Search is fragmenting.

For twenty years, "search" meant Google. You optimised your site for Google, you ranked for keywords, you got clicks. Everything flowed through one box on one page.

That era is ending.

In 2026, when someone wants to find something, they might type into Google. Or they might ask ChatGPT. Or Perplexity. Or Claude. Or Gemini. Or their in-app AI assistant. Each of these has its own logic about what answers it surfaces — and your classic SEO playbook only covers one of them.

You can rank #1 on Google and still be invisible when the question your buyer actually asks gets answered by ChatGPT.

Enter GEO — Generative Engine Optimisation. The new discipline of making sure your business is surfaced inside AI-generated answers, not just in the list of ten blue links.

Here's how they differ, why you need both, and what it means practically.

What SEO optimises for

Classic SEO targets:

  • Position in a ranked list of pages
  • Clicks from that list to your site
  • Keyword relevance — "AI automation UK", "law firm software", etc.
  • Authority signals — backlinks, domain age, content depth

You do SEO by writing keyword-matched content, building links, and making sure Google can crawl and understand your pages.

What GEO optimises for

GEO targets:

  • Citation inside an AI-generated answer
  • Mention as the authoritative source for a fact, brand, or service
  • Entity recognition — can the AI correctly identify who you are and what you do?
  • Structured authority — schema.org, llms.txt, reputable third-party mentions

You do GEO by making your identity and services unambiguous to language models, publishing fact-dense content, and earning mentions in sources the models trust.

The key differences

SEO cares about rank. GEO cares about citation. On Google, being #3 gets you a click. In ChatGPT, if your answer is the one cited, you're the only option the user sees.

SEO targets keywords. GEO targets entities. Google still needs "UK AI agency" in your copy. ChatGPT needs to know that Faction AI is a UK AI agency — as a fact about the entity — not just that you used the phrase on your homepage.

SEO needs backlinks. GEO needs authoritative mentions. A link from the BBC helps both. But a mention on a respected industry site without a hyperlink still counts for GEO — AI models treat it as a signal of relevance.

SEO lives in Google Search Console. GEO lives in the AI responses themselves. You check SEO with tools. You check GEO by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude questions in your niche and seeing who shows up.

What they share

The foundations overlap more than you'd expect:

  • Quality content that actually answers real questions
  • Structured data (schema.org) that tells both Google and LLMs what your site is about
  • Fast, mobile-friendly, accessible pages — crawlers hate slow
  • Consistent brand entity — the same name, same description, same facts everywhere
  • llms.txt — a new file that explicitly tells AI crawlers what your site is about (similar role to robots.txt but written for humans and LLMs)

Most of what you did for SEO translates. You just need to add a layer.

How to do both

Practically, for an SME site:

  1. Fix the fundamentals. Clean HTML, proper headings, meta descriptions, OG images, sitemap, robots.txt. These still matter for both.
  2. Add structured data. Organization, Service, Article, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList schemas. Google reads them. LLMs read them.
  3. Publish an llms.txt. Give AI models a curated tour of your site.
  4. Write fact-dense, citable content. Each insight post should answer a specific question with verifiable specifics — dates, numbers, named examples.
  5. Earn brand mentions. Podcasts, directories, partner blogs, industry lists. Not just links — mentions with context.
  6. Audit both channels quarterly. Classic SEO in Search Console. GEO by actually asking the AI engines questions about your niche and noting who they cite.

The businesses that show up in both in 2026 will own their niche for the next five years.

The bottom line

SEO makes you findable. GEO makes you citeable. In a world where half your potential customers never leave ChatGPT, you need both.

If you want to know how your site is performing on each, our geo-auditor scores you against both in one pass. Book an audit and we'll include a GEO/SEO snapshot.