In short
What a GEO agency does to get you named in AI answers, what sets the price of GEO work and what to ask before you hire one.
A GEO agency works to get your business named, and described correctly, when customers ask AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews who to use. That means testing the questions your customers ask, fixing the pages, facts and listings those tools read, and reporting each month on whether you're mentioned. The price depends on what's in scope, and with us GEO runs every day inside the Growth Engine at £1,499 a month + VAT.
GEO is new enough that the label on a proposal tells you very little about what's inside it. Here's what the work involves, what sets the price and what to ask before you sign anything.
What is GEO?
GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. The idea comes from a 2023 research paper, GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, which set out ways for content creators to get seen in the answers AI tools write by pulling information together from several sources. The authors report that their methods can "boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses".
For a business owner, the point is simpler. When a customer asks an AI tool which supplier to use, they get a short answer with a handful of names, not ten pages of links. GEO is the work of making sure you're one of those names, and that what the tool says about you is right.
What does a GEO agency actually do?
It starts by measuring. The agency builds a list of the prompts your customers type when they're choosing a supplier and runs them through ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google. It records who gets named, how you're described, whether your details are correct and which websites the answers draw on. That's your baseline.
Next comes the fixing. An AI tool can only repeat what it can find, so the work goes into the evidence:
- Your own pages, with plain answers to the questions customers ask and a page for each main service
- Structured data that states your name, services and areas, matching what's on the page
- Listings and profiles across the web, so your name, phone number and services agree everywhere
- Mentions and content on other trusted sites that back up what you say about yourself.
Then the same prompts are run again every month. One check is a snapshot, and the trend is what shows whether the work is paying off. Good reporting puts that trend next to the traffic arriving from AI tools, so you can see whether being named turns into enquiries.
How is GEO different from SEO?
SEO earns you a place in Google's list of results. GEO earns you a mention inside the answer. The two share their groundwork, and Google Search Central's guidance on AI features and your website, last updated in December 2025, puts it plainly: "The best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search", so GEO starts from good SEO, not from scratch.
The same guidance explains that AI Overviews and AI Mode can use a technique called query fan-out, issuing several related searches across subtopics and data sources to build one response. A single answer can draw on several of your pages and on other sites at the same time. Depth across all your services, with the same details everywhere, counts for more than one page that ranks well.
What sets the price of GEO?
A GEO quote only means something once you know what it covers. Four things decide the price.
The first is whether you're buying an audit or ongoing work. An audit is a one-off: it tells you where you stand today and what to fix first, and then it ends. Ongoing GEO pays for the testing, fixes, content and reporting month after month, as AI answers change and your competitors publish more.
The second is how many services and locations you need to be found for. Every service needs its own prompts tested and its own page doing the work, and every extra town or city adds more prompts, more pages and more listings to keep consistent. A business with one service in one town needs far less than a firm with ten services across several cities.
The third is whether GEO comes bundled with SEO. Buy it from one supplier and SEO from another, and two teams end up working on the same pages while you pay for the shared groundwork twice. Buy them together and one piece of work serves both.
The fourth is who does the work. Some agencies rewrite your pages, add the structured data and fix your listings themselves. Others hand you a list of recommendations to carry out. Both are legitimate, but they're very different amounts of work, so check which one you're being quoted for before you put two prices side by side.
What should you ask before hiring a GEO agency?
Start with the baseline. Ask which prompts and which AI tools they'll test, and whether you'll see the results before any work starts. If an agency can't show you where you stand today, it can't show you what's changed.
Then ask what the monthly report covers. You want to see whether you're named, how you're described, which competitors appear instead and how much traffic comes from AI tools. Ask whether SEO is included, and how long the contract runs.
Two sales lines deserve a hard look. The first is special markup sold as the secret to appearing in AI answers. Google's guidance says there's no special schema.org structured data you need to add for its AI features, so structured data that matches your page is good practice, not a shortcut. The second is a promise that ChatGPT will recommend you. Each AI tool writes its own answers and no agency controls them, so judge an agency on the evidence it builds and how honestly it reports.
Where does DLR Media fit?
We don't sell GEO as a standalone monthly service. It runs every day inside the DLR Growth Engine, alongside SEO, Google Ads and Meta Ads, with a dedicated SEO/GEO Specialist and a free custom website worth £4,500. The Growth Engine costs £1,499 a month + VAT on a 12-month term, with no setup fees, ad spend billed separately and a monthly performance report.
If you'd rather see where you stand first, our standalone GEO and AI search visibility audit checks how often and how accurately your brand appears in tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, compares you with competitors and sets out the content, authority and technical changes that help AI tools recommend you. Scope and price are confirmed before we start, there's no ongoing contract, and you get a report with prioritised recommendations plus a walkthrough call. Our GEO page explains the work in more detail, and our page on GEO in London covers how we run it for London businesses.
Frequently asked questions
Is a GEO agency the same as an SEO agency?
No. One works on your position in Google's results, the other on whether AI tools mention you and get your details right. The work underneath overlaps, so we run them as one service.
Can I buy GEO from DLR Media without the Growth Engine?
Yes, as a one-off audit. Ongoing GEO runs inside the Growth Engine, while the audit stands alone, with the scope and price confirmed before we start and single-area audits completed within two to three weeks of receiving access.
Do I need GEO if I already rank well on Google?
Yes. Ranking well gives you a head start, but it doesn't tell you whether AI tools name you or describe you correctly. Testing the prompts your customers use is the only way to find out.
Know where you stand before you spend
Want to see how ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews describe your business today? Call us on +44 1382 699595 or ask about a GEO audit.
