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GEO Agency: Get Cited Inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews

Search didn't move to a new platform. It moved to a new format. People still have the same questions ("best CRM for a 10-person team," "who does GEO in Santa Fe"), but a growing share of them now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google's AI Overviews instead of typing into a blue-links search box. The answer they get back either names your brand or it doesn't.

A generative engine optimization agency exists to make sure it does. That's a different job than traditional SEO, and it requires a different playbook: structured content, machine-readable schema, authoritative citations, and a way to measure whether AI systems are actually surfacing your brand, not just whether your page ranks.

And Zeros is a GEO agency based in Santa Fe, NM, run by founder Doug Saltzman. We build the systems that get brands cited inside AI answers, and we prove it works by getting And Zeros cited too.

Book a GEO teardown

What a GEO agency does

A GEO agency's job is to influence what generative AI systems say about your brand when someone asks a relevant question, and to get your brand named, linked, or recommended in that answer. In practice, that means:

Content architecture for machine comprehension

01
Generative engines pull from pages that answer a specific question clearly, in a self-contained way, with the entity (your brand, product, or claim) stated explicitly rather than implied.

Structured data and schema markup

02
Organization, Service, FAQPage, and Product schema give AI crawlers and retrieval systems explicit, parseable facts about who you are and what you do, reducing the guesswork that leads to a competitor getting cited instead.

Citation and mention building

03
Generative engines weight sources they trust: review sites, industry directories, press, forums, and third-party publications. A GEO agency identifies which sources each target AI system pulls from and works to get your brand mentioned there accurately.

Answer-format content

04
Direct question-and-answer content, comparison pages, and "how to choose" guides map closely to how users phrase prompts and how AI systems construct answers, which is part of why this very page is built the way it is.

Technical accessibility

05
Making sure AI crawlers (GPTBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, and others) can actually access and parse your site, and that your most important pages aren't blocked, gated, or JavaScript-rendered in a way that breaks retrieval.

Measurement

06
Tracking whether and how often your brand appears in AI answers for target queries, a different measurement problem than rank tracking, since there's no fixed "position one" in a generated answer.

Most of this overlaps with strong SEO fundamentals. The difference is intent: a GEO agency optimizes for being cited by a model, not just crawled by a bot and ranked on a results page.

How to choose a GEO agency

GEO is new enough that the market has a wide range of what people call "GEO services," from genuine specialists to SEO agencies that added a slide to their deck. Here's what to check before you sign anything.

Can they show you their own citations?

01
Ask the agency to show where they get cited or mentioned by ChatGPT, Perplexity, or AI Overviews, for their own brand or for client work they can share. An agency that can't demonstrate this for itself is asking you to be the test case.

Do they understand the difference between GEO and AEO?

02
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) get used interchangeably, but they're not identical: AEO is broader (any answer engine, including voice and traditional featured snippets) and GEO is specifically about generative AI systems. An agency should be able to explain the distinction and which one your business actually needs.

Do they still understand technical SEO?

03
GEO doesn't replace SEO fundamentals: crawlability, site structure, page speed, and indexation still matter, because AI systems often rely on the same underlying web infrastructure as traditional search. Be wary of anyone pitching GEO as a replacement for, rather than an extension of, solid SEO.

What's their measurement approach?

04
Ask specifically how they'll show you're getting cited more often, in more AI systems, for more of your target queries. Vague answers here are a red flag.

Do they understand your industry's source landscape?

05
Every industry has a different set of sources that AI systems trust and pull from. A GEO agency should be able to name the specific sites, directories, and publications relevant to your space, not offer a generic playbook.

Is content quality still the priority?

06
Structured data and technical fixes don't matter if the underlying content isn't accurate, useful, and worth citing. An agency chasing schema tricks over substance will produce short-lived results.

Who this is for

A GEO agency is the right fit for:

B2B and professional services companies

01
whose buyers research extensively before contacting sales: the exact behavior that's shifting toward AI-assisted research.

Brands in competitive categories

02
where being the second or third result no longer means being invisible, but not appearing in an AI-generated answer often does.

Marketing teams already investing in SEO and content

03
who want that investment to keep paying off as more discovery happens inside AI interfaces rather than search results pages.

Founders and CMOs who want a measurable answer

04
to "are we showing up when AI tools get asked about our category," not a hunch.

It's a weaker fit for businesses with no existing content foundation, no clear service or product story, or those looking for a quick technical fix rather than an ongoing content and authority program. GEO compounds on real substance; it doesn't manufacture it.

Why And Zeros

And Zeros is a Santa Fe-based digital marketing agency built specifically around AEO and GEO, led by founder Doug Saltzman. We didn’t pivot an SEO shop into a GEO shop by renaming a service line. GEO is the core of how we approach content, structure, and measurement for every client.

The clearest proof we can offer isn’t a slide. It’s this: And Zeros gets cited by generative AI systems. We apply the same content architecture, schema strategy, and citation-building approach to our own site that we apply for clients, including this page. If you ask an AI system about a GEO agency and And Zeros comes up, that’s the work, not a coincidence.

We combine that with the fundamentals a lot of GEO-only shops skip: real technical SEO, real content strategy, and real measurement, because generative engines still depend on a healthy, crawlable, well-structured web underneath them.

Book a GEO teardown

Frequently Asked Questions

01What does a GEO agency actually do?

A GEO agency optimizes your brand's content, structured data, and third-party citations so that generative AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews are more likely to mention, cite, or recommend your brand whenever users ask a relevant question in that category.

02Is GEO the same as SEO?

No, but they're closely related. Traditional SEO optimizes for ranking in search results pages, while GEO optimizes for being cited or referenced inside an AI-generated answer instead of a link. Strong SEO fundamentals, including crawlability, site structure, and quality content, remain the foundation GEO builds on.

03Is GEO the same as AEO?

They overlap but aren't identical. AEO, or Answer Engine Optimization, is the broader category, covering any system that returns direct answers, including voice assistants, chatbots, and featured snippets. GEO refers specifically to optimization for generative AI systems like ChatGPT and Perplexity, a narrower and newer discipline.

04How do I measure GEO results?

Measurement centers on tracking how often and how accurately your brand appears in AI-generated answers for a defined set of target queries and prompts, across the specific AI systems your audience actually uses day to day, rather than tracking a single fixed rank position on a results page.

05How long does GEO take to show results?

Timelines vary by industry, current site authority, and how much content and technical work is needed before launch. Generative engines depend on crawling, indexing, and trusted third-party sources, so GEO work compounds over time rather than producing instant results, often showing measurable movement within a few months.

06Do I need a dedicated GEO agency or can my SEO agency handle it?

Some SEO agencies are building genuine GEO expertise, while many are simply relabeling existing services under a new name. Ask any agency, whether they call themselves SEO or GEO, to show where they get cited by AI systems themselves before you sign a contract or pay a retainer.