What is GEO and why every UK small business needs to understand it right now
A few months ago I received a cold email from an agency offering to help Optimise Your Marketing "show up first when people search ChatGPT for marketing agencies." My instinct was to delete it. My second instinct was to check whether we were already doing this, and if not, why not.
We ran a proper audit of our own AI visibility. What I found was that we had solid foundations but were missing several signals that AI tools use when deciding who to recommend. We fixed them. The process taught me a great deal, and almost everything I found applies equally to the small and medium-sized businesses I work with across Derbyshire and the East Midlands.
Most of those businesses have never heard the term GEO. This post explains what it is, why it matters right now, and what practical steps you can take to start improving your position.
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Check your AI visibilityWhat is GEO and why should small business owners care?
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. It is the practice of optimising your online presence so that AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot cite, recommend, or reference your business when someone asks them a relevant question.
Traditional SEO is about ranking in Google's list of blue links. GEO is about being the answer when someone asks an AI tool "who is the best plumber in Derby?" or "which marketing agency should I use for a farm shop in the Midlands?" or "what is a good accountant for a small business in Derbyshire?"
These are real questions that real people are typing into ChatGPT and Perplexity every single day. The businesses that appear in those answers are generating enquiries from it. The ones that do not appear are invisible to a growing segment of their potential customers.
How GEO differs from SEO, and why both still matter
SEO and GEO overlap in important ways. Good foundational SEO still feeds into GEO performance. But they are not the same discipline and treating them as identical will leave gaps in your visibility.
The clearest way to understand the difference: when Google returns a search result, it gives you a list of links to choose from. When ChatGPT answers a question, it gives you a recommendation, often with a name, a reason, and sometimes a direct link. Getting into that recommendation requires different signals than getting onto the first page of Google results.
- Authority signals AI tools draw from sources they consider credible. Your business needs to be mentioned, listed, and cited on sites that AI models trust: established directories, review platforms, industry publications, local press, and other third-party sources. A well-written website alone is not enough.
- Conversational content AI tools are built to answer questions. Content structured as clear questions and answers, FAQ pages, and blog posts that address specific queries performs better in GEO than content written to impress rather than inform. Generic service page copy almost never gets cited.
- Structured data Schema markup is JSON-LD code added to your website that tells AI crawlers exactly what your business is, what it does, where it operates, and who it serves. Without it, AI tools have to guess from your content. With it, they know.
- Specificity and evidence The more clearly your content states who you help, what you do, where you are, and what results you achieve, the more likely an AI tool is to surface you for a relevant query. Vague, generic content does not get cited. Specific, evidence-based content does.
"AI tools do not rank pages. They recommend businesses. That is a fundamentally different challenge, and most small businesses in Derbyshire are not yet addressing it."Stuart Baddiley, Optimise Your Marketing
Why the window to act is open right now
According to data published in 2024 and 2025, ChatGPT now has over 200 million weekly active users globally. Perplexity is growing rapidly. Google's AI Overviews appear at the top of millions of UK search results before any traditional links. The behaviour shift is already underway.
For UK small businesses, the strategic opportunity is particularly strong right now. Most local competitors are not thinking about GEO at all. That means the bar for appearing in AI-generated recommendations is lower today than it will ever be again. The businesses that build their GEO signals in 2025 will have a compounding advantage over those that wait until AI-powered search becomes the mainstream rather than the emerging norm.
I have been in marketing for 18 years and I have seen this pattern before. The businesses that engaged with Google My Business early dominated local search. The businesses that built their review profiles before competitors did still benefit from that headstart today. GEO is the same kind of early-mover opportunity.
Client result
A Derbyshire trade business added 14 enquiries in 8 weeks
After we rebuilt their AI visibility signals, a specialist trade contractor in the East Midlands began appearing in ChatGPT and Perplexity recommendations for their sector. Within eight weeks they had received 14 additional enquiries they could directly attribute to AI-referred searches. That is the kind of result available to businesses that move now.
See how AI marketing worksThe six things we fixed at OYM and what you can copy
When I audited our own GEO position, I found six specific gaps. I am sharing them here because they appear in almost every small business website I look at across Derbyshire and the wider Midlands.
- Rewrote our FAQ page using the language of AI queries Rather than writing FAQ entries as "About our services," we rewrote them as the actual questions people ask AI tools: "Which marketing agency should I use for a farm shop in the UK?" That phrasing matters because AI tools pattern-match questions to answers. Generic headings do not trigger that match.
- Added FAQ schema markup This is a block of JSON-LD code added to the FAQ page. It tells AI crawlers explicitly that the page contains structured question-and-answer content. Without it, AI tools have to infer the structure from the text. With it, the relationship between question and answer is unambiguous.
- Added Organisation schema to the homepage Organisation schema tells AI tools exactly what your business is, where it is based, what services it offers, and who it helps. It takes around 30 minutes to write and implement. It is one of the single highest-impact GEO actions available to any small business.
- Got listed on AI-trusted directories We added Optimise Your Marketing to Clutch, DesignRush, AgencySpotter, and Good Firms. These are directories that AI models regularly draw from when generating agency recommendations. Free listings on the right directories are one of the fastest GEO wins available. The right directories vary by sector, but the principle applies universally.
- Wrote structured case studies AI tools can parse We rewrote our case studies in a consistent format: the problem, what we did, and the results with specific numbers. Concrete statistics get cited. Vague testimonials do not. AI tools look for evidence-based content to support a recommendation, and specific figures provide that evidence.
- Added explicit "who we help" language We added a clear section to our Industries page that explicitly named the sectors, company sizes, and geographies we work with. AI tools answer "who does X for Y industry in Z location?" from this kind of direct, explicit language. Implied or vague positioning does not produce the same results.
What to do first if you are starting from scratch
If you have not started yet, the single most useful action is to open ChatGPT or Perplexity and type the question your ideal customer would ask to find a business like yours. Add your town or county. Read the answer carefully. If you are not in it, you have a gap to close.
From there, the priority order is: Organisation schema on your homepage, then a structured FAQ page written in conversational question form, then getting onto two or three relevant directories your sector uses. Those three steps alone will move the needle for most Derbyshire SMBs within a few weeks.
Common mistakes that undermine your AI visibility
Writing for search bots rather than people
Old-school keyword stuffing actively harms GEO performance. AI tools assess content quality and coherence. Content that reads as natural, authoritative, and specific tends to perform far better than content written to hit keyword density targets.
Ignoring third-party mentions
Your website is one input signal among many. AI tools triangulate your authority from multiple sources. If your business is only mentioned on your own website, that is a weak signal. Being cited in local press, sector publications, partner websites, and relevant directories strengthens the picture considerably.
Missing your Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is a significant source that AI tools draw from when answering local queries. If yours is incomplete, out of date, or has unanswered reviews, you are weakening your AI visibility at the most basic level. A complete, active GBP with recent reviews is table stakes for local GEO performance.
Neglecting to test and measure
GEO is not a one-time fix. AI models update, new platforms emerge, and the signals that matter shift. Building a habit of testing your own AI visibility every month, asking the questions your customers ask and noting whether and how you appear, is how you stay ahead of this rather than constantly catching up. The test and measure habit that underpins good SEO applies equally to GEO.
Where GEO sits in the BIG12 framework
The BIG12 framework covers the twelve pillars of effective marketing for a UK SMB. GEO sits primarily within the AI pillar, but it touches several others. Your website, your SEO foundations, your Google Business Profile, and your content strategy all feed into your GEO performance. A weakness in any one of those pillars shows up as a gap in your AI visibility.
That is why the BIG12 approach to GEO is not about adding a separate task to your to-do list. It is about making sure the marketing activity you are already doing is structured in a way that AI tools can read, trust, and cite. For most businesses I work with across the East Midlands, the foundations are already there. They just need connecting up properly.
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Get your free BIG12 scoreThe challenge is never learning. It is doing.
Most business owners I speak to in Derbyshire understand, once it is explained, why GEO matters. The sticking point is never understanding. It is finding the time and clarity to act on it. Schema markup sounds technical. Rewriting your FAQ page sounds tedious. Getting listed on directories sounds like something you will do next month.
The problem is that next month becomes next quarter, and by then your competitors who did move have a headstart that compounds every week. I have spent 18 years watching that pattern repeat across every marketing channel that has emerged, from local search to social media to paid ads. The businesses that build early are the ones still benefiting years later.
If you want to know exactly where your business stands right now on AI visibility, and what the priority actions are for your specific sector and location, that is exactly what a free audit with me covers. No generalisations. No guesswork. Practical, specific steps based on what I can see in your actual online presence.
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