How to Get Cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews

ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly users; Google Gemini, more than 1 billion. One of their biggest impacts? Changing the way we seek information online. 

Rather than typing into google, searchers are now querying their AI and engaging with the synthesized answers and source links these tools provide. If your brand isn’t appearing in AI answers, you’re missing potential conversions. So, how do you get AI to notice you?

It’s called GEO, and it’s the latest iteration of SEO that makes your content easier for AI systems to find, understand and use. You don’t have to get rid of your traditional SEO playbook, but you do need to build upon it if you want to win in an AI search landscape.

Here’s how it works.

What Does GEO Mean?

GEO stands for generative engine optimization. It is the practice of creating and optimizing content to make it easier for AI tools to recognize and cite that material in the answers they generate. GEO expands on and adapts many traditional SEO practices for new AI search landscapes.

The reason for this? AI citations and traditional search rankings don’t perfectly overlap. For example:

• A 2025 Ahrefs analysis of 15,000 prompts found that only 12% of URLs cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot appeared in Google’s top 10 results for the same prompts.
• Follow-up data from 2026 found that 38% of AI Overview citations came from top-10 results.

So, in other words, the game has gotten bigger. Organic search marketers now have the additional task of making their content appear in AI while keeping it visible in search engines. Think of it the same way you would as bringing more pieces onto a chessboard.

GEO also doesn’t kill traditional SEO. In fact, Google explicitly points out that the fundamentals of strong GEO lie in SEO strategies that prioritize helpful content, technical accessibility, brand authority, strong UX and clear site architecture. GEO is simply a broader avenue of strategies that help your brand expand into AI overviews.

GEO vs. SEO: What’s the Difference?

A great way to think about the differences between SEO and GEO is to look at the focus of each. The table below spells it out. Still, at the end of the day, remember that these two strategies are not separate entities.

Area of Focus	SEO Focuses On:	GEO Focuses On:
Visibility	Visibility and ranking within search results	Visibility and citations within AI-generated answers
Content Strategy	Keywords, topics and search intent	Direct answers, clear topics and entities
Authority	Backlinks and domain authority	Credible sourcing and third-party brand mentions
Technical Accessibility	Search engine crawling and indexing	Search accessibility plus retrieval by relevant AI-powered experiences
Performance Measurement	Organic clicks and conversions	AI citations, brand mentions, referral traffic and conversions

Why Is GEO Worth the Effort?

The simple argument supporting robust GEO strategies is that appearing in an AI search overview gives your brand critical visibility. People are asking questions in AI, and if your brand has the answers, you need to appear there. GEO makes it possible.

Interestingly, appearing in AI overviews may have the secondary benefit of driving more qualified leads in general. Ahrefs reported that while AI generated only 0.5% of its traffic during one measurement period, it also accounted for 12.1% of signups. Visitors converted at roughly 23 times the rate of traditional organic search traffic.

Conversion rate examples like these indicate that the people using AI to search often have serious intent. They’re the people asking detailed questions, reading overviews and actively clicking on an AI-provided link to dive deeper. If you haven’t created a strong GEO strategy, you aren’t giving your brand the opportunity to engage with those truly serious prospects.

Five Things That Help Earn AI Citations

Your goal with GEO should be to create the conditions that make it easier for AI engines to retrieve, understand and trust your content. Here are five things to focus on:

1. Front-Load the Answer

Robust content remains important in both GEO and SEO. However, it is now more important to create content that gets to the point. AI machines can mimic basic human thought patterns, and most humans want a direct answer to their questions. The details can come later.

So, if your content aims to answer a question, try to give the answer within the first 40 to 60 words. Here’s an example:

“What is CRO?”

“CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. It eliminates areas of friction that may stop site visitors from becoming customers.”

There is still ample room below your answer to provide the additional clarifying content that is essential for strong brand visibility. By giving the answer first, you’ve just made it easier for humans and machines to understand what you’re talking about. You’re addressing their intent immediately before giving them more opportunities to engage.

2. Structure Content for Easy Understanding

Good content structure has always mattered for SEO and UX, and it still matters just as much for GEO. There are a lot of different ways to create better on-page clarity.

• Break topics down into easily understandable sections using headings, bulleted lists, tables and clear paragraphs.
• If a section of content answers a specific question, make the heading that question. Instead of saying “More Information About Pricing,” say “How Much Does Digital Marketing Cost?”
• Keep transitions clear and keep content linear across the whole page. A reader or a machine that’s scrolling through your page should be able to follow it through to its logical conclusion.

The clearer your content, the less friction there is across your page, and the easier everyone’s on-page experience will be.

3. Keep Your Best Content Fresh

After you publish your content, be ready to revisit it.

As time passes, content begins to age. Statistics may go out of date, new laws may go into effect and products receive updates. Many AI tools have real-time web browsing and search capabilities, and they’ll frequently look for up-to-date information when compiling answers.

The best way to stay ahead of this process is to refresh content regularly. Many brands do it at least quarterly, replacing obsolete content with fresh, GEO-optimized material. It’s a way of showing AI tools that you continue to have something specific to contribute to the conversation.

4. Use Structured Data Where It Actually Adds Context

The backend of content is just as important as the front in a GEO landscape, and accurate schema markup remains a foundational pillar of strategy. However, like front-facing content, schema should be well-structured and clear, providing appropriate context about the content and the business.

In other words, don’t simply do schema for the sake of doing it. Google points out that there’s no special schema markup required for something to appear in an AI overview. Rather, the schema needs to be accurate and relevant to the topic.

5. Make Sure AI and Search Systems Can Reach Your Content

Your site has to be easy to find by search engines. That’s as true for AI searches as it is for traditional search. Strong technical SEO will help make it happen. Here are a few best practices:

• Crawlability: Search and AI systems need to access your pages before they can understand or cite them.
• Indexability: Important pages should be eligible to appear in search indexes.
• Robots.txt rules: Make sure you aren’t accidentally blocking search or AI crawlers from accessing content.
• Server responses: Broken pages, redirects and server errors can prevent systems from reliably reaching your content.
• Internal linking: Clear internal links help search engines discover important pages and understand how your content connects.

Llms.txt does not necessarily affect visibility or ranking, but you should maintain a strong program as necessary. Still, always position technical resources where they’ll make the biggest difference

How Do You Know Whether GEO Is Working?

Success in GEO occurs when your brand begins appearing regularly in the answers AI generates. This can be a little more difficult to identify, since different answers are generated by different systems via different prompts and different contexts at any given time.

To measure GEO performance, you can’t fall back on your usual metrics of rankings, impressions, clicks and organic sessions and expect to tell what’s working. You need a repeatable process that helps you identify what’s working and what isn’t.

Start with a defined group of questions your customers actually ask. Then, run those queries across tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. Document:

• Whether your brand appears in the search results
• How the AI describes your brand
• Which materials or sources it cites.

Repeat this process regularly to monitor for differences and changes in trends. You’ll also want to segment identifiable AI referral traffic within your analytics platform so you can evaluate what those visitors do after reaching the site.

Ready To Become A Reputable Source? We Can Help.

AI searches haven’t made SEO disappear, they’ve just made it evolve and expand into broader GEO. Brands still need strong rankings, quality content, optimized websites and effective organic strategies that are easy for AI tools to understand.

That’s where TriMark comes in. Our organic strategy teams, content creators and SEO experts dig deeper into the data to continually refine strategies to keep your brand aligned with searchers’ queries. That way, your brand has the best opportunities of standing out.

Ready for a strong GEO strategy that helps your brand stand out in AI search? Let’s talk