AI search visibility (GEO) for small businesses
Be the business ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers name when a customer asks for a recommendation.
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The short answer
Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, is the work of making your business easy for AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers to find, understand and name when a customer asks them for a recommendation. It sits on top of SEO rather than replacing it: the same crawlable pages, structured data and consistent business facts that help you in search also decide whether an assistant can quote you.
At Esspry we start with a GEO audit that tests 20 real customer questions on three AI engines, then fix what the audit finds, publish answer-focused pages and report each month on what moved. We work with small businesses in the US, Europe and Turkey, in English or Turkish. We do not promise rankings or a guaranteed mention. Nobody outside the AI companies can, and answers change between runs.
What GEO is, in plain words
A growing share of buyers ask an assistant instead of scrolling a results page, and they act on the answer. The assistant builds that answer from pages it can read, facts it can cross-check and sources it trusts. GEO is the work of being one of those sources: pages a crawler can fetch, text that makes sense when quoted alone, and the same name, address and services everywhere the assistant might look.
Most of it is ordinary good search work done with a second reader in mind. That is why nothing here is a bet against classic search. The difference is the measurement. Instead of only counting rankings, we check whether the assistants name you for the questions your customers ask.
How the pieces fit together
Visibility is a chain. Each link depends on the one before it, so we work in this order.
- 01
Site architecture
One page per intent, a clean URL structure and internal links that tell a crawler what matters.
- 02
Keyword and question research
The searches and the questions customers really ask, mapped to the pages that should answer them.
- 03
SEO-friendly page and content structure
Headings, answer-first passages, structured data and facts written so they can be quoted on their own.
- 04
Visibility in Google and AI answers
Pages that can be crawled and understood, then named in search results and in assistant answers.
- 05
Qualified organic traffic
Visitors who arrived with a question your business answers, not just more visitors.
- 06
Leads
A contact path that works, so the traffic turns into enquiries you can count.
What we do
Two ways to buy it. Start with the audit, or go straight to a monthly plan once you know where you stand.
- GEO auditA fixed-scope measurement and plan: 20 customer questions on 3 AI engines, a technical and schema review, a competitor comparison and a 15-item fix list.
- Monthly GEO packagesBasic, Growth and Premium plans that apply the fixes, publish answer-focused content and report every month. The audit fee is credited to month one.
What the work covers
- AI crawler accessibility check across GPTBot, PerplexityBot, and the rest
- Passage-level rewriting so answers can be lifted cleanly and attributed
- Entity and brand consistency across the sources assistants read
- Structured data and an llms.txt where it earns its place
- Baseline and tracking of how often each assistant names you
- The same work strengthens classic search, so nothing here is a bet
How we measure
The baseline is a fixed question set: 20 questions written from the way your customers actually ask, each run on three AI engines with identical wording, and more than once, because answers vary between runs. For each answer we record whether you are named, whether your site is cited, and which competitors and third-party pages the engine prefers.
We repeat the same set later for a like-for-like comparison. The limits stay beside the numbers: API answers can differ from what someone sees in a chat app, and 20 questions are a sample. Read the GEO audit page for the full method.
Who this is for
Small businesses with a real website and real customers who ask questions before they buy: service companies, clinics, local retailers, agencies, hospitality. Businesses in the US, Europe or Turkey, working in English or Turkish.
Who it is not for
Anyone who wants a guaranteed first place, a guaranteed mention by a named assistant, or results in a week. And businesses with no website: we would build the site first.
What we do not promise
- A first place, a fixed ranking, or a mention by a specific AI assistant. These are not ours to promise.
- Fast results. Technical fixes can show up in weeks, content and authority take months.
- A single score that hides the variance between runs. We show what we saw and how much it moved.
- Anything we cannot show you evidence for.
Read more on AI search
The reasoning behind the work, written for people who run a business, not a search team.
- What generative engine optimisation actually meansGEO gets used as a rebrand of SEO, a buzzword, and a specific discipline depending on who is talking. Here is what the term actually covers, what changed to make it matter, and how to tell whether a site is doing it or only claiming to.
- Which AI crawlers to allow, and what blocking them actually doesThere is a real difference between the crawler that trains a model and the crawler that fetches a page to answer a question. Block the wrong one and you remove yourself from AI search results.
- AI search cannot see your JavaScriptGoogle renders JavaScript. The crawlers behind ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity mostly do not. If your content arrives in the browser rather than in the HTML, you are invisible to the fastest growing part of search.
- The canonical tag that quietly deletes your site from GoogleWe found this on our own website. Every page told Google its real address was on a domain that did not exist. Here is how it happens, how to check in thirty seconds, and what it costs.
- Free site checkTwelve quick technical checks on any public site, no sign-up.
Questions about AI search visibility
What does generative engine optimisation actually mean?
It is the work of becoming the source an AI assistant's answer is built from, rather than only a result on a search page. Concretely: making sure AI crawlers can read your pages at all, writing passages that can be quoted in isolation without losing meaning, and keeping the facts about your business consistent everywhere a model might look for them.
How do you measure whether this is working?
We baseline how often each assistant currently names you for the questions that matter to your business, then track it over time the same way a keyword rank tracker works for classic search. It is a slower-moving number than search rankings, and we say so rather than manufacture weekly movement.
Is this instead of SEO, or in addition to it?
In addition to it, and mostly the same underlying work. AI crawlers reward the same things classic search does: content that is actually readable, structured data, and pages that answer a specific question well. Nothing done here is a bet against classic search continuing to matter.
How much does a GEO audit cost?
The GEO audit is a fixed price: 9,900 TL in Turkey, €279 in Europe and $299 everywhere else, excluding taxes where applicable. The audit fee is credited to month one if you continue with a monthly package, which start at 14,900 TL, €469 or $500 a month (Basic).
What is the difference between the GEO audit and the monthly packages?
The audit is a one-off measurement and plan: 20 questions on 3 AI engines, a technical and schema review, a competitor comparison and a 15-item fix list. The monthly packages do the work afterwards: they apply the fixes, publish answer-focused pieces and report each month. You can take the audit alone and use the fix list with any developer.
Do you work in Turkish as well as English?
Yes. Engagements run in English or Turkish, whichever you prefer, and the scope document is written in that language. The Turkish pages on this site are written for Turkish-language searches, not translated word for word.
Want to know where you stand?
Order the GEO audit, or tell us about the business and we will say whether it is the right starting point.