What GEO is and how to get AI to recommend your Destin or 30A business

Partner Content. This article was written by or for a partner and reviewed by our editors. It is not part of our news coverage.

Ivana Nazareno
Head of Content & AI Optimization at SEOfy

Quick question: how many times have you asked ChatGPT for a restaurant, a hotel or something to do this weekend? You’re not alone. In a Talker Research survey of 2,000 Americans conducted in May 2025, 29% said they had asked AI where they should travel. Visitors heading to Destin do the same: “Where can I get fresh seafood in Destin?” “Which boat rental is best for Crab Island?” The AI answers with two or three names. The question is whether yours is one of them.

What is GEO?

GEO stands for generative engine optimization: making sure AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode know your business, understand it and recommend it. SEO is about showing up in the list of results. GEO is about being named in the answer. It doesn’t replace SEO; it builds on it. The foundation is the same, but now the reader is also a machine that summarizes.

Where does AI get what it says about your business?

From two places: what you publish and what others say about you.

Your website. It’s the first source. That’s why a website today isn’t built only for people; it’s built for AI, too. AI has to understand your site quickly and without guesswork: what you do, who it’s for, where you are, what it costs and when you’re open. If that information is hidden in an image, a PDF or vague slogans, AI skips it or gets it wrong. A well-organized site with clear text and structured data makes the job easier and helps AI choose you.

What’s said elsewhere. AI cross-checks sources: press coverage, forums like Reddit (OpenAI announced a partnership with Reddit in May 2024 to bring its content to ChatGPT), directories, reviews and specialized sites. And there’s one many businesses forget: Bing. ChatGPT search relies heavily on Bing’s index, according to a BrightLocal analysis, a result of OpenAI’s close partnership with Microsoft. If your business isn’t listed in Bing Places, you’re missing one of the main doors in.

Does AI know who you are and what makes you different?

To recommend you, AI has to be sure who you are. If Google shows one set of hours, your website another and your Facebook page an old phone number, it hesitates, and when it hesitates, it picks someone else. Use the same name, the same description and the same details everywhere.

Then show what only you have: your experience, your results, your own data, what your customers say. If your copy could belong to any business on the coast, AI has no reason to choose you. If it tells something specific and real, it does.

Do shortcuts work?

In the short run, some seem to: text written for robots, bought reviews, fake forum mentions, files that promise to “talk directly to AI.” We’ve seen this movie before with black-hat SEO. For years there were tricks to fool Google, and in the long run the sites that used them got penalized. The same will happen with AI, and faster. What lasts is what’s real: clear information, a genuine presence and people who speak well of you.

How can you tell whether AI recommends you?

Start by asking. Put the same questions a visitor would ask about your type of business and your area to ChatGPT, Gemini and Google, and see whether you show up and how you’re described. SEOfy offers a free AI visibility test that shows how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini see your business and what you can improve. I invite you to try it on the SEOfy website.

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