Guides · · 7 min read
To show up in Google and in answers from AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, your business needs the same foundation: a website search crawlers can read, that answers customers’ questions clearly, and that other sites mention. SEO is the work of being found on Google. GEO is the same work seen from the side of assistants that write answers and cite sources. There is no secret trick: Google itself says the same SEO fundamentals apply to its AI features.
What SEO is, and what GEO is
SEO (search engine optimisation) is everything you do so your site is found, understood and shown on Google when someone searches for what you offer: “dentist in Tirana”, “apartment for rent in Sarandë”, “kids’ clothes online”.
GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the work of getting your site used as a source when an AI assistant answers a question. When someone asks ChatGPT “Suggest a dental clinic in Durrës where they speak English”, the assistant searches the web, reads a few pages and writes an answer, often with links to its sources.
The key difference: on Google, the customer sees a list and chooses. With an assistant, the customer reads a ready-made answer. If your business isn’t among the sources the assistant reads, it isn’t in the answer either.
How a business shows up in Google: three steps
Google explains the process in its SEO Starter Guide. Put simply, every page goes through three steps:
- Discovery (crawling). Google’s crawler finds your pages, mostly by following links from other pages. A page nothing links to is hard to find.
- Indexing. Google reads the page and stores it in its index, along with what it understands about it: the topic, the language, the town.
- Ranking. When someone searches, Google picks the pages from its index that best answer the query. Content, clarity, speed on mobile and trustworthiness all matter here.
Google advises that every page has a unique, clear title, a short description, a URL with meaningful words, and above all content people find useful. It also warns that changes take a few weeks to show, sometimes a few months.
Local businesses have a second route: the map. Google Business Profile has its own rules, which we cover in how to get found on Google Maps.
How ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity choose their sources
AI assistants answer in two ways. Part of what they know comes from training, on text collected up to a certain date. For questions about businesses, hours, prices and anything that changes, assistants increasingly search the web in the moment and cite the pages they used. That second part is where you have influence.
Each company runs its own crawlers and documents them publicly:
- ChatGPT (OpenAI). According to OpenAI’s documentation, OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features. Sites that block it won’t appear in ChatGPT’s search answers. GPTBot, a separate crawler, collects text for model training and is blocked separately.
- Claude (Anthropic). Anthropic explains that it has three bots: ClaudeBot for training, Claude-SearchBot for indexing that improves search results, and Claude-User, which fetches a page when a user asks something. Blocking Claude-SearchBot may make your site less visible in Claude’s answers.
- Gemini and AI answers in Google. Gemini is Google’s assistant. For the AI summaries inside Google Search (AI Overviews and AI Mode), Google says there are no extra requirements: the page needs to be indexed and eligible to appear in Google with a snippet. Good SEO is the foundation here too.
- Perplexity. Perplexity documents PerplexityBot, the crawler that surfaces and links sites in its results, and advises allowing it in your robots.txt file if you want to appear there.
The practical takeaway: check your site’s robots.txt file. Sometimes a template, a security plugin or a bot-protection service blocks these crawlers without you knowing. Whether you allow training is your decision, but search crawlers need access if you want to be cited.
What makes a page worth citing
AI assistants choose pages that answer the question clearly and look trustworthy. Google sums up good content in its guidance on helpful content, which talks about experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). For a business, that means:
- The answer first. Open every service page with one sentence that says what you do, for whom and where: “Dental clinic in Vlorë offering implants and orthodontics, open on Saturdays too.” That is exactly the kind of sentence assistants quote.
- One page per service. A single “Services” page with five lines can’t compete with separate pages, each with its own answers.
- Real FAQs. The questions customers ask you on the phone, with short answers, are the same ones people ask assistants.
- Checkable facts. Address, hours, how prices are worked out, the names of the people who work there. Don’t write “the best in Albania” without proof.
- Structured data. schema.org markup (LocalBusiness, FAQPage, Product) tells machines your name, address and hours directly.
- Real text, not just images. A menu published as a photo isn’t read as text. The same menu written as text is.
Our website service builds pages this way from the start: each page with its own address, title and description, the text in the HTML, and structured data. We can also write the copy that answers your customers’ questions, through our content service.
The same clinic, two different websites
Before
- A single page with a logo and a phone number
- Services written inside an image
- Albanian only
- AI search crawlers blocked by a plugin
- The assistant has nothing to cite
After
- One page per service, with the answer in the first sentence
- Readable text, with frequently asked questions
- Albanian and English, each at its own address
- Search crawlers allowed, training as you choose
- The assistant has a clear source to cite
Language: Albanian, English and full questions
People ask assistants in full sentences, not two keywords. A tourist from Germany types “family hotel in Ksamil with parking” in English, while an emigrant in Italy coming home for the holidays may write in Albanian. If your site only exists in Albanian, you have nothing to be cited for the English question. We explain why at length in a bilingual website for tourism and the diaspora.
Each language needs its own pages at its own addresses, not an automatic translation that swaps text on the same page. That way Google and the assistants know which version to show to which user.
Mentions beyond your own site
Google and the assistants don’t rely only on what you say about yourself. They look at whether others say the same thing: your Google Maps profile, reviews, articles in local media, association listings, partners’ websites. When your name, address and services match everywhere, the business looks more trustworthy.
This is where SEO meets marketing: an article on a local news site, a partnership with another business in Shkodër or a useful guide on your own blog all create links and mentions that help on both fronts.
What you don’t need
- Promises of “first place in ChatGPT”. Nobody can guarantee your place in an assistant’s answer, or in Google’s free results.
- Text stuffed with keywords. Google treats it as bad practice, and readers leave.
- Necessarily an llms.txt file. It is a proposal some sites use to give assistants a summary, but Google says clearly that no special files are needed for its AI features. It does no harm, but it doesn’t replace content.
If you want a full list of what a business needs online, start with the online presence checklist. To see what changes once a business has a site people can find, read a business before and after a website.
- Is GEO something completely different from SEO?
- Mostly, no. Both need pages crawlers can read, clear content and trust. GEO adds attention to direct answers, FAQs and the crawlers AI assistants use.
- How do I know whether ChatGPT or Claude knows my business?
- Ask them the way a customer would: “Where can I find [your service] in [your town]?” See which pages they cite. Repeat it now and then, because answers change.
- How long until I see results?
- Google says changes usually take a few weeks to show, sometimes months. AI assistants publish no timeline. Anyone promising you an exact date is guessing.
- Should I block AI crawlers?
- It depends on what you want. You can block training crawlers such as GPTBot and ClaudeBot and allow search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot. Block the search crawlers and your site is less likely to be cited.
- Is Instagram enough to appear in these answers?
- Rarely. Many social media pages are only partly readable by crawlers, especially without logging in. A website with your own text is a much clearer source.
Website design: We build sites that Google and AI assistants can read: one page per service, in Albanian and English, with structured data.
Sources
- Google Search Central: SEO Starter Guide
- Google Search Central: AI features and your website
- Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- Anthropic: Does Anthropic crawl data from the web, and how can site owners block the crawler?
- Perplexity: Perplexity crawlers
- The llms.txt proposal