What is GEO and how is it different from SEO?

GEO, generative engine optimization, is the practice of getting a business mentioned or cited inside AI answers such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, rather than only ranking a blue link in classic search. It uses the same foundation as SEO, real content and technical access, but the target is an AI answer, not just a search results page.

Does BBMedia have actual proof this works, not just a claim?

Yes. Our own website's Google Analytics shows 86 sessions referred from chatgpt.com in the last 90 days, and 6 of those sessions turned into real, verified contact form leads over the same period. That is our own site's data, not a hypothetical client number.

What technical work does GEO actually involve?

It starts with making sure AI crawlers can even read your site. BBMedia's own site publishes a live llms.txt file and a robots.txt that explicitly allows GPTBot, OAI SearchBot, ChatGPT User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot, anthropic ai and Google Extended, the crawlers behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI features. Most local competitor sites we checked block or ignore these crawlers entirely.

Can GEO work for a local restaurant or spa, not just a big brand?

Yes, and arguably it matters more for local businesses, because a person asking ChatGPT 'best spa in Markham' gets one short answer, not ten blue links. Being the business that answer names is a real advantage a Google ad cannot buy.

Is this a separate service from regular SEO?

We treat it as the same discipline. Clean technical access, real on page content, and structured data (schema) that answers questions directly, the same groundwork used for classic SEO also determines whether an AI engine can find and cite you.

AI SEO Agency Toronto | Show Up in ChatGPT | BBMedia

People Are Already Asking AI Where to Go. Are You in the Answer?

A growing share of local buyers now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google AI Overviews for a recommendation instead of typing a search and scanning ten links. If your business is not part of that answer, you are invisible to that buyer, no matter how well you rank on page one of classic Google. BBMedia is a Toronto and Markham agency actively building for this shift, and we are measuring it on our own site before we sell it to anyone else.

Our Own Numbers, Not a Hypothetical

Over the last 90 days, bbmedia.ca received 86 sessions with chatgpt.com as the referrer, tracked directly in our own Google Analytics. Six of those AI referred sessions went on to submit a real, verified contact form inquiry. That is a genuine, if still early, lead channel that simply did not exist for local businesses two years ago, and it is growing faster than most of our other channels.

The Technical Groundwork We Already Did

llms.txt: a live, structured file at bbmedia.ca/llms.txt that gives AI crawlers a clean summary of who we are, instead of leaving them to guess by scraping marketing copy.
Open AI crawler access: our robots.txt explicitly allows GPTBot, OAI SearchBot, ChatGPT User, PerplexityBot, Perplexity User, ClaudeBot, anthropic ai, Claude Web and Google Extended. Blocking these by accident, which many sites do by default, means an AI engine simply cannot cite you.
Answer first content and schema: FAQ and Service structured data on every page, so an AI engine can lift a direct question and answer pair instead of trying to summarize a wall of marketing text.

What We Do For a Client

A GEO engagement audits whether AI crawlers can currently read and access your site, adds or fixes llms.txt and crawler access, restructures key pages to answer real customer questions in the first paragraph instead of burying them under brand copy, and adds FAQ and Service schema so engines have something clean to cite. We report on referral traffic from AI sources the same way we report on Google Analytics for any other channel, honestly, including when a number is still small.