AI Search Optimization
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring your website so ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews cite and recommend your business by name — not just rank a page. We audit, rebuild, and monitor AI visibility as its own channel, separate from traditional SEO.
The honest version.
Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, means writing and structuring content so AI systems — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude — pull it into their answers and cite the source by name. It's a different discipline from traditional SEO. Ranking #1 on Google no longer guarantees you're the business an AI recommends when someone asks it a question directly, because AI answer engines don't rank ten blue links — they read the web, synthesize an answer, and choose which two or three sources are trustworthy enough to cite.
That difference changes what "optimized" content looks like. A page built for GEO leads with a direct, complete answer in its opening lines instead of building up to one, defines its key terms explicitly instead of assuming familiarity, and carries structured data — FAQPage and Service schema especially — that turns its content into something a language model can lift cleanly rather than have to interpret. Backlinks, reviews, and directory citations still matter here too: GEO doesn't replace traditional authority signals, it adds a retrieval layer on top of them, so strong domain authority and a real backlink profile improve AI citation odds the same way they improve rankings.
As of July 2026, ChatGPT carries the largest share of AI-search usage and leans on a mix of live retrieval and training data, rewarding comprehensive, well-sourced pages with clear expertise signals. Perplexity and Google AI Overviews both pull from real-time web search, which means structural fixes to a page can show up in their citations within weeks rather than the months traditional rankings take to move. That gap — weeks instead of months — is what makes GEO worth treating as a distinct workstream instead of a side effect of SEO.
Our approach.
Audit current AI visibility across major LLM-powered search tools
Restructure priority content for clarity and extractability
Build entity and citation signals that AI models trust
Track AI-referral traffic as a distinct channel, monthly
Who it's for.
- Brands seeing organic traffic plateau despite solid traditional SEO
- B2B and service businesses where being the "recommended" option in an AI answer drives leads
- Content-heavy sites that want to stay visible as search behavior shifts
- Anyone future-proofing their organic strategy beyond classic SEO
What's included
- ·AI visibility audit — where you currently show up (and don't) across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews
- ·Content structuring for extractability (clear answers, structured data, entity clarity)
- ·Citation and source-building to strengthen how AI models reference your brand
- ·Schema markup built for machine readability, not just search engines
- ·Ongoing monitoring as AI search engines and their sourcing behavior evolve
- ·Monthly reporting on AI-referral traffic alongside traditional organic
Get a free audit
30 minutes. We'll look at your current setup and tell you straight what's worth fixing.
FAQ
AI Search Optimization — common questions.
What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?+
GEO is the practice of structuring website content so AI answer engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude — cite and recommend it directly in their responses. Unlike traditional SEO, which optimizes for ranking in a list of links, GEO optimizes for being the source an AI model quotes or names when it synthesizes an answer.
Is GEO different from SEO, or part of it?+
GEO builds on traditional SEO rather than replacing it. Strong technical SEO, backlinks, and domain authority all improve how likely an AI model is to trust and cite a page. GEO adds a layer on top: content structured for direct extraction, explicit definitions, and schema markup written for machine readability rather than only search-engine crawlers.
How long does it take to see results from GEO?+
Because Perplexity and Google AI Overviews pull from live web search, structural changes to a page can appear in their citations within 4 to 8 weeks — much faster than typical organic ranking timelines. ChatGPT, which blends live retrieval with training data, tends to reflect changes more gradually.
Which AI platforms does Trellis optimize for?+
Trellis audits and optimizes visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — the three platforms driving the large majority of AI-referred traffic as of 2026 — and tracks Claude citations where relevant to a client's audience.
Do I need a large website for GEO to work?+
No. GEO rewards clarity and structure more than volume. A small site with a handful of well-structured, clearly defined, properly schema-marked pages can out-cite a much larger site with thin or poorly organized content.
