Your GEO Score in one line: a single number between 0 and 100 that measures how often and how well your brand shows up in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. A low score means those answers rarely name you. Here are the eight most effective ways to lift that score, plus the common mistakes you are better off avoiding. New to the topic? Start with What is GEO?, and for how to measure your score precisely, read the KPI guide to AI visibility.
How is the GEO Score built up?
Before you optimise, it helps to know what you are being scored on. The Veesie GEO Score is an index over ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and weighs four factors:
- Mention rate (50%): in what percentage of the relevant AI answers are you named at all? This is by far the heaviest factor.
- Sentiment (25%): are you described positively, neutrally or negatively?
- Model coverage (15%): how many of the three index sources (ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews) name you?
- Position in the answer (10%): where do you rank when an answer lists several brands?
Sentiment, model coverage and position only count in full once you are named in at least 30% of the answers; below that they count proportionally. That way a brand that is rarely mentioned does not get a high score, not even with a few good mentions.
Because mention rate determines half the score, the biggest lever sits in getting named more often. The eight tips below are ordered on that logic: first the changes with the biggest impact on your AI visibility. If you want the broader framework first, read the difference between GEO and SEO.
The link between a tip and a score component is an estimate, not a measurement. Veesie measures the outcome, not which tip improves which component of your score.
1. Start with prompt discovery
Before you optimise anything, you need to know which questions people ask AI chatbots about your niche. This is called prompt discovery: systematically mapping the search queries that are relevant to your brand.
Ask yourself three questions:
- Which problems does my product solve?
- Which comparison questions do prospects ask? ("Which is better: X or Y?")
- Which recommendation questions exist in my sector? ("Which company is best for Z?")
Veesie provides ready-made question templates per sector and language as a starting point to find out which questions your audience asks AI assistants. Add your own prompts here too, specific to your market. The sharper your prompt set, the more reliable your measurement: you then test exactly the questions you want to be found for.
2. Write definitive, citation-worthy answers
AI models cite content that answers a question fully, not content that dances around it. The principle is simple: write the answer first, then build the context around it.
Weak: "There are several factors to consider when choosing an accountant..." Strong: "A good accountant for small businesses combines knowledge of company law, VAT rules and digital bookkeeping tools. The three most important criteria are..."
The second version is directly quotable. The first is not. A handy self-test: copy one sentence from your text and read it on its own, without context. Does it still hold up and is it informative? Then it is citable. If it needs the sentences around it, rewrite it. Also make sure your AI-Readiness is in order: content that AI crawlers cannot reach cannot be cited, however well it is written. How ChatGPT finds and reads pages is covered in ChatGPT SEO.
3. Add structure with headings and lists
AI models process structured content better than long blocks of unbroken text. Use systematically:
- H2 headings for main sections (one concept per section at most)
- Numbered lists for steps or rankings
- Bullet points for features or benefits
- Tables for comparisons
An article with clear headings gives an AI model direct footholds to extract and cite a relevant passage. Long paragraphs without structure are rarely quoted verbatim. On top of that, phrase your H2 headings as the question your audience asks: that way your heading matches the prompt directly. Use the GEO audit checklist to confirm your structure is also loaded correctly, in technical terms, by AI crawlers. How Google builds its own AI answers is covered in Google AI Overviews.
4. Back claims with concrete numbers
Vague assertions are barely cited. Concrete, verifiable numbers are. Compare:
- Vague: "AI searches are becoming more popular."
- Concrete: "Roughly 60% of searches end without a click on a result (Bain, 2025)."
Where possible, add: statistics with a source citation, benchmark data, percentages and dates. This raises not only the citation value but also the credibility of your content in general. A number with a clear source is a safe building block for an AI model, because the model can anchor the claim.
5. Build authority in a narrow niche
Whether AI models cite a recognised expert in a defined niche more often than a generalist who writes about everything has not been measured. The reasoning is that a model looks for the most specific source for a specific question. An accountancy firm that specialises in hospitality businesses then has a better chance for questions about "hospitality bookkeeping" than a general firm that happens to have a few hospitality clients.
Define your niche as sharply as possible. Publish in-depth content about that specific submarket. Use the same terminology as your audience, consistently. That is how you build the entity authority AI models need to recognise you as "the expert". One thorough article about your core topic is probably worth more than ten shallow pieces on scattered themes.
6. Optimise for multiple languages
If your business serves customers across more than one language, questions get asked in each of those languages. An AI model answering a French-language question tends to draw on French-language sources, so content in another language helps you less for that question.
Translate your core pages and most-read blog articles into the languages your audience actually uses. That opens up the questions asked in those languages, and with them more chances to be named.
Veesie measures in Dutch, French and English for marketers and agencies, set per question: you see at once which language you perform best in and where the gaps are. For any brand operating in more than one language, that is a core factor in your AI visibility.
7. Earn external mentions
AI models draw on a broad corpus of text, including press articles, industry news, Wikipedia, reviews and trade publications, and fetch current web sources for a live search. The more external, independent sources mention your brand, the greater the chance an AI model recognises you as a relevant entity.
Concrete actions:
- Send press releases at milestones (new product, growth, awards)
- Ask for inclusion in industry associations and sector directories
- Respond to expert requests in trade media
- Make sure your Google Business Profile is complete and up to date
- Collect reviews on authoritative platforms in your sector
This is the GEO equivalent of link building: not collecting links, but citations and mentions in trustworthy sources. Review platforms carry extra weight, because AI models often consult them for recommendation questions. Which sources each chatbot leans on differs, as how to appear in AI chatbots shows.
You don't necessarily need a backlink with an href anymore. You need a mention.
Eli Schwartz, SEO advisor and author of "Product-Led SEO", in AirOps (April 2026)
8. Measure weekly and adjust
GEO optimisation without measurement is steering in the dark. AI answers change: models get updated, training data evolves, the competition optimises too. What works today may look different next month.
So track four signals weekly: your GEO Score, your mention rate per AI source, how sentiment evolves, and how you stack up against your competitors. Based on that trend, you adjust your content, your prompt set and your priorities. A tool like Veesie automates that measurement, and the principle holds with any tool: GEO is an ongoing process, just like SEO. Sector averages for Belgium and the Netherlands are in the GEO benchmark, a snapshot of five sectors.
What does a higher GEO Score deliver?
A higher GEO Score means you are named more often, and more positively, at the moment a prospect asks an AI for a recommendation, before they even visit a website. That is early in the decision.
Concretely, you see three effects as your score rises: you appear in more of the relevant prompts (higher mention rate), you get named by more models (broader model coverage), and you stand up front in the answer more often. The GEO Score monitoring from Veesie makes those movements visible for marketers and agencies, so you can see which changes go together with a rising score. That way you back every choice with numbers.
Common mistakes in GEO optimisation
Three misconceptions cost brands needless GEO ground: thinking a good Google ranking is enough, that more content is always better, and that GEO only matters for big brands. None of the three is true, and together they explain why many optimisations have no effect. They are worked out in full, each with research attached, in 8 GEO myths marketers still believe.
Summary: the fastest gains
Want quick results? Then focus first on points 2, 3 and 4: better content structure and a more concrete writing style. These are changes you can make within a day on existing pages, and their effect on your GEO Score may take a few weeks to show up in your measurements.
Point 1 (prompt discovery) and point 8 (weekly measurement) are the foundation everything rests on. Without knowing which questions get asked and how you evolve, the other tips are blind spots.
Start the free 7-day Veesie trial and set your baseline today. The trial measures ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews; the pricing and features show where Claude and Gemini come in.