Generative Engine Optimization & AEO
When A Shopper Asks AI,
Are You Named?
More of the buying decision now happens before anyone reaches your site. Someone asks ChatGPT for the best option in your category, reads four names, and clicks one. If you are not in that answer you were never in the running, and no analytics report will tell you it happened.
Do This First
A Sixty Second Test
Before You Hire Anyone
You do not need me for this part, and you should not take anyone’s word for whether you have a problem. Four steps, and you will know.
01
Ask it the buying question
Open ChatGPT and ask exactly what a customer would: “best [your product category] for [the use case you sell into]”. Not your brand name — the category.
02
Count the names
Write down every brand it lists. Ask twice more, in a fresh chat each time, because the answers move. Three runs is enough to see the pattern.
03
Ask it why
“Why those?” The answer usually cites specific pages. Those pages are your actual competition for the citation, and they are frequently not the sites outranking you in Google.
04
Repeat in Gemini and Perplexity
The overlap between them is smaller than people expect. Being cited in one says almost nothing about the others.
If you are named in every answer, you do not need this service and I will tell you so on the call. If you are named in none of them while your competitors are, that is the gap worth paying to close.
The Difference
It Is Not SEO
With A New Name
Enough of it overlaps that anyone selling GEO as a wholly separate discipline is overselling. But the parts that differ are the parts that decide whether you get cited.
| Classic SEO | GEO / AEO | |
|---|---|---|
| What wins it | Ranking a page above other pages | Being the source a model quotes when it answers |
| Who you compete with | Whoever ranks for your keywords | Whoever gets cited — often Reddit, YouTube and review sites, not your search rivals |
| What the unit is | A keyword and a position | A question and whether your name appears in the reply |
| How you measure it | Rank tracking and clicks | Citation and mention tracking, sampled repeatedly, because answers vary run to run |
| How fast it moves | Weeks to months, fairly steadily | Unpredictably. A model update can change your visibility overnight in either direction |
| What carries over | — | Most of it. Clean structure, real expertise and being quotable have always been the job |
The Work
Four Phases,
In This Order
The order matters more than the list. Measuring first is what stops this becoming a retainer for activity nobody can attribute.
Phase 1
Measure what is true now
- Sample the buying questions in your category across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, repeatedly, so the number means something
- Record which brands get named and which sources get cited
- Separate the questions you lose from the ones nobody wins yet, because those are cheaper
Phase 2
Fix what the models cannot read
- Product and entity markup that actually validates, not just present
- Specifications as text rather than baked into images, which is where most Shopify stores lose
- The unglamorous technical work: rendering, crawlability, and whether your content survives without JavaScript
Phase 3
Become the answer to something specific
- Content built to be quoted — direct answers, real numbers, clear comparisons
- Comparison and alternative pages, which is disproportionately what models reach for
- The questions your customers actually ask on calls, which almost never match your keyword list
Phase 4
Get cited where the models look
- The third-party sources that keep appearing in answers for your category
- Review platforms, communities and roundups that carry weight in your niche
- This is slow, it is mostly outreach, and it is the part nobody wants to sell you because it is not automatable
Straight Answer
What Nobody
Can Promise You
Generative engine optimization is about eighteen months old as a service. Every page you will read today, including the ones outranking this one, presents it with the confidence of a settled discipline. It is not one yet, and you should be suspicious of anyone who tells you otherwise.
- Nobody can guarantee a citation. There is no submission, no index to be included in, and no support queue to escalate to.
- The measurement is genuinely noisy. Ask the same model the same question three times and you can get three answer sets. Anyone quoting you a single visibility score without explaining the sampling is selling a number, not a finding.
- Attribution is worse than paid. A shopper who found you through ChatGPT often arrives as direct or branded search. You will see the lift in aggregate before you can prove it per conversation.
- A model update can undo a quarter of work in either direction, without notice and without explanation.
Here is what I will commit to: you get the measurement before the work, you see the same numbers I do, and if the sample says you are already well represented I will tell you to spend the money on paid media instead. That is usually the honest answer for a brand under a certain size.
Fit
Worth It For Some Brands,
Not Yet For Others
A good fit
- You sell a considered purchase — something people research before buying
- Your category gets asked about in natural language, not just typed as a keyword
- You already have real expertise or data nobody else publishes
- You are running paid media and want to know why organic and direct are moving
Not yet
- You are under roughly $50k a month in revenue — paid media will move the number faster
- Your site has unresolved technical problems; fix those first, they block both channels
- You want a guaranteed position by a date
- You need attribution clean enough to report per order
Pricing
What It
Costs
Published, so you can rule me in or out without booking a call.
Channel Management
$1,500 /month
You own the plan. I run the channels.
- Campaign build and management
- Conversion tracking and reporting
- Monthly performance call
- Additional channels +$500 each
- Minimum ad spend $5,000/month
- 6 month commitment
Most Popular
Growth Partner
$4,000 /month
I own paid strategy end to end.
- Everything in Channel Management
- Every channel included, priced as one
- Channel mix and budget allocation
- Creative direction and briefs
- Quarterly CRO roadmap
- 25 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $10,000/month
- 3 months, then month to month
Fractional CMO
From $7,000 /month
I own the whole marketing function.
- Everything in Growth Partner
- Email, SEO and site direction
- Contractor sourcing and management
- Quarterly planning with you
- 40 hours a month included
- Minimum ad spend $20,000/month
- 6 month commitment
FAQ
Questions About
AI Search
If yours is not here, ask it on the call.
Is GEO different from AEO?
Do I need this if my SEO is already good?
How do you measure something that changes every time you ask?
Can you do this without touching my paid media?
What do I actually get?
Why should I hire one person for this?
Let’s Talk
Book a free 30 minute call. I will tell you what I would do with your accounts, whether or not you hire me.
Book a Discovery Call
30-minute strategy session
Prefer to Reach Out Directly?
Happy to talk it through over email or a quick call. I usually reply within a few hours on weekdays.
- greg@digitalkarbon.com
- Massachusetts • Nationwide
Who You Talk To
Me, Every Time
What to Expect
- 30 minutes with me, not a salesperson
- What I would change in your account first
- No pitch deck, no obligation