Generative Engine Optimisation
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
As the way people find information shifts to AI, Generative Engine Optimisation wins your brand visibility and citations inside generative answers — ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI Overviews — built on, and amplifying, the SEO foundations that already drive your organic performance.
Why GEO, why now
Search has fundamentally changed — and so has discovery
People increasingly put their questions to AI assistants and get a single, synthesised answer — often without ever visiting a results page. If your brand isn’t retrieved, trusted and cited inside those answers, you’re invisible to a fast-growing share of demand.
18×
total growth in LLM users
900M
monthly ChatGPT users
+150%
user growth year on year
LLM adoption figures — 2026 snapshot. This is a fast-moving picture, and we keep our data current.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation?
GEO is the practice of optimising your content, entity signals and authority so AI search engines retrieve, trust and cite your brand in generative answers. It’s the natural counterpart to ranking in traditional search — and it draws on the same foundations.
The integrated approach
SEO and GEO are more powerful together than either alone
Both disciplines are rooted in the same foundations — accessibility, discoverability, authority and awareness. Strong SEO builds the foundations that make GEO possible; GEO drives the brand signals that amplify your organic performance. Run together they create a compounding feedback loop neither delivers alone — which is exactly how we run our SEO programme and GEO side by side.
The compound-visibility feedback loop
- Strong SEO foundations — authority, content quality and technical health
- AI visibility and citations — your brand surfaces and is cited in LLM responses
- Stronger domain signals — reinforced by digital PR and earned coverage
- Search rankings and traffic — users seek you out directly
- Compounding organic growth — each cycle reinforces the next
How it works
Four pillars of integrated discovery
GEO isn’t reinventing the wheel — it’s a stronger one, engineered from established SEO foundations. We work across four pillars, each blending proven SEO craft with the moves that earn visibility in AI answers.
Focus: Efficiency
Accessibility
Crawlability, Core Web Vitals, schema and technical health — extended so AI crawlers can reach your content and recognise your brand as a credible, real-world entity ready for agentic discovery.
Focus: Detail
Discoverability
Keyword targeting, on-page optimisation and EEAT content — structured with clear headings, definitions and Q&A formats so LLMs can extract and cite individual passages, not just rank pages.
Focus: Mentions
Authority
Link acquisition and backlink health — plus brand mentions and content partnerships in the publications your industry’s AI answers already cite, building the reputation that tells LLMs who to trust.
Focus: Community
Awareness
Reviews, video and image optimisation and user-generated content — earning presence and community signals across the social and video platforms that users and LLMs increasingly prefer.
Why Havas Market
Built for integration
Our SEO and GEO specialists are dual-trained and never siloed — strategy, insight and reporting are shared by design, so each discipline works in the other’s interest. Our proprietary Brand Insights AI platform tracks your visibility across 6+ AI models in real time, giving us intelligence off-the-shelf tools can’t match. And the integrated power of the Havas network adds data, affiliate and social teams with no hand-off friction.
40+
integrated SEO & GEO experts
6+
AI models tracked in real time
Results
Already delivering for ambitious brands
+50%
increase in AI-referred traffic for a leading automotive brand
6×
new citations for two high-value prompts from a single article, for a global footwear brand
“Enlightening and important food for thought for us going forward.” — Head of Media, a global FMCG brand (GEO workshop)
How we work with you
Modular by design. More powerful together.
Buy any element standalone or combine them into a fully integrated programme. Every part is built to work on its own or as part of the wider framework — and integrated clients benefit from shared insight, less duplication and faster compounding results.
Core offering
SEO Only
Our full traditional SEO service — building the domain authority, content depth and technical excellence that power organic performance. Best for established SEO retainers and brands focused on Google performance.
Future ready
GEO Only
For brands ready to get ahead of the AI search curve. We build your GEO foundations and start driving citation presence in AI-generated responses. Best for innovation teams, new-to-GEO briefs and test-and-learn programmes.
Recommended
Integrated SEO + GEO
The full framework — both disciplines sharing insight and amplifying each other. This is where compounding returns and total organic visibility are achieved. Best for brands serious about owning organic visibility across every channel.
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