Generative Engine Optimisation
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
The way people search is shifting to AI. Generative Engine Optimisation earns your brand visibility and citations inside AI-generated answers, from ChatGPT and Gemini to Google’s AI Overviews. It builds on the SEO foundations already driving your organic performance, and makes them work harder.
Why GEO, why now
Search has changed, and so has discovery
More and more people put their questions straight 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 in 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). It’s 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 that AI search engines retrieve, trust and cite your brand in generative answers. It’s the counterpart to ranking in traditional search, and it draws on the same foundations.
The integrated approach
SEO and GEO are stronger together than either alone
Both disciplines share the same building blocks: accessibility, discoverability, authority and awareness. Strong SEO creates the conditions that make GEO possible, and GEO generates the brand signals that lift your organic performance. Run them together and each reinforces the other, which is exactly how we run our SEO programme and GEO side by side.
How the growth loop compounds
- 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 doesn’t replace the fundamentals of good SEO. It extends them. We work across four pillars, each combining proven SEO craft with the techniques that earn visibility in AI answers.
Focus: Efficiency
Accessibility
Crawlability, Core Web Vitals, schema and technical health, extended so that AI crawlers can reach your content and recognise your brand as a credible, real-world entity that’s 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 that LLMs can extract and cite individual passages, not just rank pages.
Focus: Mentions
Authority
Link acquisition and backlink health, plus the brand mentions and content partnerships in the publications your industry’s AI answers already cite. Together they build the reputation that tells LLMs who to trust.
Focus: Community
Awareness
Reviews, video and image optimisation and user-generated content that earn presence and community signals across the social and video platforms both users and LLMs increasingly prefer.
Why Havas Market
Built for integration
Our SEO and GEO specialists are trained across both disciplines and never work in silos. Strategy, insight and reporting are shared as standard, 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 that off-the-shelf tools can’t match. Behind them sits the wider Havas network, adding data, affiliate and social teams without the usual hand-offs.
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, global FMCG brand (following a GEO workshop)
How we work with you
Take the parts you need, or the full programme
Buy any element on its own or combine them into a fully integrated programme. Every part is built to stand alone or slot into the wider framework. Integrated clients get the most from it, with shared insight, less duplication and faster 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.
Future ready
GEO Only
For brands that want to move early on AI search. We build your GEO foundations and start earning citations in AI-generated responses. Best for innovation teams, new-to-GEO briefs and test-and-learn programmes.
Recommended
Integrated SEO + GEO
The full framework, with both disciplines sharing insight and amplifying each other. This is where the returns compound and your organic visibility is at its strongest. Best for brands serious about owning search across every channel.
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