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GEO vs SEO: what actually changes

GEO means making your business easy for AI assistants to find, read and quote. It builds on SEO. It does not replace it.

What GEO means

GEO stands for generative engine optimization. A “generative engine” is any tool that writes an answer instead of listing ten links: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and the AI summaries inside search results. GEO is the work of making sure those answers include you, and get your facts right.

What stays the same

• A fast website that works on a phone.
• Your name, address and phone written the same way everywhere.
• A complete, accurate Google Business Profile.
• Real reviews, and replies to them.

What changes

• The goal is to be quoted, not only clicked. A customer may never visit your site. They read your hours and price in the answer. Those facts must be right and findable.
• Plain text beats clever design. Hours that live in an image, or a menu in a PDF, are hard for any machine to read. Put them in the page as text.
• Structured data matters more. Schema.org markup states your type, address, hours and prices in a form software can read without guessing. See our schema guide.
• Consistency is checked across sources. If your site says Sunday closed and your Maps listing says open, an AI has to pick one.

Where to start

Run the free checker on your homepage. Fix what it flags, top to bottom. Most local businesses are missing the same few things: hours, prices and structured data.