At the height of search engine dominance, SEO was the key way to get your business seen online. Now, however, more and more users are turning to generative AI answer engines for quick and succinct summaries of the best answers to their questions. This has drastically changed the way media companies and other online businesses earn visibility.
If you want to capitalize on the growth of AI engines, one of the best ways is to research Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), the process of making your business ideal for exposure via AI answer engines. There are many agencies out there that can help you get started with GEO, and below, we’ll give you some selection criteria and a few top agencies to check out in the coming year!
As with SEO before it, GEO is a complex subject. It’s often not practical to approach it on your own. Fortunately, there are many agencies out there who have mastered GEO and can help you get started optimizing your business, but you have to be wary of how to choose between them.
GEO is very new as a field, so “expertise” in it is something of a double-edged sword. It can be hard to judge whether an agency that offers GEO consultation is actually a good fit for you. With that in mind, we have compiled a list of criteria for you to consider when selecting a GEO agency.
When choosing a GEO agency, here are some of the things you should be looking for:
Once you zero in on a few options, here are some key questions to ask your potential GEO agencies:
B2B brands that want strong GEO practices, well-established SEO fundamentals, and authority-building support.
B2B, SaaS, and service businesses that need measurable progress and clear prioritization.
Naturally, we believe that Zupo offers the best GEO services for your business. While most agencies simply focus on practices, Zupo goes beyond to create a comprehensive and focused GEO strategy for your business, complete with an AI visibility framework designed to ensure that you appear in relevant searches, are associated with positive brand sentiment, and are represented accurately by AI summaries.
Brands in search of a single partner for communications, campaigns, digital, and web experiences.
Businesses with difficulty creating a cohesive GEO strategy across multiple departments.
Bastion has a high level of trust in integrated marketing and communications. Their large footprint can help you mold your brand narrative in addition to focusing on on-site content.
Teams looking for creative experimentation and AI-adapted SEO strategies with a primary focus on revenue generation.
Businesses looking to create a revenue-focused GEO strategy integrated with marketing growth.
Fire & Spark anticipates and evolves ahead of GEO and SEO trends and has extensive experience across various industries. They prioritize ongoing, collaborative dialogue with your business team to develop and execute a pragmatic strategy based on factors such as competitor gap analysis, authority building, and AI search optimization.
Businesses looking for an AI-driven search strategy and which are open to enterprise experimentation.
Enterprise teams seeking a research-driven partner, strong analytics, and a clear focus on GEO.
Seer is highly-focused on GEO, offering clients clear definitions and strategies specific to AI generators, whereas other agencies simply reuse SEO language. Their content strategies are explicitly geared towards how AI tools locate and create answers.
Creating content and digital PR engines engineered to generate AI citations and reference links.
Businesses looking for data-driven, scalable content updates designed to capitalize on proven AI trends.
Siege Media offers a differentiated approach to GEO that places AI searches at the forefront of their strategy. They have a defined process for GEO that begins with identifying a business’ relevance-driven keyword difficulty, guides them through a comprehensive audit and retooling process, and then measures and iterates results with LLM trackers.
Teams that are in need of GEO education, workable benchmarks, and enablement.
Businesses looking for a fundamental GEO strategy based on the three key capabilities of AI success: visibility, content generation, and technical performance.
Though Conductor is not a traditional GEO agency, it offers vital benchmarks and research in the GEO field, including success standards based on AEO and GEO KPIs. Its measurement frameworks can be used in tandem with traditional agencies to provide a more nuanced look at how a business’ numbers are stacking up.
DMOs, tourism boards, hospitality and travel brands, or place-based organizations.
Businesses or destination venues that need to increase visibility, attract guests and visitors, and want to capitalize on AI marketing.
DCI is an agency specializing in travel PR and tourism marketing for destinations and place-based brands. This highly-specific niche requires a different set of GEO practices, and DCI’s procedures are focused on optimizing destination venues for exposure via AI-generated search answers.
Law firms needing increased digital visibility and long-term marketing strategies.
Law firms looking to redesign their websites to increase digital visibility, generate leads, grow brand awareness, and increase relevant traffic.
Like DCI, 9Sail is a specialized GEO agency. 9Sail focuses on creating digital marketing strategies and AI optimization for law firms. They assist firms in creating content, coming up with legal-specific SEO and GEO strategies, increasing brand credibility and authority, and dominating search rankings.
B2B businesses looking specifically for Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and website redesign.
Businesses of varying size that want either DIY AEO services or collaborative, full-service AI visibility management.
Holland Adhaus is a marketing agency based in Cincinnati that specializes in optimizing client websites to appear in AI engine answers. Offering three plan tiers for different levels of AEO, they offer AEO keyword and content briefs, page optimization templates, strategy sessions, quarterly reporting, and even comprehensive tracking dashboards for high-level clients to track performance on major LLMs like SERP, SGE and ChatGPT.
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is a new concept in online visibility that is similar to classic search engine optimization (SEO), but geared towards generative AI answer engines. GEO, put simply, is the process of optimizing online content for inclusion in AI-generated answers, such as citations, mentions, and recommendations. GEO is an extension of SEO, content strategy, and authority building.
GEO works by providing businesses with a set of practices and guidelines aimed at making their content more likely to be one of the chosen sources or examples referenced by an AI-generated answer to an online query. AI systems choose sources based on key factors like relevance to the topic, readable structure, high degrees of trust, and informational consistency. When basic SEO was the norm in online visibility, the most important metric of success was how highly-ranked your webpage was for its queries. With GEO, single rankings are less important than being an AI’s cited source, as being among the citations of an AI-generated answer automatically catapults you to the top of the list, making your page more visible.
The agencies above are all great choices if you want to start optimizing your business for AI answer generators, but there are some red flags to look out for when researching other potential agencies.
Keep an eye out and avoid agencies that:
GEO is about becoming the source AI answers rely on! These days, visibility is uniquely tied to AI, and without it, there’s no way you can succeed. The right GEO partner combines technical expertise with extensive content libraries, proven authority, and reliable measurement of key metrics. Based on those metrics, Zupo is the best pick on this list for comprehensive GEO that offers practical, proven, long-lasting strategies for visibility and AI optimization.