What is LLM SEO?
LLM SEO is the practice of optimizing a business's website and wider online presence so that large language models (LLMs) — the AI systems behind ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity — understand it, trust it, and cite or recommend it in their answers. It is also called AI SEO, generative engine optimization (GEO), or AI search optimization.
How LLMs decide what to say about a business
A language model draws on two sources when it answers a question about businesses in your category:
- What it learned in training. Models are trained on large snapshots of the public web. If your business was clearly and consistently described across many sources, the model is more likely to "know" you. This layer changes only when a model is retrained.
- What it retrieves live. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews can search the web while answering, then summarize and cite what they find. This layer responds as soon as your pages are crawled and ranked.
LLM SEO works on both: building a consistent, well-corroborated footprint the next model will learn from, and making your pages the ones retrieval systems pick and cite today.
What LLM SEO involves
- AI crawler access. Making sure robots.txt and your hosting don't block the crawlers that feed AI systems, such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot.
- Extractable answers. Clear definitions, direct answers under question-style headings, and facts stated plainly enough for a model to quote.
- Cited evidence. The original GEO research from Princeton and Georgia Tech found that adding statistics, citations, and quotations measurably increases how often generative engines cite a source.
- Structured data. Schema.org markup for your organization, services, people, and FAQs, so machines can read your business unambiguously.
- Entity consistency. The same name, address, phone, and description everywhere you appear — your site, directories, review platforms, and social profiles.
- Third-party corroboration. Reviews, directory listings, press, and mentions on sites the models already trust. LLMs are more confident recommending businesses that others vouch for.
- Traditional SEO foundations. Because retrieval favors pages that already rank, technical and on-page SEO remain essential. See GEO vs. SEO.
How to measure LLM SEO
Rankings don't capture it. The useful measure is how often you are mentioned or recommended across a fixed set of realistic prompts, on each major platform, tracked over time — along with whether what the AI says about you is accurate. That is the core of our AI Visibility Audit and the monthly reporting in our AI search optimization service.
Frequently asked questions
Is LLM SEO the same as GEO?
Largely, yes. LLM SEO, AI SEO, generative engine optimization (GEO), and AI search optimization (AISO) all describe the same goal: getting AI systems to cite and recommend your business. GEO is the term used in the research literature; LLM SEO and AI SEO are the terms marketers most often search for.
Does LLM SEO replace traditional SEO?
No. AI assistants that search the web at answer time mostly draw on pages that already rank well, so traditional SEO is the foundation LLM SEO builds on. LLM SEO adds the work that decides whether the model actually uses and recommends you.
Can I see what LLMs say about my business today?
Yes. Ask the major assistants the questions your customers ask and record whether you appear, how you are described, and who is recommended instead. Our AI Visibility Audit does this systematically across every major platform.