Services / Generative engine optimization
What do generative engine optimization services include?
Generative engine optimization services get your company cited inside the answers that ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Claude generate. The work covers every engine, because each one picks different sources. They suit any company that buyers research: local, B2B or national. BaaDigi's start at $297 a month plus a $700 setup. Citation timing varies by site, and vendor studies are summarized below. Ryan Goering, in search marketing since 2008, runs them.
$297/month to start + $700 setup, month to month
Last updated: · By Ryan Goering, CEO, BaaDigi, Huntington Beach, CA
What does a generative engine optimization service include?
A per-engine citation baseline
The questions your buyers ask, run through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, with a record of who each engine names and which sites it cites.
The three methods the research supports
Pages that cite named sources, include direct quotations and add real statistics. These were the best performers in the Princeton paper that coined GEO. We do not stuff keywords, which the paper found gave little or no gain.
Pages built for each engine's habits
Perplexity cites many sources per answer, ChatGPT and Google cite fewer. We build one page set that earns a place in the short lists and the long ones.
Community and third-party presence
Google AI Overviews lean heavily on YouTube, Reddit and Facebook in our tracking, so we plan mentions there as well as on your site.
Comparison and pricing pages
Tables with real figures, since engines assemble cost answers from published numbers.
Monthly citation reporting
Citation share per engine, new and lost citations, and the leads that followed, in your dashboard.
How does generative engine optimization services work, step by step?
Prompt map
We write the questions that start a purchase in your market and group them by buyer stage.
Engine-by-engine baseline
We run the map through each engine and record which brands and URLs appear. This is your starting citation share.
Gap review
We compare the cited pages with yours: what they state that you do not, which figures they publish, which sources they cite.
Build and revise
We write or rewrite the pages that close the gaps, applying cited sources, quotations and statistics.
Seed outside mentions
We place your company where engines already look: listings, roundups, forums and video.
Re-run and report
The same prompts run again on a schedule. We report change per engine, plus Search Console, GA4 and dashboard leads, and adjust.
BaaDigi framework
What is the Citation Climb, and where does your company stand on it?
GEO is mostly steps three and four of the Citation Climb: getting cited, then getting recommended by name. The earlier steps still gate it, because a page that bots cannot read or a model cannot quote never reaches them.
| Step | How you know you are there | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Crawlable | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google bots can fetch your pages. | Allow OAI-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Claude-SearchBot and Googlebot. Blocking training bots is a separate choice. |
| 2. Quotable | One passage stands alone as a correct answer. | Add cited sources, quotations and statistics, the methods the Princeton study ranked highest. |
| 3. Cited | Your URL shows in the sources of answers on at least one engine. | Close the gaps found against pages that already get cited, then track per engine. |
| 4. Recommended | The answer text names your company. | Third-party mentions, roundup placements, reviews and consistent entity details. |
| 5. Chosen | A logged lead credits an AI engine as the source. | Track referrals and calls, and tie them to the pages being cited. |
The Citation Climb is introduced on the AI SEO services page. This page applies it to generative engine optimization services.
Does AI name your company today?
Run the free checker. It asks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask.
Who does AI recommend, and which sources does it cite?
More people ask ChatGPT and AI search “who's the best contractor near me?” every day. See if AI names you — or sends the job to someone else. No email to run it.
What does generative engine optimization services cost?
Generative engine optimization is delivered inside the same four levels. Foundation at $297 a month prepares the site, and Stability adds ongoing AI search optimization. The agencies below are a mixture of bundled SEO and AEO retainers and dedicated AI search services, so the prices are not like for like.
| Provider | Published price | Term | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| BaaDigi Foundation Engine | $297/mo + $700 setup | Month to month | Your site rebuilt so AI crawlers can read and quote it, plus local SEO basics, Google Business Profile and CRM |
| BaaDigi Stability Engine | $497/mo + $995 setup | Month to month | Builds the pages and assets that get cited, with ongoing AI search optimization |
| BaaDigi Predictability Engine | $1,397/mo | Month to month | Adds Google Ads and lead nurture to fill the pipeline |
| BaaDigi Market Control Engine | $3,997/mo | Month to month | The top level, for companies that want to own their market |
| WebFX | From $3,000/mo (Bronze), up to $68,250/mo | 6-month commitment | Bronze: 50 prompts monitored, 3 assets a month |
| Hook Agency | $3,750/mo (Local SEO + AEO) | Retainer term not stated | Includes 25+ ChatGPT prompts tracked monthly |
| First Page Sage | $6,000 to $12,000/mo | Month to month | Monthly deliverable credits |
| Omniscient Digital | From $120,000/yr | Contract term not verified | B2B software focus |
Agency figures come from each agency's own public page, checked October 27, 2026. We checked 18 agencies and 5 publish an AI SEO or GEO price; we did not verify a published AI-specific price for the remaining agencies. Prices change, so confirm on their site.
What results can you expect?
Here is how often BaaDigi's own site is cited when we ask the three major AI engines our tracked questions. This measures our own site, not a promise for yours.
| Engine | September 2026 | October 1 to 26, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 26.2% (817 of 3,119 runs) | 23.4% (762 of 3,252 runs) |
| Perplexity | 26.9% (840 of 3,119 runs) | 32.6% (1,061 of 3,255 runs) |
| Google AI Overviews | 7.5% (198 of 2,638 runs) | 6.3% (157 of 2,487 runs) |
Share of non-error, non-branded engine-runs in which baadigi.com appeared as a cited source. The prompts were written by BaaDigi to track BaaDigi, the set grew from 52 to 310 prompts between August and October, and each prompt is re-asked every run day, so this is not an industry benchmark and month-to-month changes partly reflect which prompts existed. Source: BaaDigi citation tracker, 13 run days in September and 11 in October.
On the research: the Princeton team reported up to a 40% relative gain on its own visibility metric, but on a test set of 10,000 queries and a generative engine the authors built on gpt-3.5-turbo. A 200-example check on Perplexity.ai showed up to 37%, and results varied by topic. Treat it as direction, not a promise. In our tracker, engines disagree: Perplexity cites about 15 URLs per answer against about 7 for ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, and only 28 domains sat in the top 100 of all three engines. Those two comparisons use all 310 BaaDigi-written prompts, branded included, from September 1 to October 27, 2026.
+348%
Organic traffic
Newlin Painting, 6 months of our SEO system (Google Analytics, Sept 2025 to Mar 2026).
3x
Revenue
Stevens Homebuilding, with site rebuild, SEO and AI follow-up (BaaDigi client reporting, 2024 to 2025).
3 to 5
Leads per day
B&M Electrical, each lead visible in their dashboard.
These three are contractor results from our SEO program, not from this service alone.
Who is generative engine optimization services for?
Start now if
- Buyers in your market ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for a shortlist before they call anyone.
- You want to know which engine names you and which names your competitors.
- You can publish real prices and facts about your service.
- You already have a site and some content to build on.
Not yet if
- Your site blocks AI bots or does not load without scripts. Fix access first; the Foundation Engine does this.
- Your offer changes weekly and cannot be stated plainly.
- You expect one engine's result to carry over. Ours did not.
- You want a fixed ranking. Generated answers have no ranking to guarantee.
How is generative engine optimization services different from SEO and from the other AI search terms?
GEO means being cited inside generated answers on every engine. Ahrefs lists GEO, AEO and LLMO as three names for one idea; we split them by where the work happens, so the AI SEO pillar covers the whole program and this page covers the cross-engine citation work.
| Term | What it aims at | How you measure it |
|---|---|---|
| AI SEO | Being chosen by AI assistants and Google together | Citations, mentions and leads |
| Generative engine optimization (this page) | Being cited inside generated answers across every engine | Citation rate per engine |
| LLM SEO | Being retrievable and quotable by language models | Crawler access, entity clarity, quotes |
| AI search optimization | Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and Bing Copilot | Presence in AI Overviews and AI Mode |
| Classic SEO | Ranking in the ten blue links | Rankings, clicks, calls |
Related service pages: AI SEO services · LLM SEO agency · AI search optimization services
Questions buyers ask about generative engine optimization services
- What is generative engine optimization?
- Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of getting your brand mentioned, cited and accurately represented in AI-generated answers. The term comes from a Princeton paper that defined generative engines as systems combining search with generative models.
- How much do generative engine optimization services cost?
- BaaDigi starts at $297 a month plus a $700 setup. WebFX publishes AI SEO plans from $3,000 a month on a six-month commitment, First Page Sage $6,000 to $12,000 a month, and Omniscient from $120,000 a year. Most agencies we checked do not publish a price.
- Is GEO different from AEO and LLM SEO?
- Mostly in emphasis. Ahrefs treats GEO, AEO and LLMO as three names for the same idea. We use GEO for cross-engine citation work, LLM SEO for retrievability by language models, and AEO for direct-answer formats.
- Does the "40% more visibility" figure apply to my business?
- Not directly. The paper measured a relative gain of up to 40% on its own metric across 10,000 queries on a research engine. It shows which methods help most, namely cited sources, quotations and statistics, not what your result will be.
- Which engine matters most?
- It depends on your buyers. In our tracking, for October 1 to 26, 2026, across non-error, non-branded runs on prompts BaaDigi wrote itself, baadigi.com was cited in 32.6% of Perplexity runs (1,061 of 3,255), 23.4% of ChatGPT runs (762 of 3,252) and 6.3% of Google AI Overview runs (157 of 2,487). Your split will differ, which is why we baseline each engine.
- How fast will we be cited?
- Vendor maxaeo studied 740 new pages from February to May 2026 and found a median of 13 days to first citation, from 4 days on Perplexity to 18 on AI Overviews. Stable citation, meaning cited on five of seven days, took a median of 41 days. It is a vendor study and counts only pages that were eventually cited, so it does not predict your timing.
- Can you guarantee a citation?
- No. OpenAI states placement in ChatGPT search is not guaranteed, and generated answers change run to run. We report what was cited and what was not.
- Do I need a separate GEO provider and an SEO provider?
- No. GEO builds on the same crawlable, useful pages that SEO needs, so BaaDigi runs both in one program and one dashboard.
Sources
- Princeton: GEO paper (arXiv 2311.09735): the term, the methods tested and their limits.
- Ahrefs: SEO vs GEO: GEO defined as mentioned, cited and accurately represented.
- Ahrefs: GEO is just SEO: GEO, LLMO and AEO as one idea.
- Perplexity: getting started: answers with sources and citations.
- OpenAI: introducing ChatGPT search: answers link to sources in a sidebar.
- Google: AI features and your website: AI Overviews link out and often do not trigger.
Keep reading
- SEO services for any company
- The Four Stages of Predictable Growth
- Free AI search visibility checker
- AI visibility audit
- Generative engine optimization agencies, compared
- Best AI visibility tools, compared
- LLM SEO guide
- What is LLM SEO? (glossary)
- What is generative engine optimization? (glossary)
- What is answer engine optimization? (glossary)
- What is an AI Overview? (glossary)
- AI SEO services
- LLM SEO agency
- AI search optimization services
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From $297/month + $700 setup. Month to month.