GEO SEO Is Changing How Businesses Get Found in AI Search

For years, local SEO was relatively easy to explain. A business wanted to appear when somebody searched for its services in a particular city, neighborhood or geographic area. We optimized the website, cleaned up the Google Business Profile, made sure business information was consistent across the web, built relevant citations, created useful local content and worked on the signals that helped Google understand where the business was located and what it did. That world hasn’t disappeared. In fact, much of it is still extremely important. What has changed is what happens after somebody searches.

Instead of simply being handed a list of websites, a map pack or a collection of traditional search results, people are increasingly asking AI-powered search systems questions and receiving an answer assembled from multiple sources. They might ask, “Who are the best web designers in Denver?” or “What’s a good family dentist near downtown Denver?” or “Which construction companies in Colorado specialize in medical facilities?” The question is no longer simply whether your website ranks for a particular keyword. The question is whether the search system understands who you are, what you do, where you do it, and why you are relevant to the question being asked.

That is where GEO SEO becomes interesting. I don’t think GEO SEO should be treated as some mysterious new form of SEO that replaces everything we already know. It is better understood as the geographic side of a much larger problem: helping search engines and AI systems understand the relationship between a business, its services, its location, its reputation and the people it serves. And as search becomes more conversational, that relationship matters more than simply repeating a city name on a webpage.

What GEO SEO Actually Means

The term GEO SEO gets used in a lot of different ways, which is part of the problem. Sometimes it means geographic SEO. Sometimes it gets mixed together with generative engine optimization. Sometimes GEO is used as shorthand for optimizing specifically for AI search. Those ideas overlap, but they aren’t identical. When I use the term GEO SEO, I’m talking primarily about making the geographic relevance of a business clear and credible across its entire digital presence.

That includes the obvious things such as your business name, address, phone number, service area and Google Business Profile. But it also includes the less obvious relationships that develop across your website and the rest of the web. If you’re a Denver web design company, for example, your website should make it reasonably clear that you’re a web design company, that Denver is an important market for you, what types of web design you provide, what kinds of businesses you work with and what experience or evidence supports those claims. Your Google Business Profile should tell a compatible story. Your citations should tell a compatible story. Your reviews should reinforce the story. Your local content should reinforce the story. Other websites that mention your company should reinforce the story, and your structured data should help machines classify the story.

None of those individual things guarantees that an AI system will mention you. That’s important. There is no magic piece of schema markup, no special paragraph and no secret GEO SEO keyword that forces ChatGPT, Google AI features or another system to recommend your company. What these signals can do is make the underlying entity easier to understand. And that is becoming increasingly important.

AI Search Has Changed the Question

Traditional search often begins with a keyword. Someone types “Denver web design company” into Google and Google has to determine which pages and businesses are relevant to that query. AI search can start with something much more complicated. A person might ask, “I’m a small professional services company in Denver. We need a new website, but we also need someone who understands SEO and can help us compete locally. Who should we talk to?” That’s a very different search because there isn’t necessarily one perfect keyword hiding inside that question. There are multiple concepts involved: business type, location, website development, SEO, local competition, service requirements and commercial intent. An AI system attempting to answer that question has to connect those concepts.

It needs to understand businesses as entities rather than simply matching strings of text. This is one reason I think the conversation around AI search and SEO sometimes gets unnecessarily complicated. People assume that because the interface has changed, all of the fundamentals have changed too. They haven’t. Search systems still need to determine relevance. They still need information. They still need evidence. They still need to understand entities. They still need to determine whether one source is more useful or trustworthy than another. The interface may be conversational, but the underlying problem is still one of understanding and retrieval.

That’s why I continue to believe that good SEO foundations matter enormously in AI search. I’ve written more about the difference between ChatGPT results and Google results, because the two systems can produce surprisingly different answers to essentially the same question. That difference is important for anyone trying to understand where AI search fits into an overall visibility strategy. We’ve also looked more broadly at how Google actually ranks websites, because understanding traditional search still matters even as AI changes the interface.

Local SEO and GEO SEO Are Closely Connected

If you’ve been doing local SEO for any length of time, much of this will sound familiar. A properly maintained Google Business Profile matters. Consistent business information matters. Relevant local content matters. Reviews matter. A well-structured website matters. Clear service pages matter. A business that has been mentioned by credible organizations, directories, publications and other websites has a different digital footprint from a business that exists almost nowhere except its own homepage.

This is why I don’t see GEO SEO as something that sits separately from local SEO. I see it as an evolution of the same basic objective: make it easy for search systems to understand where your business belongs. The difference is that modern search increasingly has to understand that information in context. If someone asks for a plumber in Boulder, geographic relevance is obvious. If someone asks, “Who can help a medical practice build a new website in Colorado?” geographic relevance is still important, but the system also has to understand the relationship between the company, the service and the industry. That is where a strong website becomes much more valuable than a page stuffed with location keywords.

Our Denver SEO services work is built around this larger idea. Local visibility isn’t just about putting a city name on a page. It’s about creating a website and digital presence that clearly communicate the relationship between the business, its services, its market and its customers. That also means understanding how proximity impacts local rankings, because geographic relevance isn’t something a business can manufacture simply by repeating the name of a city.

Your Business Needs to Be an Entity, Not Just a Website

One of the biggest changes in search over the years has been the move away from thinking exclusively about individual webpages. A webpage is a document. A business is an entity. Those are not the same thing. Your website might say that Big Orange Planet is a Denver web design company, but that statement becomes considerably more useful when other parts of the web independently support the same basic understanding. Your business has a name, a location, a website, services, people associated with it, customers, reviews, projects, mentions and relationships with other entities. The more consistently those relationships appear across the web, the easier it becomes for machines to build a coherent picture of the business.

This is one reason I’m increasingly interested in what I would call entity clarity. You don’t necessarily need to say “Denver” fifty times on a page. You need to make the relationship between your business and Denver understandable. Those are very different things. It is also why internal linking matters so much. Internal links aren’t just navigation for visitors; they help establish relationships between pages and give search engines additional context about how the subjects on your website fit together.

Stop Thinking That Adding a City Name Creates Local Authority

One of the oldest mistakes in local SEO is assuming that adding a city name to enough pages will automatically make a business locally relevant. It won’t. You can put “Denver” into a page title, H1, URL, meta description and paragraph after paragraph and still have a weak local presence. Search engines have become much better at recognizing when content exists primarily because somebody wants to target a keyword.

A genuinely useful local page is different. It might explain a problem customers in that market actually experience. It might discuss local regulations, market conditions, neighborhoods, industries or customer expectations. It might show actual work performed in the area. It might answer questions that customers in that location are genuinely asking. That creates something much more valuable than keyword repetition. It creates context, and context is becoming increasingly important as search becomes conversational.

If a company has genuinely worked with businesses throughout Denver, for example, there should be real evidence of that relationship somewhere in its digital footprint. A portfolio can show it. Case studies can show it. Reviews can show it. Local organizations can show it. Business directories can show it. Articles can show it. The website can explain it. That’s much stronger than simply publishing a page titled “Denver Web Design Company” and hoping the city name does all the work. In fact, local SEO mistakes like weak content and poor site structure can undermine an otherwise legitimate local presence.

Your Google Business Profile Still Matters

There is sometimes an assumption that AI search makes Google Business Profiles less important. I think the opposite is closer to reality. Your Business Profile is one of the clearest places where a business establishes its identity, location, category, contact information, hours and customer feedback. That doesn’t mean a Business Profile automatically gets your company into an AI answer. It means you’re giving search systems cleaner information about the business.

That’s a much more reasonable way to think about local optimization. The same principle applies to your website, citations, reviews and structured data. You’re not pulling a lever labeled MAKE AI RECOMMEND ME. You’re making the business easier to identify and understand. That distinction is going to become increasingly important as more companies start selling “AI SEO” services built around promises they can’t actually guarantee.

Citations Still Have a Job

The same thing applies to citations. For years, local SEO professionals talked about Name, Address and Phone consistency as though it were the entire game. It isn’t. But consistent business information is still useful. If your website says one thing, your Google Business Profile says another, a directory has an old address, another directory uses a different company name and a third website has an outdated phone number, you’ve created unnecessary ambiguity.

That doesn’t mean Google will automatically punish you for every typo. It means you’ve made your digital identity less clean. Think about it from a human perspective. If you were researching a company and found five different addresses, three different phone numbers and two slightly different business names, you’d probably wonder what was going on. Search systems have to solve a similar problem at a much larger scale. Clean information helps, and this is one area where GEO SEO and traditional local SEO overlap almost completely.

Reviews Are More Than a Star Rating

Reviews are another important piece of the geographic puzzle. A review isn’t simply a five-star score. The language inside reviews can provide context about the customer’s experience, services provided and sometimes the location or market involved. More importantly, reviews are independent evidence. A business can say whatever it wants about itself on its own website. A customer saying something about the business is different. That distinction matters.

This is part of a much larger shift happening in search: information is becoming cheap, while evidence is becoming more valuable. That idea runs through the newer Big Orange Planet editorial work as well. AI can generate an almost unlimited amount of plausible information, but it cannot manufacture on demand a history of genuine customers, genuine projects, genuine relationships and genuine reputation. That is one reason I don’t believe the answer to AI search visibility is simply “publish more AI content.” The internet already has enough words. What businesses need is more evidence.

Local Content Should Actually Be Local

There is a huge difference between writing a generic article and putting “Denver” into the title and actually creating content with local relevance. Suppose you’re a Denver construction company. A generic article about commercial construction can be useful. An article discussing the challenges of building medical facilities in Colorado can be more relevant. A case study about a medical project your company actually completed can be stronger still.

The progression is important. Generic information establishes a topic. Local information establishes geographic relevance. First-hand experience establishes evidence. That’s the direction I’d take with local content today. Don’t create twenty nearly identical pages for twenty cities simply because an SEO tool told you those cities have search volume. Create content that gives search systems—and more importantly, actual customers—a reason to associate your business with the places and services you claim to serve. That is also why content that never ranks should be evaluated for usefulness, search intent, authority and originality before simply creating more of it.

GEO SEO Is Not About Tricking AI

This may be the most important point in the entire article. There is no legitimate way to “trick” an AI search engine into believing your company is the best local business if the underlying evidence isn’t there. You can manipulate a page. You can manufacture keywords. You can create hundreds of thin location pages. You can publish generic AI-generated articles. You can attempt to build artificial citations. But eventually you’re trying to construct the appearance of authority instead of authority itself.

That distinction matters more as search systems become better at understanding relationships between sources. The established fundamentals of SEO still matter in Google’s AI-driven search features. The technology surrounding search is changing, but the need for useful content, understandable websites and credible information hasn’t disappeared. In other words, the future isn’t necessarily about abandoning SEO. It’s about doing SEO more intelligently. That’s also why I think Google’s relationship with website trust is worth understanding as part of the larger picture.

What I Would Actually Do

If I were starting a GEO SEO campaign for a local business today, I wouldn’t begin by generating a hundred new pages. I’d begin by figuring out whether the business is actually understandable. Is the company name consistent? Is the location clear? Is the service offering clear? Does the website explain what the company actually does? Are the important services represented by useful pages? Does the Google Business Profile accurately reflect the business? Are citations accurate? Are reviews legitimate and current?

I’d also want to know whether the site contains evidence of actual experience, whether there are credible third-party references to the business, whether the internal linking structure is helping search engines understand the relationship between the company’s services and locations, whether structured data is being used appropriately and whether the business has useful local content or simply a pile of city-name variations.

And perhaps most importantly, does the digital footprint tell one coherent story? That last question is increasingly important. A business can have a technically perfect website and still be difficult to understand if its various digital properties tell conflicting stories about who it is, what it does and where it operates.

Test AI Search Like You Test Google

There’s another part of GEO SEO that doesn’t get enough attention.

Test it.

Don’t assume your company is appearing in AI search because you published an article about AI search. Ask the questions your customers are actually asking.

“Who are some good web design companies in Denver?”

“Who builds custom websites in Denver?”

“What Denver web design companies also do SEO?”

“Who should a small Denver business hire for a website redesign?”

Don’t just test your own company name. Test the category. Test the service. Test the city. Test the problem. Test the longer conversational questions. Then look at who gets mentioned. That can tell you something very different from a traditional keyword ranking report.

We’ve actually seen this firsthand at Big Orange Planet. In our own testing, Google and ChatGPT can produce dramatically different results for essentially the same local business question. That is one reason I don’t think businesses should treat AI visibility as simply another Google ranking report. Our earlier comparison of ChatGPT and Google results demonstrates exactly why these platforms shouldn’t automatically be treated as interchangeable.

And that’s the important distinction. You’re not necessarily trying to rank number one in an AI answer. You’re trying to become one of the businesses that makes sense when the system tries to answer the question.

The Real Goal Is Discoverability

This is where I think the GEO SEO conversation ultimately lands. The goal isn’t to manipulate AI. The goal isn’t to stuff locations into every paragraph. The goal isn’t to create thousands of pages. The goal isn’t even necessarily to get one particular AI system to mention your business. The goal is to build a digital presence that is so clear and consistent that search systems have a reasonable basis for understanding your business.

Who are you? What do you do? Where do you operate? Who do you serve? What makes you different? What evidence supports your claims? Where else can your business be verified? Those are old SEO questions in a new environment. And frankly, I think that’s good news. Because the businesses that have spent years building real reputations, doing good work, creating useful websites, earning legitimate reviews and developing relationships in their communities have something valuable that cannot simply be generated overnight.

AI has changed how people search. It hasn’t changed the fact that businesses still need to be real.

GEO SEO Is Becoming Part of the Bigger SEO Picture

I don’t think we’re heading toward a world where traditional SEO disappears and GEO SEO takes its place. We’re heading toward something much messier. Google Search, Google Maps, AI-generated search features, ChatGPT, Perplexity and other systems are becoming different ways of discovering information. Some will send a visitor directly to your website. Some will answer the question without a click. Some will show a map. Some will recommend several businesses. Some will combine information from many sources.

The business that survives that environment isn’t necessarily the one that has optimized for one particular interface. It’s the business that has built a strong underlying digital presence. That’s why the fundamentals still matter: a good website, clear service architecture, useful content, strong local relevance, accurate business information, a properly maintained Google Business Profile, legitimate reviews, consistent citations, good technical SEO, strong internal linking, real experience, real evidence and a recognizable brand. Those things reinforce one another.

And when they do, you’re not simply optimizing a webpage for a keyword anymore. You’re building a digital representation of the business that search systems can understand. That, to me, is the more useful definition of GEO SEO.

The Big Orange Planet Take

We’ve watched SEO change several times over the years. We’ve gone from directories to keywords, from keywords to links, from links to entities, from desktop search to mobile search, from ten blue links to maps and local packs, and now from traditional search results toward increasingly conversational and AI-generated answers.

Every time, there’s a rush to find the new trick.

I don’t think GEO SEO is the new trick. I think it’s a reminder of something we’ve always known: search engines need to understand what your business is before they can reliably connect your business with the people looking for it.

The technology used to do that is becoming considerably more sophisticated. That means the way we communicate who we are needs to become more sophisticated too. For a local business, that means thinking beyond a homepage and a Google Business Profile. It means creating a consistent digital footprint across your website, search listings, reviews, citations, structured data and the other places where your company exists online.

And it means creating actual evidence.

Because when information is everywhere, simply saying something about your business isn’t necessarily enough. Being able to prove it is becoming much more valuable.

That’s where I think the future of local SEO is heading. Not toward gaming AI. Toward making your business easier to understand, easier to verify and easier to discover. And that’s a much better strategy than chasing whatever the latest acronym happens to be.

If you’re trying to improve how your company is found in Denver search results, local search, traditional Google results and emerging AI-driven search, the starting point is still the same: build something worth finding, then make sure search systems can understand what they’ve found.