The way people search for information is changing — fast. AI-powered platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity are no longer novelties. They are becoming the default starting point for millions of queries every day. For brands, this shift demands a new discipline: Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).
What is Generative Engine Optimisation?
Generative Engine Optimisation is the practice of enhancing your brand’s visibility within AI-generated responses. Where traditional SEO focuses on improving your position on a search engine results page (SERP), GEO focuses on the signals that large language models (LLMs) rely on to understand, cite, and surface your brand when producing answers.
At Broadplace, our goal is to increase your brand’s visibility across AI answers and overviews within traditional search results — and to make you more discoverable across LLM platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini.
The brands succeeding in today’s search landscape are those that have embraced AI, GEO, and LLM optimisation as a core part of their wider SEO strategy. These disciplines don’t operate in isolation — they need to work intrinsically with one another to achieve real results.
Why do so many brands struggle to appear in AI-generated responses?
Many organisations find it difficult to surface in AI-generated answers because the factors these systems depend on aren’t always well understood or correctly applied. Common issues include:
- Minimal visibility in reputable publications or high-authority sources
- Inconsistent or weak brand presence across platforms used by AI systems
- Content that lacks clear structure or sufficient depth within its subject area
- Low engagement or recognition within relevant industry communities
The Rise of Zero-Click Search — and Why GEO Is Now Critical
If GEO is the solution, zero-click search is the problem that makes it urgent.
A zero-click search occurs when a user performs a query but never clicks on any result. The answer is delivered directly on the SERP — through an AI Overview, featured snippet, knowledge panel, or direct answer box — and the user’s journey ends there.
The numbers are stark:
- 60–65% of all Google searches now result in zero clicks, driven primarily by AI Overviews (which appear in nearly 20% of searches), featured snippets, and knowledge panels
- AI Overviews reduce organic click-through rates by an average of 18%
- However, the clicks that do survive convert 23% better — meaning the users who still visit your site are more valuable than ever
Source: State of Search Q1 2025 Report, created in collaboration with Rand Fishkin (CEO of SparkToro) and Datos, using clickstream data from tens of millions of desktop users across the US, UK, and EU.
The implication is clear: organic KPIs are shifting. Raw traffic volume matters less. Brand visibility across AI overviews and LLM mentions matters more — and so does your bottom line. The good news is that propensity to convert is higher across AI overviews and LLMs. Brand presence in these environments isn’t just about awareness; it drives commercial outcomes.
How Broadplace Can Increase Your GEO Presence
We approach GEO across four interconnected service pillars:
1. Track and Measure LLM Visibility
Understanding where and how your brand appears within AI-generated responses is the foundation of everything else. We track visibility across multiple LLM platforms, identify the keywords and prompts that retrieve the best results for your brand, and measure citation growth to demonstrate clear ROI. We also track your competitors in the same way to identify broader market opportunities.
2. Online Community Engagement
AI systems draw heavily from online communities and forums — Reddit in particular. We generate an engagement strategy across relevant online communities to increase your brand citations, create content that drives meaningful engagement with your target audience, and deliver best practice guidelines for building a credible, sustainable community presence.
3. Content Structuring for AI Overviews
The way your content is structured directly affects whether AI systems can extract and use it. We restructure content to replicate the formats served in AI overviews and LLM results, apply relevant schema markup, and carry out content audits specifically targeting keywords that are already achieving AI overview presence.
4. Off-Site Authority Building
LLMs favour brands that carry genuine authority in their space. We support your brand in acquiring highly authoritative links from PR sources and influential voices, generate industry-leading research and data studies that give your content additional credibility, and use proprietary tools to scale content production efficiently — maintaining the quality balance between human expertise and AI assistance.
How GEO and Traditional SEO Work Together
GEO is not a replacement for SEO — it is an evolution of it. Each GEO pillar maps directly onto established SEO practice, strengthening both disciplines simultaneously:
| GEO Activity | SEO Integration | The Result |
| Track LLM visibility | Measure against core traffic and business performance | Improved understanding of visibility’s impact on the bottom line |
| Community engagement | Acquire citations alongside links | Increased authority passed to your brand |
| Content structuring | Measure quick-win content efforts alongside longer-term AI overview goals | Content optimisation delivered at pace |
| Off-site authority | Use traditional backlink research to identify PR targets | Links acquired from sources that reinforce LLM results |
The Bottom Line
GEO is not a trend to monitor from the sidelines. It is a strategic imperative for any brand that relies on search to drive awareness, consideration, or conversions. The brands building GEO capability now — integrating it tightly with their SEO strategies — are positioning themselves to dominate the next era of search.
If you’d like to understand how GEO applies to your brand specifically, get in touch with the Broadplace team.
