GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. Plain version: when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity a question about your industry, your business either gets named or it does not. GEO is the work that gets you named.
SEO gets you into Google's blue links. GEO gets you into the AI answer itself. Different surface, different rules.
Why It Matters for South African Businesses
The global GEO market is projected to reach $7.3 billion by 2031. Few South African agencies offer it as a service today. That gap is the opportunity. SA follows global tech trends by 12 to 18 months, the businesses that build AI visibility now will own the citations by the time everyone else starts asking about it.
A page that ranks well on Google can still get ignored by ChatGPT. If the content is vague or buried in marketing language, the AI skips it and cites a competitor who wrote plainly.
What GEO Involves
Let the crawlers in: check robots.txt is not blocking GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or PerplexityBot. Add an llms.txt file at your site root. State the facts plainly, business name, location, services, prices where you can. Add JSON-LD schema so machines know exactly what you do. Build FAQ sections in question-and-answer format. That is the shape AI tools lift answers from.
None of this replaces SEO. Same foundation, new layer on top.