Everyone is selling a secret for AI search.
A special schema. A special file. A “citation hack.” Google’s own documentation says there isn’t one.
When I read Google’s guide, “AI features and your website,” it said that specific optimisation isn’t required for AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that the existing SEO fundamentals continue to matter. It also said no special structured data is needed.
I’m not an SEO specialist. I build AI prompt systems, so for this guide I studied SEO and generative engine optimisation (GEO), and where AI helps and where it can only guess. This post is what I found.
What GEO Means
GEO is the practice of making your content easy for AI search tools to select, cite and show. Those tools include Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Gemini.
The book makes one point that I trust more than any trick: GEO builds on top of strong SEO fundamentals. Sites with weak technical health, thin content or no authority are not likely to be cited either.
Where AI Helps
AI is good at the slow parts of an SEO workflow: auditing a page, drafting a content brief, finding gaps in topic coverage, and organising a tracking sheet.
Here is Prompt 18 from the book:
“Analyze this article: [paste content]. Identify every claim that lacks supporting evidence. For each unsupported claim, suggest a specific data source, study, or statistic I could add to make it citable.”
It works because it asks for a specific task: find the claims that have no evidence. One warning. AI can suggest a source that does not exist. Check that every source is real before you add it.
👉 [Grab your copy of SEO and GEO in the Age of AI]
Before and After
Weak: “Improve my article for AI search.”
Better: paste the article, name the target query, and ask the AI to list every claim that lacks evidence, then draft the questions a reader would ask next.
The second version gives the AI a job you can check.
What AI Cannot Know
This matters more than any prompt.
It cannot predict whether you will be cited. Some prompts in the book ask for a “citability score.” That is an opinion, not a measurement. Nobody outside the AI companies knows exactly how their tools choose sources.
It cannot see what Google shows today. A prompt that asks the AI to guess whether a keyword triggers an AI Overview is a guess. Search the keyword yourself.
It cannot verify facts. A fact-check prompt only helps if you then check the primary sources.
Track your visibility by hand: a list of queries, the tools you check, and a note of whether you were cited.
Two Technical Cautions
Schema. Structured data helps search engines understand a page and can enable rich results. Google says it is not required for AI features. Keep the markup matching what is visible on the page.
Crawlers. OpenAI’s documentation says OAI-SearchBot is the crawler for ChatGPT search, and GPTBot relates to training. Blocking GPTBot does not remove you from ChatGPT search. Check each company’s current documentation before you edit robots.txt.
What Is Inside
152 prompts in 8 chapters, plus 3 bonus sections:
- Chapter 1: the new search landscape
- Chapter 2: GEO fundamentals
- Chapter 3: keyword research and topic strategy
- Chapter 4: on-page optimisation
- Chapter 5: technical SEO, speed, structure and AI readability
- Chapter 6: content creation with AI, without sacrificing E-E-A-T
- Chapter 7: link building, digital PR and authority
- Chapter 8: analytics, attribution and ROI
- Bonuses: 10 GEO-ready content templates, local SEO and GEO for small businesses, and future-proofing
Every prompt has a “how this works” note.
Who It Is For
SEO specialists, content marketers, agencies and small business owners who already know the basics and want a practical set of prompts for the AI-search era.
Start With One Page
Pick your best page. Run Prompt 18. Add real evidence for each weak claim, and check every source.
👉 [Grab your copy of SEO and GEO in the Age of AI]
If you want the basic prompt formula behind all my guides, it is in a free book: AI Superpower for Everyone.
I cannot promise rankings, traffic or citations. Search tools change fast, so check Google’s and each AI company’s current documentation before you act.
