A GEO agency makes your brand easier for AI engines to find, understand, cite and recommend. In practice it audits how you appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews, fixes entity and technical gaps, builds content models can quote, earns mentions on sources they trust and measures AI visibility as its own channel.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) exists because buying research has moved into AI chats. Forrester found that 94% of business buyers used AI during a recent purchase, and G2 reported in March 2026 that 51% of software buyers start research in an AI chat. These systems answer with a short list of brands and a handful of cited sources. If you are not on that list, the buyer may never see you.
This guide explains exactly what a GEO agency does: the deliverables, a typical monthly workflow, the timeline from audit to results and how the work is measured. It uses Marketer Coffee’s own process as a worked example, so you know what to expect from us or to compare with other proposals.
What is a GEO agency?
A GEO agency is a specialist in getting brands mentioned, cited and recommended inside AI-generated answers. It overlaps heavily with SEO, because AI engines retrieve from indexed web pages, but it researches prompts instead of keywords, works on unlinked brand mentions as well as links, and measures share of voice in AI answers rather than positions on a results page.
You will also see the terms AI SEO, AEO (answer engine optimization) and LLM SEO. They describe largely the same work. For the differences from classic SEO see GEO agency vs SEO agency.
What are the core deliverables of a GEO agency?
A complete GEO programme has six deliverables: a prompt audit, an entity and schema layer, AI crawler access, citable content, digital PR and mentions, and reporting.
| Deliverable | What the agency does | What you receive |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Prompt audit | Runs 50 to 200 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and AI Overviews | Baseline share of voice, competitors and sources cited, top gaps |
| 2. Entity and schema | Aligns brand facts across your site, Wikidata, Crunchbase, LinkedIn, G2 and directories; adds Organization, Product, Person and FAQ schema | A consistent, machine-readable brand entity |
| 3. AI crawler access | Reviews robots.txt and firewall rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended; adds llms.txt; fixes rendering traps | Pages AI systems can actually reach and read |
| 4. Citable content | Builds definitions, comparisons, “best X for Y” lists, FAQs, data pages and how-tos with quotable sentences and tables | New and rewritten pages built for extraction |
| 5. Digital PR and mentions | Earns reviews and mentions on Reddit, G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, listicles, podcasts, newsletters and news sites | Cross-web consensus that models rely on |
| 6. Reporting | Weekly prompt tracking, monthly share of voice, cited URLs, GA4 AI referral channel | A monthly report and review call |
How does a GEO agency run the prompt audit?
The agency builds a list of the questions your buyers actually type into AI assistants, runs them across every major engine several times and records who is mentioned, which URLs are cited and where you are missing.
Prompts are grouped by intent:
- Problem prompts: “how do I reduce landing page bounce rate”
- Category prompts: “best landing page builder for agencies”
- Comparison prompts: “Tool A vs Tool B”
- Alternative prompts: “alternatives to Tool A”
- Pricing and fit prompts: “cheapest option for a five-person team”
Repeated runs matter. SparkToro found less than a 1 in 100 chance that an AI tool returns the same list of brands twice. A GEO agency therefore reports how often you appear across many runs and prompts, not whether you appeared once.
The audit also separates being mentioned from being cited. Semrush’s September 2026 manufacturing study found that among the top 15 most-mentioned and top 15 most-cited domains, only 2 overlapped. Brands get named; intermediaries such as distributors and directories often get cited. Each outcome needs different work. You can try a first version yourself with our AI SEO audit tool.
What technical work does a GEO agency do?
The technical work makes sure AI systems can reach, render and understand your pages: crawler access, llms.txt, clean HTML, structured data and canonical clarity. It is usually the fastest change in how models describe a brand.
- Crawler access. Many sites block GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot or ClaudeBot through a firewall rule nobody remembers adding. The agency decides with you which bots to allow and for what purpose, since some fetch pages for live answers and others collect training data.
- llms.txt. A short file that points AI systems to your most important pages. Its impact is still debated, so a good agency treats it as low-cost hygiene, not a ranking lever.
- Rendering. Pricing tables, comparison grids and specs rendered only by client-side JavaScript are often invisible to retrieval systems.
- Structured data. Organization, Product, FAQPage and Person schema connect your products, people and company in a form engines can parse.
- Indexation. AI Overviews and AI Mode lean on Google’s index; ChatGPT search relies heavily on live web results. Pages that are not indexed cannot be cited.
What content does a GEO agency create?
A GEO agency creates content in the formats language models extract from: answer-first sections, definitions, comparison tables, lists that include competitors, FAQs and original data.
Good GEO content follows a few rules:
- Lead with the answer. The first sentence of each section should stand alone as a quotable passage.
- Use specifics. Numbers, dates, named sources and clear criteria.
- Be fair to competitors. Honest “best of” and comparison pages are cited more than pages that pretend alternatives do not exist.
- Name the author. Real experts with author pages strengthen trust signals.
- Refresh on a schedule. Freshness matters for live retrieval engines.
Depth beats volume. For Planika, a fireplace manufacturer entering the US, 7 localized articles took the site from not indexed to 1,052 monthly US visits and 401 Google AI Overview mentions.
Why does a GEO agency do digital PR?
Because AI engines trust what others say about you more than what you say about yourself. When several independent sources describe your brand the same way, models are more likely to name you for that category.
GEO digital PR targets:
- Review platforms relevant to your category, such as G2, Capterra or Trustpilot
- Industry “best of” listicles and comparison articles
- Reddit and community discussions, where participation is genuine
- Podcasts, newsletters and expert quotes in trade media
- Directories and marketplaces in your sector
Unlike classic link building, unlinked brand mentions count. The goal is to appear next to the right category terms on the sources AI engines retrieve.
What does a typical monthly GEO workflow look like?
Once the programme is running, each month follows the same loop: track, analyse, build, earn, report and re-plan.
| Week | Activities | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Prompt tracking run, review of cited URLs and competitor movement | Visibility snapshot, gap list |
| Week 2 | Content briefs and rewrites for priority prompts; technical and schema fixes | Briefs, fixes deployed |
| Week 3 | Publishing; outreach for mentions, reviews and listicle placements | New pages live, PR pipeline |
| Week 4 | Monthly report, review call, next prompt set and priorities agreed | Report and updated plan |
Prompt tracking itself runs weekly throughout, so trends are visible between reports.
How long does it take for a GEO agency to show results?
Technical and entity fixes can change how AI engines describe you within weeks; first citations on long-tail prompts usually appear within 1 to 3 months; share of voice grows in months 3 to 6; and becoming a default recommendation in a category, where achievable, takes 6 to 12 months. These are typical timelines, not guarantees.
| Phase | Timing | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Audit and 90-day plan | Weeks 1 to 2 | Prompt set, baseline, priorities |
| Entity, schema and technical fixes | Weeks 2 to 6 | Accurate brand descriptions, crawler access |
| Long-tail citations | Months 1 to 3 | Specific prompts with less competition |
| Share of voice growth | Months 3 to 6 | Category prompts, visible AI channel in GA4 |
| Default recommendation | Months 6 to 12 | Core money prompts in competitive categories |
How is a GEO agency’s work measured?
GEO is measured with four groups of metrics: prompt visibility, share of voice, cited URLs and AI referral traffic, read alongside branded search and pipeline.
- Prompt visibility: percentage of tracked prompts where your brand is mentioned, cited or recommended, per engine.
- Share of voice: your appearances compared with competitors across the same prompt set.
- Cited URLs: which of your pages, and which third-party pages about you, engines link to.
- AI referral traffic: sessions and conversions from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com, copilot.microsoft.com and similar, as a custom GA4 channel.
- Influence signals: branded search, direct traffic and “how did you hear about us” answers.
Keep expectations realistic on traffic. Conductor’s 2026 benchmarks put AI referrals at about 1.08% of traffic across industries, and Semrush measured 0.48% for manufacturing. Gartner reported in May 2026 that 69% of B2B buyers validate AI output with sales reps, which is why much of the effect shows up later in the funnel. For Landingi, AI referrals reached roughly 5,000 sessions a month as a separate GA4 line. See the Landingi case study.
What does a GEO agency not do?
A GEO agency cannot guarantee citations, buy placements in AI answers or replace the SEO foundations AI engines depend on. Be wary of any proposal that suggests otherwise. Our guide on how to choose a GEO agency lists the red flags.
Checklist: what your GEO agency should cover
- ☐ Prompt set of 50 to 200 buying questions per market
- ☐ Tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and AI Overviews
- ☐ Entity consistency and schema
- ☐ AI crawler access and llms.txt
- ☐ Citable content programme
- ☐ Digital PR aimed at mentions
- ☐ GA4 AI referral channel
- ☐ Monthly report and review call
How does Marketer Coffee work as a GEO agency?
Marketer Coffee runs every deliverable above as one programme, starting with a free AI visibility audit of 50 to 200 prompts and a 90-day plan. Adrian Dąbrowiecki leads the strategy with a small senior team, so the person who builds the plan joins your calls. We work in 8 languages, on monthly plans with a 30-day notice period, at engagement sizes that typically fall within the $2,000 to $15,000 per month range common for AI SEO. We are rated 5.0 on Google and Clutch.
Alongside AI work, the same team delivers classic SEO results: Landingi grew from 14,978 to 67,300 organic sessions in 27 months and Placester grew 189% in 15 months. Read more about our AI SEO services and AI SEO consultancy, compare agencies in our ranking, or check SEO cost and whether a GEO agency is worth it.
Frequently asked questions about what a GEO agency does
What does GEO stand for?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization: improving how a brand is mentioned, cited and recommended in answers from generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews.
What is the first thing a GEO agency does?
It runs a prompt audit: a set of real buyer questions across the major AI engines, recording who is mentioned and cited, to set a baseline and find the biggest gaps.
Does a GEO agency write content?
Yes, but content is one of six workstreams. Entity work, crawler access, digital PR and measurement matter as much.
How does a GEO agency measure results?
With prompt visibility, share of voice against competitors, cited URLs and AI referral traffic in a separate GA4 channel, read alongside branded search and pipeline.
How long does GEO take?
Fixes act within weeks, long-tail citations usually appear in months 1 to 3, share of voice grows in months 3 to 6, and default recommendation status takes 6 to 12 months where achievable.
Can a GEO agency guarantee results?
No. No agency controls which sources a model cites, and answers vary between runs. A credible agency improves the signals and measures the outcome.
What should you remember about what a GEO agency does?
A GEO agency audits your AI visibility, fixes the entity and technical layer, builds citable content, earns mentions and measures the result as its own channel. The work builds on SEO, takes months rather than weeks, and pays off where AI answers shape your buyers’ shortlists.
Want to see what this looks like for your brand? We will run a free AI visibility audit and give you a 90-day plan. Book a free consultation.
Sources: Forrester, The State of Business Buying 2026; G2, buyer behaviour research (March 2026); Gartner press release, May 2026; Conductor, The 2026 AEO / GEO Benchmarks Report; Semrush, manufacturing and industrial AI search study (September 2026); SparkToro, AI brand recommendation consistency study (2026); Marketer Coffee case studies (Landingi, Placester, Planika).
