Your competitors show up on ChatGPT. You don’t. Someone told you to forget SEO and do “GEO” instead, and a tool vendor promised to track your “AI rankings.” Let’s cut through it.
Quick vocab note: GEO, AI SEO, and AEO all mean roughly the same thing. Getting your brand found and recommended by tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews.
Is AI search replacing SEO?
TLDR? No. The strongest SEO performers tend to be the strongest AI search performers, and visibility in Google and Bing helps a lot with your visibility in AI. Google’s own guidance on AI features says the same SEO fundamentals apply.
What has changed is who gets to vouch for you.
What other people say about you matters more than ever
You used to win by getting a person to click. Now an AI tool decides which sources to trust before anyone clicks anything, and it leans hard on what other people say about you. Your own website saying you’re great counts for less than it used to.
An example I give local businesses: if another small business writes a “best massage spots in Denver” post on their blog and lists you, that’s worth more to AI than another page on your own site saying the same thing.
Here’s what we’re seeing about where the AI tools pull from. It changes often, so treat it as a snapshot:
| Source | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Feeds a lot of what Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews say about local businesses, and shows up in ChatGPT answers too |
| Yelp | Appears to feed a lot of Perplexity’s local answers |
| Reviews on other sites | AI tools treat them as proof that real people like you |
| “Best of” lists, press, and podcasts | Independent mentions that tell AI who you are and what you’re known for |
Make reviews an always-on habit
For local businesses, a steady review program is usually my top priority for AI search. A few things I’ve learned:
- Slow and steady wins. Two or three new reviews every month is much better than 50 showing up in one week. A sudden spike looks like a review drive, and some platforms filter those out.
- Make it part of the visit. A sign at the front desk works. So does a small card with a QR code to your Google review page, with the staff member’s name on it so people can mention them.
- Know each platform’s rules. Google lets you ask customers for reviews, but you can’t offer a reward for one or only ask happy customers. Yelp discourages asking at all, so focus your asks on Google and make your Yelp page easy to find.
Make your brand easy for AI to recognize
Before AI recommends you, it has to figure out who you are. It does that by matching what it finds about you across the internet: same name, same description, same address and phone number, and profiles that link to each other.
In our industry we talk about it in a really unfun way: NAP consistency (name, address, phone). Getting listed in directories is one of the most mind-numbing ways the internet works. It also really, really helps. Tools like BrightLocal can push your info to the major directories in one burst. After that, it’s manual work, one directory at a time.
What makes a brand blurry to AI:
- Old bios and old listings that still describe who you were years ago
- Too many versions of your name. Pick one and use it everywhere.
- Missing context. If you’re located inside another business, like a grocery store, say so right on your homepage, not just in the footer.
- No real people. Content by “Admin” doesn’t build trust with anyone, human or bot.
Put real experts on your content
Bylines matter, especially in health, finance, and legal topics. If someone writes about what to expect after a car accident, AI and Google want to know that a qualified person wrote it. Add author bylines with real credentials, and link each author to a bio page and their professional profiles.
Clean up content that competes with itself
If you have two posts covering nearly the same thing, written by different people over the years, combine them into one strong guide and redirect the other. Refresh posts that used to get traffic and don’t anymore. Often the information is just out of date.
What Google and AI tools actually dislike is copied content, like taking another site’s article and posting it as your own. Updating your own content is a great tactic.
And skip the old-school link schemes. Years ago it was link swaps, then bigger and bigger link circles. Google figured those out. Earn mentions instead.
The technical basics
- Let the AI bots in. Make sure your robots.txt isn’t blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and friends.
- Keep important content as real text. Many AI crawlers don’t run JavaScript.
- Make content easy to quote. Lead each section with the answer, use question-style headings, and put comparisons in tables.
- Add schema across the whole site, not just the homepage, and connect your profiles with it.
- Keep it fresh. Show updated dates, and update the pages that matter.
Can you track your “ChatGPT ranking”?
Not the way you track Google rankings. Prompts change around, people ask multiple prompts, and AI tools give dramatically different answers to the same prompt because of personalization and other factors. You can’t measure effectiveness by prompt rank tracking.
What I’d watch instead:
- AI referral traffic in GA4. It undercounts, because lots of people read the answer in ChatGPT and then come straight to your site. The visitors who do click through often convert at a much higher rate than average.
- Branded search. More people searching your name is a good sign.
- The simplest one: ask every new lead how they heard about you. You’ll hear ChatGPT a lot more than you might think.
What you can stop worrying about
- “Just ask ChatGPT how to show up in ChatGPT.” ChatGPT isn’t designed to analyze ranking tactics. It’s designed to answer your question. You’ll get some interesting ideas, but generally not the whole picture.
- One-stop-shop tools. We’ve assessed a lot of AI SEO tools, and we keep assessing them. If one claims to be the one-stop shop for visibility and recommendations, be skeptical. Very, very skeptical.
- Anyone promising a stable spot. AI answers move around a lot. Right now most of the action is in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews. That could change.
Where to start
| Order | Do this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fix your Google Business Profile and directory listings | Fast, cheap, and feeds several AI tools at once |
| 2 | Start an always-on review habit | Third-party proof is what AI leans on |
| 3 | Check robots.txt and make key content real text | If AI can’t read it, nothing else matters |
| 4 | Add bylines, bios, and sitewide schema | Helps AI connect your content to real experts |
| 5 | Pitch lists, press, and podcasts | Independent mentions build trust over time |
| 6 | Track AI referrals, branded search, and “how did you hear about us” | Shows you what’s working |
Want to see where your site stands? We built a free AI SEO grader at Volume Nine: geo.v9digital.com. Just something free and straightforward, since most of what’s out there right now is overwhelming.
FAQ
Is GEO different from SEO? Mostly no. Strong SEO is the foundation. GEO adds more focus on third-party mentions, reviews, brand consistency, and content AI can easily quote.
Which AI tools matter most right now? ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews get most of the attention today, with Gemini and Perplexity close behind. That list will keep changing.
How long does it take to show up in AI answers? It depends on your starting point. Fixing listings and technical issues can help within weeks. Building reviews and mentions takes months.
Do I need a special AI SEO tool? Not to get started. Your Google Business Profile, Search Console, GA4, and your leads’ answers to “how did you hear about us” will tell you a lot.
Want your audience to hear this live? See How to Optimize Your Site & Brand for AI Search on the Topics page.