among their top product-research tools. Adobe’s 2026 AI and Digital Trends report found that 25% of customers now cite AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT as a top research tool, with 49% open to AI for product recommendations and 44% for customer service (Adobe, 2026). Gartner forecasts a 25% drop in search engine volume by 2026 due to AI chatbots and virtual agents (Gartner, Feb 2024).
Put them together and the picture is obvious. A growing share of the people who would have clicked on your site from Google are now getting their answer from an AI tool instead. Some still click through. Many don’t. The only way to be in the conversation is to be one of the sources the AI pulls from.
The Australian context: we’re further along than you think
Here’s the bit that surprises my Melbourne clients. Australia isn’t behind on AI search. We’re further along than most owners assume.
DataReportal’s Digital 2026 Australia report clocks Australian internet users at 26.2 million — 97.1% penetration, effectively the whole adult population online. And a Google/Ipsos survey found 49% of Australians used generative AI in the past year, up from 38% in 2023, with 74% of those using it at work.
Nearly half the adult population used a generative AI tool within the past year, much of it at work. The survey doesn’t say how many of those sessions replaced a Google search, but some slice of them will be exactly the questions a small business owner in Fitzroy or Coburg wants to show up for: supplier research, service comparisons, who’s good near me.
In my experience auditing Melbourne businesses, roughly half the sites I look at haven’t claimed their Google Business Profile properly, or they claimed it years ago and never touched it again. The basics that tell Google’s systems, AI features included, who you are (your Business Profile, reviews, accurate address and hours) are wide open. If you’re reading this and your plumbing business or café hasn’t sorted its GBP out, the local SEO guide is where I’d start. GEO sits on top of that work, not instead of it.
There’s a real window here. Most Melbourne SMBs haven’t done anything about GEO yet because most haven’t heard of it. Competing on attention is almost always harder than competing on being early.
GEO vs SEO: what actually changed?
A lot of articles on this subject draw a sharp line between GEO and SEO. They’re closer than that. GEO is what you get when you apply a decade of structured-content best practice to a new audience.
| SEO | GEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Rank in search results | Get cited inside AI answers |
| Audience | Google’s ranking algorithm | Large language models: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude |
| Format signals | Keywords, backlinks, technical health, Core Web Vitals | Clear definitions, direct answers, verifiable facts, structured data |
| Output | Blue link on page one | Named source in an AI-generated paragraph |
| Trust signals | Domain authority, E-E-A-T, link profile | Citability, factual specificity, schema markup, answer-first formatting |
| Measurement | Rankings, organic clicks, impressions | Citation appearances, referral traffic from AI tools, brand mentions in answers |
The practical overlap is larger than the table suggests. A site that’s fast, structured, well-written, and factually specific tends to do well in both. A site that hides its point under paragraphs of vague marketing copy tends to do badly in both.
If you care about site speed and mobile experience (you should), the same Core Web Vitals work that helps SEO also helps AI crawlers parse your site. If your Google Ads spend is leaking (it probably is), the self-audit checklist in the Google Ads guide will tell you where. None of this is wasted when you start thinking about GEO. It’s all compounding.
What does the research say about GEO?
The foundational paper is Aggarwal et al., “GEO: Generative Engine Optimization”, from a Princeton and IIT Delhi team, published at KDD 2024. It’s the first serious attempt to measure which content techniques actually improve citation rates in generative search, tested across 10,000 queries.
They found that certain techniques boosted visibility in AI responses by up to 40%. These are the nine techniques they tested, strongest performers first:
- Citing sources. Adding credible references inside your content.
- Adding statistics. Replacing “a lot of people” with “49% of Australians” (with a source).
- Using quotations. Including direct quotes from experts or studies.
- Fluency optimisation. Clear, well-structured writing.
- Unique wording. Specific phrasing the AI hasn’t seen a thousand times elsewhere.
- Technical terms. Precise terminology where it suits the topic.
- Authoritative tone. Writing like someone who actually knows the subject.
- Easy-to-understand language. Simplifying dense writing so the answer is legible.
- Keyword stuffing. The one old-school SEO trick they tested — and it didn’t work. Cramming query keywords in barely moved the needle, which is the whole point: AI engines reward substance, not density.
The top three (citing sources, adding statistics, using quotations) did most of the heavy lifting, each adding roughly 30-40% visibility on the paper’s main metric. None of this is a shock if you’ve read good writing advice for the last twenty years. The interesting bit is that a machine learned to prefer it for the same reasons humans do. Specific is better than vague. Sourced is better than asserted. Clear is better than clever.
The practical takeaway: the paper measured content techniques, not tooling. Answer-first formatting, schema markup, and clean HTML structure are all worth doing — I get to them below — but they’re your own good practice, not something this study ranked. Get the writing right first; the rest is incremental on top of that.
What does Google now say about AI search? (May 2026)
In May 2026, Google published its first official guide to optimising for AI features in Search. The answer is blunter than the “AI SEO” industry would like.
For Google, there is no separate AI ranking system. AI Overviews and AI Mode pull from the same index and the same ranking as regular search. In Google’s words: “To be eligible to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet, fulfilling the Search technical requirements. There are no additional technical requirements”. Translation: if you’ve done good SEO, you’ve done your Google GEO. No secret checklist exists.
Google also confirmed what you don’t need: no llms.txt (“Google Search itself doesn’t use them”), no special “AI-friendly” voice, no dedicated schema markup for AI answers. Most of what gets sold as “GEO” is, for Google, unnecessary.
Where the tactics actually earn their keep: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude. Each appears to behave differently — treat that as an observed pattern that will shift, not a stable rule. Answer-first formatting, specific sourced statistics, freshness, clean structure: those help you get cited there, and they make the page better for humans, which is why I’d do them anyway. Just don’t believe anyone who calls these a secret Google hack.
The honest version: do excellent SEO. The same fundamentals are what get you cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and the rest.
What actually moves the needle in GEO?
This is the section where I tell you what I’d actually bother with, because a lot of the AI SEO packages being sold right now are mostly fluff on top of standard fundamentals.
What I’d prioritise — and what I’d skip for now
What I’d prioritise
- Answer-first formatting in every section
- One-paragraph definitions of what you do
- FAQ sections with direct answers
- Fresh content with clear dates
- Specific, verifiable numbers
What I’d skip for now
- Buying an “AI SEO” package for $2,000 a month
- llms.txt
- Chasing every new “GEO tool”
Answer-first formatting in every section. If someone could only read the first two sentences of each H2, they should get the answer. Everything after is supporting evidence. This matches the research and, honestly, just makes the article better.
One-paragraph definitions of what you do. Your homepage, your service pages, your About page. Each should open with a single sentence an AI tool can quote verbatim. “We’re passionate about delivering solutions” is not quotable. “Nathan Schram is a Melbourne-based digital marketing consultant specialising in SEO, GEO, and Google Ads for small businesses” is.
FAQ sections with direct answers. FAQ content maps almost exactly to the kind of question people ask AI tools. One thing to know: Google retired the FAQ rich result in May 2026, so FAQPage markup no longer earns you the expandable Q&A box in Google’s results. The value now is the AI-citation angle and the clean structure, not a Google SERP feature. Write FAQs. Add the schema where the questions are real. The cost is low.
Fresh content with clear dates. Every article I publish has a “last updated” date. Several AI engines appear to weight recency, Perplexity especially. A 2024 article about AI search is stale by 2026.
Specific, verifiable numbers. “We’ve helped many businesses” is worthless. “I’ve audited Google Ads accounts for trades, healthcare, real estate, and professional services since 2013” is fact-checkable and citable.
Buying an “AI SEO” package for $2,000 a month. Most of what’s in those is either standard SEO or basic schema implementation. If your site has good structure, clear writing, and current schema, you’ve already done most of the groundwork. The rest is measurement, which barely any tool does well yet.
Skip llms.txt. The llms.txt proposal from Jeremy Howard at Answer.AI in September 2024 is a tidy idea: a text file telling AI crawlers what matters on your site. Plenty of sites added one through 2025. Then the evidence came in. In May 2026 Google stated flatly that its Search systems don’t use it, and an Ahrefs analysis of 137,000 domains found 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests at all. John Mueller compared it to the old meta-keywords tag. I had this filed under “cheap insurance” a few months ago. It’s now closer to “don’t bother for most sites.” If you want one for the agentic-browsing future, fine, but don’t pay anyone to strategise about it.
Chasing every new “GEO tool.” The tooling market is a mess. Most tools show you mentions in some subset of AI tools, extrapolate wildly, and sell you a dashboard. Wait a quarter. The honest ones will still be around.
The schema you should actually add, with code
Schema markup is where most small business websites miss the easiest win. Microsoft’s Fabrice Canel confirmed at SMX Munich in March 2025 that schema markup helps the LLMs behind Bing’s AI tools understand your content. Google was clearer in its May 2026 guide: structured data isn’t required for AI search and there’s no special markup to add, but it’s still worth using because it helps you qualify for rich results in regular search. So add schema because it’s cheap and well-supported for SEO and for engines like Bing, not because it’s a magic AI-citation lever. The cost of adding it is about an hour. The only real downside is neglect: markup has to match what’s visibly on the page, and stale or wrong markup is worse than none.
Drop these into the <head> of the relevant pages, inside <script type="application/ld+json"> tags. Test them with Google’s Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator. If either throws a red error, fix it before shipping.
Person schema (for a consultant or personal brand)
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Nathan Schram",
"url": "https://nathanschram.com",
"jobTitle": "Digital Marketing Consultant",
"description": "Melbourne-based digital marketing consultant specialising in SEO, GEO, and Google Ads for small businesses.",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"addressLocality": "Melbourne",
"addressRegion": "VIC",
"addressCountry": "AU"
},
"sameAs": [
"https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanschram",
"https://bsky.app/profile/nathanschram.bsky.social",
"https://github.com/littlebearapps"
]
}LocalBusiness schema (for a Melbourne SMB)
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "LocalBusiness",
"name": "Your Business Name",
"image": "https://example.com/storefront.jpg",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "123 Brunswick St",
"addressLocality": "Fitzroy",
"addressRegion": "VIC",
"postalCode": "3065",
"addressCountry": "AU"
},
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": -37.7963,
"longitude": 144.9780
},
"telephone": "+61-3-9000-0000",
"url": "https://example.com",
"openingHoursSpecification": [{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": ["Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday"],
"opens": "09:00",
"closes": "17:00"
}],
"priceRange": "$$"
}FAQPage schema (still useful for AI, no longer a Google rich result)
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "FAQPage",
"mainEntity": [{
"@type": "Question",
"name": "What is GEO?",
"acceptedAnswer": {
"@type": "Answer",
"text": "Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the practice of structuring website content so AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite it in their answers."
}
}]
}Organization schema (for a company homepage)
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Your Company",
"url": "https://example.com",
"logo": "https://example.com/logo.png",
"sameAs": [
"https://linkedin.com/company/your-company",
"https://twitter.com/yourcompany"
]
}If you want a hand adding schema or doing a proper GEO audit rather than a quick pass, get in touch. I do this for small businesses across Melbourne.
The 2-hour Melbourne SMB minimum viable GEO plan
Here’s what I’d actually do if you gave me a Saturday morning and a Melbourne small business website that’s currently invisible to AI search.
1. Rewrite the homepage opening paragraph 15 min
One sentence that says what you do, who you do it for, and where. No “passionate.” No “innovative.” Just the facts an AI tool could quote.
Done when: the homepage opens with one sentence an AI tool could quote — what you do, who you do it for, and where.
2. Claim and optimise your Google Business Profile 20 min if you haven’t, 5 min to double-check if you have
Hours, categories, photos, description. For local queries this matters: Google says you can use your Business Profile to improve your local ranking.
Done when: your profile is claimed, and the hours, categories, photos, and description are filled in.
3. Check your key pages are crawlable and indexable 10 min
No accidental noindex, nothing important blocked in robots.txt, and your main content sitting in the HTML rather than hidden behind JavaScript. Indexability is the gate Google’s own guide names for appearing in an AI answer, and content in the HTML also helps the non-Google crawlers that don’t render JavaScript.
Done when: no key page carries an accidental noindex, nothing important is blocked in robots.txt, and your main content sits in the HTML.
Stop if: a key page turns out not to be indexable — indexability is the gate Google’s own guide names for appearing in an AI answer, so fix that before the rest of the list.
4. Write one proper FAQ section 30 min
Five to eight questions real customers actually ask. Direct answers. The questions and answers are the value; FAQPage schema on top is optional polish now that Google has retired the FAQ rich result.
Done when: the page directly answers five to eight questions real customers actually ask.
5. Add a “last updated” date to every piece of content 10 min
Recency appears to be a signal for several AI engines.
Done when: every piece of content shows a “last updated” date.
6. Add Person or Organization schema to every page 20 min
Use the templates above. Test in the Rich Results Test. This is ordinary SEO hygiene that also helps engines like Bing, not an AI-citation lever.
Done when: the Rich Results Test shows no red errors.
7. Add LocalBusiness schema to the homepage and contact page 15 min
Especially if you have a physical location.
Done when: the Rich Results Test shows no red errors on the homepage and contact page.
That’s about two hours, and none of it guarantees a citation. The writing steps are the part that lines up with what the Princeton research measured (clear, specific, well-sourced content); the schema and GBP steps are ordinary SEO and local hygiene that Google says still matter. Nothing here leaves you worse off than you are now.
What won’t save you?
Before you hand money to anyone selling “GEO packages,” three honest caveats.
Schema alone isn’t magic. Schema is often credited with big citation lifts. The evidence is thinner than the claims: a Search Atlas analysis of schema coverage and citation rates across OpenAI, Gemini, and Perplexity found domains with extensive schema markup were cited no more often than domains with little or none. The sensible move is to add schema because it’s cheap and well-supported for regular SEO, not because a single stat is going to transform your citations.
The “AI-first” funnel is still tiny. Most small businesses I work with still get the majority of their traffic from Google, direct visits, and paid ads. AI referral traffic is real and growing, but for a typical Melbourne trade business it’s still a small slice of sessions, not half of them. Don’t take my word for the size either: GA4’s “AI Assistant” channel will show you your own number, read as a floor rather than the full picture. Don’t neglect your Core Web Vitals or your Google Ads setup chasing an AI-only strategy.
The tooling is changing monthly. OpenAI adds features, Google re-pulls AI Overviews from industries they’d previously rolled out to, Perplexity launches new products. The foundations (clear writing, direct answers, structured data, fresh content, real expertise) have survived a decade of Google algorithm changes and will survive this one. The specific tooling around them is going to keep moving.
Do the fundamentals, don’t panic-buy an AI SEO package, and check back in six months. That’s how I’d approach it, anyway.
FAQ
Is GEO different from AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)?
Mostly not. AEO came first, referring to optimisation for featured snippets and voice assistants. GEO is the broader term for generative AI search. Some practitioners use them interchangeably. I use GEO because it’s the term the Princeton paper established.
Do I need to do GEO if I already rank well in Google?
Yes, because ranking well in Google and being cited in Google AI Overviews are not the same thing. A page can be in position 1 for a keyword and still not appear in the AI Overview for the same query. That said, if your SEO fundamentals are strong, your GEO starting point is already better than most.
Where should I start with GEO?
Start with the first paragraph of your homepage and key service pages: open with a direct, specific, citable answer to “what do you do and who do you do it for.” In my experience, everything else compounds on top of that.
How do I measure if GEO is working?
It’s harder than SEO, though the tooling caught up a bit in 2026. Google Analytics now has a dedicated “AI Assistant” channel (added May 2026) that groups visits referred from AI tools like ChatGPT. Treat it as a floor rather than the full picture: AI apps often strip the referrer, so those visits land in Direct, and Google’s own AI Overviews aren’t included. Search Console added a Generative AI report (June 2026) showing impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode, though it’s impressions only and still rolling out. Beyond the dashboards, test by asking ChatGPT and Perplexity the questions a customer would ask and watch for brand mentions. Nothing yet measures the people who read an AI answer and never click.
Does llms.txt actually do anything?
For Google, no. In May 2026 Google stated its Search systems don’t use llms.txt, and an Ahrefs study of 137,000 domains found 97% of the files got zero bot requests. The proposal is sensible in theory and might matter for the agentic-browsing future, but as a 2026 SEO or GEO lever it does almost nothing. Treat it as optional, not a growth move.
Can I just use ChatGPT to write my GEO content?
You can, and plenty of people do, but the Search Engine Land 16-month study of 2,000 AI-written articles — run on brand-new domains with zero authority — found they collapsed to just 3% of Google’s top 100 within three months (they clawed back some ground later, but most never returned). Write it yourself, or get a human to edit AI drafts properly. The Princeton research is very clear that specific, factual, well-cited writing wins. Generic AI copy is the opposite of all of that.
What’s the minimum budget for GEO?
Two hours of your time and zero dollars, if you follow the weekend plan above. If you want an expert audit and implementation, a decent local consultant (shameless plug: me) will do a thorough GEO pass on a small business site for a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars, depending on size. Don’t pay ongoing $2,000-a-month “AI SEO” fees unless someone’s actually proving the traffic.
Is GEO still going to matter in a year?
The specific tooling might change. The fundamentals have mattered for traditional SEO for two decades: clear writing, structured data, direct answers, verifiable facts, current content. Nothing in the research suggests those are going away. If anything, they’re about to matter more.
The bottom line
GEO matters more than the “AI SEO” crowd has earned the right to charge for it, and less than most of the panicked blog posts about “the death of Google” are suggesting. It’s an extension of the work a good SEO should already be doing: clear answers, specific facts, structured markup, current content. Sort those out and you’ll be fine.
If you’d like a proper GEO audit of your Melbourne business website, or help with the schema implementation, get in touch. I work with small and medium businesses across Melbourne on SEO, Google Ads, web design, and the whole mess AI has made of digital marketing strategy. Results, not reports.
Nathan Schram is a Melbourne-based digital marketing consultant with 13 years in tech marketing, sales, and business development across startups and ASX-listed organisations. He writes about Core Web Vitals, Google Ads, and local SEO for Melbourne businesses. Read more at About.
Originally published April 2026; updated June 2026 to fold in Google’s first official AI-search guidance (and to retire the llms.txt advice Google has since said it doesn’t use), and July 2026 to tighten several statistics and claims against their original sources. AI search data moves fast, so check the linked sources for the latest figures.