AI visibility audit
Test a defined set of prompts across the relevant platforms and record where your business appears, where it is absent, and how accurately it is described. The output is a baseline and a prioritised list of what to address first.
Be visible inside AI search, not replaced by it
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) services
Your customers are asking ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity the questions they used to type into Google. Those tools now answer, compare and shortlist before anyone reaches a website.
Loop Digital’s generative engine optimisation services help you see where your business currently appears in AI search, improve how clearly it is understood, and measure what changes over time.
What is generative engine optimisation?
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the practice of improving how a business is understood, retrieved, described and cited by AI search systems. It covers the content, entity signals, technical accessibility and external authority those systems draw on. GEO improves the conditions for AI visibility. It does not control what a model generates.
What does AI visibility actually mean?
Four outcomes get bundled under one term, and they behave very differently:
- A ‘mention’ is your brand name appearing in a generated answer
- A ‘citation’ is one of your pages being referenced as a source
- ‘Representation’ is how accurately the system describes what you do
- A ‘recommendation’ is your business being offered as an option worth considering
How AI search is changing the way customers find you
AI-assisted search has moved where the decision happens. Buyers used to visit your website to research. Increasingly, they research inside an AI tool first and visit only the shortlist it produces. Traditional search still matters. What has changed is the point at which your business gets considered.
- Traditional journey: question, search results, several websites, comparison, shortlist.
- AI-assisted journey: question, generated explanation, named brands and sources, follow-up questions, shortlist.
What do Loop Digital's GEO services help you do?
Before any content is written or any page is changed, GEO work should answer six practical questions about your current position.
See where your brand already appears
Establish a baseline across the AI-generated answers your buyers are likely to see, covering mentions, citations and how your business is described. Without that starting point, nothing that follows can be shown to have worked.
Find where competitors are being surfaced instead
Track which businesses AI tools name for the questions that matter commercially in your market. A competitor appearing consistently where you do not is a specific, addressable gap rather than a vague worry.
Make your business easier to understand
Clarify who you are, what you sell, where you operate and which people carry the expertise. AI systems cross-check that information across sources, and inconsistency between them creates uncertainty about which version is correct.
Strengthen the content AI search can retrieve
Improve the service, comparison and decision-stage content that AI systems draw on when answering questions in your category, and close the gaps where useful information is missing entirely.
Build credible authority around your brand
Support your own information with consistent, accurate references from the external sources that describe your business, including industry coverage, review platforms and professional profiles.
Measure what changes
Track mentions, citations, competitive visibility and prompt coverage across repeated tests, so progress is evidenced by a trend rather than a favourable screenshot.
Which GEO services are right for you?
Every business is at a different stage of AI visibility. A strong Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) strategy ensures your brand is recognised, trusted and referenced within AI-driven search experiences. Typical GEO services include:
Diagnose
Prompt and competitor opportunity mapping
Identify the commercial, comparison and problem-led prompts your buyers actually use, then map which competitors appear against each one. This is not keyword research. Prompts are longer, more conversational and carry far more variants.
Entity and brand authority audit
Assess how consistently your organisation, services, locations and people are represented across your own site and the external sources that describe you. Inconsistency here undermines everything built on top of it.
Build
AI-ready content strategy
Improve existing pages and develop the missing content around the questions buyers ask before they choose a supplier, structured so the answer is extractable rather than buried three paragraphs down.
Entity-based content and authority building
Strengthen the connections between your business, your services, your expertise and the credible external sources that corroborate them, so AI systems can place you confidently within your category.
AI-friendly structure, semantics and signals
Improve page hierarchy, internal linking, crawler accessibility and structured data where it genuinely helps. Content that cannot be read cleanly will not be cited, however good it is.
Measure
Generative search monitoring
Track visibility across a fixed prompt set on the platforms relevant to your market, with each observation dated and attributed to a platform so the record holds up to scrutiny.
Citation, source and AI share of voice tracking
Record which of your pages are used as sources, which external sites shape the answers in your category, and how your visibility compares with named competitors over time.
Commercial performance reporting
Connect identifiable AI referral traffic and resulting enquiries to the wider acquisition picture, with the limits of that attribution stated rather than glossed over.
Is your business visible in AI search today?
Most businesses have never checked how AI tools describe them, and the ones who do are often surprised. A GEO audit answers that question with evidence instead of assumption, testing a defined prompt set across the relevant platforms and recording what comes back.
What a GEO audit should tell you
- Does your business appear at all, and for which types of questions
- Which competitors are named when you are not
- Whether your services, locations and specialisms are described accurately
- Which sources AI tools draw on when answering questions in your market
- Which commercially important topics you are entirely absent from
- Whether visibility differs between platforms
Not sure how AI tools are describing your business?
Find out where your brand appears, which competitors are being surfaced instead, and what deserves attention first.
How Loop Digital's GEO process works
Here is how we do it in 4 steps
Step 1: GEO strategy & AI visibility mapping
Understanding how AI systems currently interpret your brand makes opportunities to improve visibility clearer and measurable.
This stage establishes where your business already appears within AI-driven search and where stronger signals or content may be needed.
This includes:
- Analysis of AI-generated search results and overviews
- Identification of prompts, questions and queries that trigger AI-generated answers in your market
- Brand and entity presence across trusted data sources
- Competitor visibility within AI-driven responses
- Gaps in topical authority and semantic coverage
The findings help prioritise GEO activity around genuine commercial opportunities rather than visibility for its own sake.
Step 2: Entity-based content & authority building
Large language models process more than individual pages. They also use entities, relationships and context to interpret what a business represents.
This stage strengthens how your business is defined and positioned, giving AI systems clearer signals about who you are, what you offer and the topics your business is associated with.
This includes:
- Entity-focused service and brand content
- Clear positioning statements and topical associations
- Supporting content that reinforces expertise and relevance
- Consistent language and terminology across key pages
- Internal linking that reinforces topical relationships and authority
The objective is straightforward: make your business easier to identify, understand and associate with the topics that matter to your customers.
Step 3: AI-friendly structure, semantics & signals
GEO depends on clarity and consistency as much as content volume.
This stage improves the structure and signals that help search engines and AI systems interpret your content accurately and understand the relationships between your brand, services and areas of expertise.
This includes:
- Clear content hierarchies and logical page structures
- Schema and structured data where appropriate
- Entity reinforcement through consistent naming and attributes
- Alignment with E-E-A-T principles: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust
- Supporting signals from credible third-party sources
Google does not require special AI-specific schema or files for its generative search features beyond normal Search eligibility. GEO therefore focuses on strengthening the content, structure and authority signals that search systems can genuinely use, rather than relying on supposed AI markup shortcuts.
Step 4: Monitoring, refinement & adaptation
AI search changes quickly, which means GEO cannot be treated as a one-off optimisation exercise.
This stage monitors how your brand appears across AI-generated search experiences and uses those findings to refine the strategy as prompts, models and platform behaviour change.
This includes:
- Tracking brand presence in AI Overviews and chat-based tools
- Identifying new prompts and generative search opportunities
- Refining content and entity signals over time
- Adapting the approach as AI models and search platforms develop
No platform publishes a complete set of AI ranking or citation factors. Loop therefore treats GEO as a test-and-learn discipline, with meaningful changes tied to a hypothesis, metric, observation period and recorded outcome.
GEO vs SEO vs AEO: how they work together
GEO does not replace SEO or AEO. It is the next layer. The three disciplines share most of the same underlying work and differ in where visibility is measured and what counts as success.
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
SEO focuses on:
- Organic rankings
- Traffic growth
- Blue-link visibility
It remains the foundation for discoverability and long-term demand.
AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation)
AEO focuses on:
- Featured snippets and People Also Ask
- Voice search and question-based queries
- Zero-click visibility
It ensures your brand appears as the direct answer.
GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)
GEO focuses on:
- AI Overviews and generative SERPs
- LLM-driven search and chat-based answers
- Brand mentions, citations and entity recognition
This is where AI decides which brands to include in its responses.
Together, SEO, AEO and GEO form a single search visibility strategy across traditional results, answer features and AI-generated experiences.
Which AI search platforms matter for your GEO strategy?
Visibility differs by platform, so AI search should not be measured as though it were a single engine. A business can be well represented in one environment and absent from another, which is why a baseline needs to cover more than one.
- ChatGPT: conversational research and supplier comparison. Worth measuring: mentions, citations and which sources are surfaced.
- Google AI Overviews and AI Mode: search-integrated generative answers. Worth measuring: generative visibility and supporting links.
- Gemini: conversational research and comparison. Worth measuring: mentions, descriptions and cited sources.
- Perplexity: citation-led research. Worth measuring: source visibility and citation rate.
- Microsoft Copilot: discovery inside the Microsoft search and productivity environment. Worth measuring: relevant mentions and sources.
How does Loop Digital measure GEO performance?
GEO performance is measured across a defined prompt set over repeated observations, not by a single position. Loop reports visibility indicators and business indicators separately, because they answer different questions and conflating them creates expectations that cannot be met.
Brand mention rate
- What it answers: Are we appearing at all, and how often?
- What it does not prove: Clicks or revenue
AI citation rate
- What it answers: Are our pages being used as sources?
- What it does not prove: Preference or recommendation
AI share of voice
- What it answers: How visible are we against named competitors?
- What it does not prove: Market share
Prompt coverage
- What it answers: How much of the relevant buying journey do we appear across?
- What it does not prove: Quality of each appearance
Brand accuracy
- What it answers: Are AI systems describing us correctly?
- What it does not prove: Conversion
Citation sources
- What it answers: Which of our pages and which external sites shape the answers?
- What it does not prove: Causation
AI referral traffic
- What it answers: Are identifiable AI visits reaching the site?
- What it does not prove: Total AI influence, much of which is untrackable
Leads and conversions
- What it answers: Is measurable visibility producing action?
- What it does not prove: Full attribution of the journey
GEO as part of a flexible digital retainer
GEO works best when it's not isolated.
GEO works best when it is not isolated. AI-driven search intersects with organic SEO, paid media, content, UX and conversion, and most GEO findings need someone to implement them. Loop’s retainers are built to flex across those disciplines rather than handing over an audit and leaving delivery to somebody else.
Our retainers can include:
- SEO, AEO and GEO strategy: one approach across traditional search, answer engines and AI-driven visibility.
- PPC and paid search: supporting immediate demand while organic and AI visibility compound.
- Conversion rate optimisation (CRO): Giving the visibility you gain a clear path into leads and revenue.
- Website development and technical support: Implementing site and technical changes rather than leaving them in a document.
- Content marketing and digital PR: Building the first-party information and third-party corroboration that both readers and AI systems rely on..
One partner. One strategy. No silos.
Visibility only counts when it turns into enquiries
Loop connects AI search visibility to the pages, tracking and conversion work that gives that visibility a path into pipeline.
What can GEO improve for your business?
Presence during AI-assisted research
Appearing when buyers ask the questions that precede a purchase in your category.
Clearer brand and service representation
Being described with the right services, the right locations and the right specialisms.
More opportunities for useful citations
Having pages AI systems can reference as sources, which is what produces referral traffic rather than mention alone.
Better visibility against competitors
Closing the gaps where rivals are consistently named and you are not.
Stronger coverage of customer questions
Breadth across a commercial prompt set rather than presence on one lucky answer.
Better intelligence about your category
Measurement reveals which questions buyers actually ask, which competitors keep appearing alongside you, and which external sources carry weight in your market.
What can't any GEO agency guarantee?
Generative systems vary by model, prompt wording, source availability and platform, so identical prompts return different answers on different days. OpenAI’s own documentation states that allowing its search crawler makes content eligible to appear in ChatGPT search results, not certain to.
No credible provider should promise you
- Permanent inclusion in ChatGPT recommendations
- A fixed position inside an AI answer
- The same response on every run
- A citation for every tracked prompt
- Identical visibility across every AI platform
- A universal uplift percentage
- A guaranteed date by which results will appear
What Loop can work on
Content quality and coverage. The accuracy and consistency of your information. Entity clarity. Technical accessibility, including crawler permissions. External authority and corroboration. The measurement framework. Repeatable testing.
What the model finally generates sits outside that list, and outside every other agency’s too. A provider that tells you otherwise is either not measuring, or not showing you what the measurement says.
Why work with Loop Digital on GEO?
GEO is new territory for most businesses, and the market is currently full of agencies attaching the label to work they were already doing. Getting it right requires clarity about what can be influenced, what can be measured, and what cannot be promised.
- Commercial outcomes first: GEO should support the questions your customers ask before they enquire. Loop focuses on meaningful visibility and commercial influence, rather than chasing mentions that have little value to your business.
- Search, content and technical expertise together: GEO can involve everything from content and site structure to entity signals and external authority. Loop brings these areas together, so insights can turn into practical changes rather than sitting in a recommendations document.
- Measurement you can make sense of: Progress starts with a clear baseline. Changes can then be monitored against a consistent set of prompts, platforms and dates, helping you see how visibility develops over time.
- A strategy built to adapt: AI search is changing quickly. Loop separates what platforms have confirmed from what the data shows and what is still being tested, so your strategy can evolve without being driven by every new theory or trend.
A clear strategy, clear actions and measurable progress.
Find out how visible your business is in AI search
- Where does your brand appear?
- Where are competitors appearing instead?
- What should you prioritise first?
An audit answers all three with evidence rather than assumption.
FAQs
Yes. A mention can come from what a model already knows or from a third-party source, with no link to your website. That can put your business in the consideration set without generating referral traffic, which is why mentions and citations should be measured separately.
Start with the sources you control. Correct your website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and any directories carrying outdated information, then address relevant third-party sources. There is no delete button on a model, so correction relies on making accurate information more consistent and current. Verify progress through repeated testing rather than assuming one change has worked.
Yes. Old directory listings, press coverage, abandoned social profiles and stale partner pages can continue to describe your business as it once was. Auditing and correcting this external footprint is often a more useful first step than simply producing more content.
Yes. Review platforms can appear in comparison and recommendation answers because they contain the customer feedback relevant to those questions. Star ratings are only part of the picture. The volume, recency and wording of reviews can also shape how a business is represented.
Yes, as part of your wider entity footprint. Consistent business names, addresses, service descriptions and key people help reduce conflicting information across sources. A smaller number of accurate profiles is more useful than dozens containing outdated or contradictory details.
In most cases, existing content can be improved rather than replaced. Strong SEO content may simply need clearer answers, more explicit entities or tighter structure. A full rewrite makes more sense when content is thin, outdated or focused on questions your buyers are unlikely to ask. Auditing first can avoid unnecessary work.
Yes. Previous names can remain across third-party sources and within existing model knowledge long after a change. Updating your external footprint consistently and establishing a clear relationship between the old and new entity can help reduce that confusion over time.
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