GEO Services Guide: What to Expect from a Generative Engine Optimization Agency

If AI Overviews are cutting your click yield, rankings aren't the finish line anymore. Citations are.

You still rank on page one. Your team is shipping content. But organic CTR fell 61% for informational queries once Google rolled out AI Overviews (Search Engine Land). And when you actually check what AI answers say about your category, competitors get named. You don't.

That's the shift. The question is no longer "do we rank?" It's "are we cited in the answer?"

Understanding GEO is table stakes. The hard part is building and governing the footprint that gets you cited in the sources AI already trusts. That's what GEO services are supposed to do. But most vendors are selling content volume with a new label. This guide cuts through the noise.

Here's what you'll walk away with:

What GEO services actually are (and aren't)
What a real 30/60/90-day rollout looks like
How to measure "are we getting cited?"
A vendor checklist that filters out activity theater

What Are GEO Services (in Plain English)?

GEO services are the work of getting your brand cited and recommended in AI-generated answers by improving what AI can find about you across your site and third-party sources.

That's the direct answer. Here's the longer one:

According to First Page Sage, "GEO is the practice of optimizing a company's online presence so that AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, will recommend them in response to relevant queries."

GEO is not "more blog posts." It's cross-channel: technical foundations, content structure, entity coverage, off-site mentions, and measurement. The buyer's real question is: "Where does AI learn about vendors like us, and are we present there?"

"Executing on it requires combining several disciplines, including SEO, PR, technical optimization, review management, and social media management." — First Page Sage

If you want the full breakdown of what GEO is and how it differs from traditional SEO, see our definitive guide to GEO.

So if GEO is real, it exists for a reason. And the data is already showing where the pressure is coming from.

Why GEO Services Exist: CTR Is Collapsing Even When You Rank

The business case for GEO services isn't theoretical. It's math.

Organic CTR fell 61% for informational queries with AI Overviews since mid-2024 (Search Engine Land). Even when you rank first, the presence of an AI Overview correlates with 34.5% lower average CTR for that top-ranking page (Ahrefs).

That means "ranking" is no longer equal to "traffic."

As of September 2025, AI Overviews appear for approximately 30% of U.S. desktop keywords (seoClarity). AIO share of keywords has been volatile, rising to around 25% in July 2025 and settling near 15.69% by November 2025 (Semrush). The coverage is shifting. The trajectory is clear.

Here's the thing: AI answers cite fewer sources than a traditional SERP. If you're not in the handful of sources the LLM chooses to surface, you don't exist in that answer. And increasingly, that answer is the only thing the searcher sees.

So what does a "real" GEO program actually ship? And what's just theater?

What GEO Services Should Include (the Non-Negotiables)

When you buy GEO services, you're buying a system with five non-negotiable components. If any of these are missing, you're probably buying a content retainer with a new name.

Measurement and Instrumentation (Track)

You can't improve what you don't measure. A real GEO program starts by defining:

The query set: A mix of commercial and informational queries your ideal customer asks.
The competitor set: Who else shows up in AI answers for those queries.
The surfaces: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini.
The outputs: Cited vs. not cited, mention frequency, share of voice.

When you're cited in an AI Overview, the results are measurable. According to Seer Interactive, "When you are cited in an AIO, you get 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared to when you are not cited at all."

Without a baseline, you can't prove movement. Ask any vendor what their measurement system looks like before you sign.

Technical Foundation (Still Matters)

Don't let anyone tell you SEO is dead. Ninety-seven percent of AI Overviews cite at least one source from the top 20 organic results (seoClarity).

That means if you're not crawlable, indexable, and structured, AI can't find you. Technical SEO is table stakes for GEO. The work includes:

Crawlability and indexation hygiene
Structured data and schema markup
Page speed and Core Web Vitals
Faster update signaling via IndexNow

As Bing's Webmaster Blog puts it, "With a single, real-time notification, you can instantly tell participating search engines that a change has been made." This matters when you need AI surfaces to pick up new or updated content quickly.

Content Engineered for Extractability

AI needs to extract clean, citable statements from your content. That means:

Clear entity definitions and coverage
Heading structures that map to user intent
Citations and statistics that AI can quote
FAQ sections that directly answer common queries

The academic research behind GEO formalized this. Aggarwal et al. (arXiv:2311.09735) introduced GEO as a systematic approach to content creation that improves visibility in generative engine responses.

Off-Site Presence (Where AI Learns)

Here's where most "GEO services" fall short. They only touch your blog.

But AI doesn't just look at your domain. It pulls from comparison pages, directory listings, "best X" lists, reviews, and third-party mentions. If competitors appear in roundups and you don't, you're losing citations before the LLM even considers your site.

Off-site GEO work includes:

Getting into comparison and listicle content
Managing presence on review platforms and directories
Community and third-party mentions
Digital PR and backlink acquisition

"Executing on it requires combining several disciplines, including SEO, PR, technical optimization, review management, and social media management." — First Page Sage

Governance Loop (So You Don't Drift)

The last piece is the one no vendor talks about: governance.

What happens when your product changes? When a competitor launches? When AI surfaces update their algorithms?

A real GEO program includes a single source of truth for your brand facts and a refresh cadence that keeps your content accurate across channels. Without governance, you build technical debt that eventually erodes trust.

Now let's turn that checklist into a rollout plan you can hold a vendor accountable to.

A Sane 30/60/90-Day GEO Services Rollout Plan

Every vendor has a timeline. Most of them are vague. Here's what a real GEO rollout looks like.

Days 0-30: Baseline and Foundation

Measurement setup: Install tracking for citation presence across AI surfaces. Define query set and competitor set.
Technical audit: Crawlability, indexation, schema markup, page speed.
Content audit: Identify gaps in entity coverage, FAQ structures, and extractability.
Deliverable: Baseline report showing where you're cited, where competitors are cited, and the gap.

Days 31-60: Ship Citable Assets

Page optimization: Update high-priority pages for AI extractability (clear headings, entity definitions, citations).
Schema implementation: Add structured data for FAQs, reviews, and products.
First off-site placements: Comparisons, directories, or review platforms where you're missing.
Deliverable: First wave of "AI-citable" pages live, with tracking in place.

Days 61-90: Expand and Govern

Off-site expansion: More placements on comparison sites, listicles, and community channels.
Governance setup: Document your source of truth for brand facts. Create the refresh process.
Measurement review: Compare citation presence to baseline. Adjust query set if needed.
Deliverable: Expanded footprint, governance system, and 90-day performance report.

As seoClarity notes, AIOs now appear for 30% of U.S. desktop keywords. The window to build presence is now.

A 90-day plan only matters if you can measure movement in the right metrics.

How to Measure GEO Success (Without Lying to Yourself)

Traditional SEO metrics don't capture what matters in GEO. Here's what to track instead.

Primary Metric: Citation Presence

For your target query set, track: Are we cited or not cited? This is binary. Either you appear in the AI answer, or you don't.

Secondary Metrics

Share of voice: What percentage of AI answers in your category mention your brand?
Recommendation frequency: How often does AI recommend you by name?
Branded inclusion: Are you named alongside competitors, or are you absent from the conversation?

Tie Back to Outcomes

Citation presence connects to business results. Seer Interactive found that being cited in an AIO leads to 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared to not being cited.

Even if overall CTR drops, citations increase your click yield from the diminished pool. That's the metric that matters.

Google Search Console is starting to surface AI Overview data. According to Google's documentation, you can now see impressions and clicks when your content appears in AI Overviews.

Once you know what to measure, you can stop buying "activity" and start buying evidence.

How to Choose a GEO Services Provider (RFP Questions + Proof to Request)

Here's a vendor checklist that filters out fluff.

1. Ask for a Baseline

"What queries will you track? What competitors? What surfaces?"

If they can't answer this specifically, they're not running a measurement system. They're guessing.

2. Ask for Proof They Ship Off-Site

"Show me a client where you placed them in comparison content, directories, or third-party sources."

If the only work is blog posts on the client's domain, that's not GEO. That's content marketing.

3. Ask How They Prevent Fact Drift

"What's the governance process when product details change or new competitors emerge?"

If they don't have an answer, your content will decay. Accuracy erodes over time without maintenance.

4. Ask How They Report Progress

"What metrics will be in our monthly reports?"

If it's just "impressions up" or "rankings improved," they're hiding behind activity. The report should show cited vs. not cited, by query, over time.

"Are we appearing in AI-generated answers that actually lead to sales? Without these measurable results connecting directly to your pipeline, you're simply paying for activity rather than real business impact." — Singularity Digital

"Buyers no longer click through results like they used to. They read the AI-generated summary and make decisions without ever visiting a webpage." — Directive

For tactical implementation details, see our guides on how to do GEO step-by-step and how to optimize for generative engines. If you're evaluating tools, see GEO tools compared.

Next question every buyer asks: what does this cost, and what actually drives the cost?

GEO Services Pricing: What Drives Cost (and What's Usually Missing)

Pricing varies. But the cost drivers are consistent:

Data collection and tracking: Building and maintaining the citation tracking system.
Off-site placements: Comparison sites, directories, and digital PR don't write themselves.
SME review cycles: If your content needs expert sign-off, that's a real workflow cost.
Governance and refresh: Keeping content accurate across channels over time.

Directionally, Singularity Digital frames it as: $3k-5k for a pilot, $6k-10k for an ongoing program, and $10k+ for enterprise.

Beware "cheap GEO." If the price is low, it's usually because the scope is only on-site rewrites. That's the least defensible part of the work. Off-site presence and governance are where the leverage lives, and they cost more to execute.

Use these ranges as sanity checks, not budgets. The right question is: "What does the deliverable include, and how does it move my citation presence?"

Frequently Asked Questions

Are GEO services just SEO with a new name?

GEO includes SEO fundamentals, but it expands the work to off-site sources and "are we cited?" measurement. You still need crawlability, indexation, and content quality. But traditional SEO stops at rankings. GEO stops at citations.

Ninety-seven percent of AI Overviews cite at least one source from the top 20 organic results (seoClarity). So yes, SEO still matters. But it's necessary, not sufficient.

Can a GEO agency guarantee AI citations?

No. Anyone promising guarantees is overselling a black box.

"The hard truth: everyone is still figuring this out. Be wary of claims to the contrary." — OuterBox

What you can expect is a system that does the work citations depend on: measurement, technical foundations, content extractability, off-site presence, and governance.

How long does GEO take to work?

Expect a baseline and technical cleanup in the first 30 days. First citable assets ship by day 60. Measurable movement in citation presence typically appears as off-site mentions compound, usually by the 90-day mark.

The timeline depends on your starting point. If your technical foundation is solid and you have some off-site presence, you'll move faster than a brand starting from scratch.

What deliverables should I expect in month one?

Month one should include:

Baseline tracking (queries, competitors, surfaces)
Technical audit and fixes
Content audit and first citable page plan
Governance plan (how you'll maintain accuracy)

If the deliverable is "5 blog posts," that's not GEO. For comparison, see Netpeak's GEO service deliverables.

How do we measure success if clicks are down?

Track citation presence and share of voice across AI surfaces. Then tie citations to assisted conversions.

Being cited in an AI Overview leads to 35% more organic clicks and 91% more paid clicks compared to not being cited (Seer Interactive). Even in a declining CTR environment, citations increase your yield from the traffic that remains.

Choosing GEO Services That Actually Work

GEO services work when they build a measurable footprint, not when they sell content volume. The deliverable is a system: measurement, citable assets, off-site presence, and governance.

Here's what to remember:

Measurement first: You need a baseline before you can prove movement.
Technical foundations still matter: 97% of AIOs cite top 20 results.
Off-site is where leverage lives: Comparisons, directories, and community presence create citation gravity.
Governance prevents drift: Accuracy decays without maintenance.

If rankings are table stakes, the new moat is being cited where AI pulls answers.

The real work isn't about doing more. It's about being present in the right places with content that AI can extract, cite, and recommend. That requires tracking where you're visible, engineering presence where you're not, and maintaining accuracy over time.

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