Ask ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, or Microsoft Copilot a question like “who’s the best [your industry] in [your town],” and one of two things happens. Either your business gets named, with an accurate, flattering answer. Or it doesn’t get mentioned at all, while three of your competitors do.
For most business owners, this comes as a genuine surprise. They’ve never typed that question themselves. But their customers increasingly have, and AI tools are quietly becoming a real channel for how people choose who to call.
This is what Generative Engine Optimisation, or GEO, is about: making sure AI tools describe your business accurately, find it when it matters, and recommend it when someone’s deciding between you and a competitor.
What is GEO, and how is it different from SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is about ranking well in a list of blue links on Google. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is about being the answer an AI tool gives, with no list, no links, and no second chance to be clicked on instead.
The two overlap, since a well-structured, well-written, technically sound website helps with both, but they’re not the same thing. An AI tool doesn’t rank ten results and let a person choose. It reads what’s available about your business, decides what’s true, and gives one confident answer. If that answer is wrong, outdated, or simply doesn’t mention you, there’s no page two to fall back on.
Why this matters right now
ChatGPT, Google Gemini and AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot are now a normal part of how people research a purchase, a tradesperson, or a service provider, often before they ever open a traditional search engine. Each of these tools forms its answer from whatever it can find and trust about a business: your website, your Google Business Profile, your directory listings, your reviews, your social profiles.
If that information is inconsistent, thin, or technically inaccessible to AI tools, you’re not just missing a ranking opportunity. You’re being actively, confidently described as something other than what you are, or left out of the conversation entirely.
What we actually find when we test this
We test this for real. Not by guessing what an AI tool “probably” says, but by asking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini directly, in fresh, logged-in sessions, checking Google’s AI Overviews alongside, and recording exactly what comes back.
The pattern we see again and again is the same: a business is described accurately, sometimes impressively well, when an AI tool is asked about it directly by name. The same business is then often missing entirely when the question changes to “who’s the best [service] in [location],” with competitors named in its place. We’ve also caught AI tools repeating outdated information, like an old name or an old founder, lifted directly from a profile the business forgot to update. These aren’t hypothetical risks. They’re real findings from real audits.
What’s included in a GEO Audit
Every GEO Audit, at every level, is built around the same core pack of evidence-based deliverables. Nothing here gets cut down or simplified for a cheaper tier:
- AI Visibility Baseline: what ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Google’s AI Overview actually say about your business right now, gathered directly rather than guessed.
- Executive Summary: a plain-English overview of where you stand and what matters most.
- AI-Readable Business Summary: a clear, complete summary of who you are and what you do, added to your site as visible content in the exact form AI tools read and quote.
- Schema Markup File: the structured data that keeps your business details unambiguous to the search indexes AI answers are built on.
- llms.txt File: a machine-readable business summary in an emerging format. No major AI provider has formally adopted it yet; it costs nothing to add, so you’re ready if they do.
- AI Crawler Access Check: confirmation that AI tools are actually allowed to read your site in the first place, and aren’t being silently blocked.
- Developer Implementation Guide: clear, step-by-step instructions for putting every fix in place, written for whoever manages your website.
Our three audit tiers
| Tier | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | from £295 | A small business or sole trader who’s never had any AI visibility work done, and wants to know where they stand with the foundational fixes in place. |
| Growth (recommended) | from £595 | Most established small to medium businesses, adding deeper content and directory work on top of the core pack. |
| Complete | from £995 | Businesses in a competitive market who want a named comparison against their rivals, or with a larger directory footprint to clean up. |
Growth adds an expanded six-question AI Visibility Baseline covering buying-intent searches (the “can you recommend a…” questions where most businesses turn out to be invisible), a Content Recommendations Report, an FAQ Content Pack, and a Consistency Audit across your key directory listings, on top of everything in Essentials. Complete adds a ten-question baseline testing every named service plus your reputation, a full Directory Consistency Audit across 15+ listings, and a Competitor GEO Comparison, naming exactly where you stand against named rivals across every AI tool tested.
Already had an audit? We check the fixes actually worked
Once you’ve put the audit’s fixes in place, a Re-Test checks each one against the original findings and tells you, issue by issue, what’s fixed, what’s partially fixed, and what isn’t. It’s from £95 depending on your audit tier, and free of charge if booked within 90 days of a Growth or Complete audit.
Staying visible: our monthly GEO monitoring plans
A GEO Audit is a snapshot. AI visibility isn’t something you fix once and forget; competitors catch up, AI tools change how they summarise businesses, and a site update can quietly break a schema block or business summary months later with nobody noticing until a customer can’t find you. That’s what our ongoing monthly plans are for: a Quarterly Review report every quarter, checking your AI visibility against the previous baseline and confirming your audit’s fixes are still live and working.
| Plan | Price | What You Get Each Quarter |
|---|---|---|
| GEO Watch | £39/month | A Visibility Trend Report showing whether your AI visibility is improving, steady, or declining, an Asset Health Check confirming your business summary, schema, llms.txt, and crawler access are all still correctly in place, and a Quarterly Summary. |
| GEO Grow | £99/month | Everything in GEO Watch, plus a Competitor Movement Check, a Content and FAQ Refresh recommendation, and a Quarterly Strategy Note tying the quarter’s findings back to your own goals. |
Both plans are billed monthly, with one full Quarterly Review delivered every three months, so your AI visibility is always being watched, not just checked once and left.
So, is my business actually invisible?
That’s exactly the question a GEO Audit answers, with evidence instead of a guess. If you’d like to know what ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, and Google are currently telling people about your business, get in touch with Voyant Websites for a GEO Audit, from £295.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)?
GEO is the practice of making a business easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot to find, understand, and recommend accurately, in the same way SEO optimises for traditional search engines.
Is GEO the same as SEO?
No, although the two support each other. SEO optimises for ranking in a list of search results. GEO optimises for being the single answer an AI tool gives when someone asks it a question, with no ranked list involved.
How do I find out what ChatGPT or Google AI says about my business?
You can ask directly yourself, but a single question rarely tells the full story; tools often behave differently depending on whether you ask about a business by name or ask a broader “who’s the best” question. A GEO Audit checks both, across multiple AI tools, in one structured report.
How much does a GEO Audit cost?
GEO Audits start from £295 for our Essentials tier, with Growth (recommended) from £595 and Complete from £995. Every tier includes the same core evidence-based findings; higher tiers add deeper directory and competitor coverage.
How long does a GEO Audit take?
Once we have the information we need from you, an audit is typically turned around within a few business days.
Do you offer ongoing monitoring, not just a one-off audit?
Yes. We offer two monthly plans, GEO Watch from £39/month and GEO Grow from £99/month, that monitor and report on your AI visibility every quarter, so improvements don’t quietly slip backwards.