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Home / Blog / Guides / GEO services at an SEO agency: scope, pricing and report

GEO services at an SEO agency: scope, pricing and report

The GEO service for agencies involves continuously monitoring whether AI chatbots mention and recommend the client’s brand, identifying what is preventing such recommendations, and working on the website’s content and presence in external sources. An SEO agency possesses most of the necessary expertise for this: keyword analysis, content audits, link building and reporting. It usually lacks two things: repeatable measurement across several models and a report that shows trends rather than individual responses.

The GEO service at an SEO agency: the agency’s SEO expertise seamlessly integrated with a new, standout module designed to enhance brand visibility in AI chatbots

Below, we describe, step by step, how to set up a GEO service within an SEO agency, how to price it, and what not to promise the client.

How does the GEO service differ from the SEO that the agency already offers?

Objective. SEO determines a website’s ranking in search results, and GEO whether the brand appears in the response that the AI chatbot compiles from multiple sources. A page may rank highly on Google and still not appear in the answers. In the March 2026 update to the Ahrefs study, only 38% of the pages cited in AI Overviews were in the top 10 for the same query. We discuss this in more detail in the article Visibility in AI and SEO.

The unit of measurement also differs. In SEO, you measure a keyword’s ranking. In GEO, you measure how many times the client’s brand is mentioned in the answers to the same set of questions, separately for each model. Chat responses vary almost every time the system is run: in a study by SparkToro and Gumshoe.ai, ChatGPT and Google’s AI provided the same list of brands in fewer than 1 in 100 trials. Therefore, a single screenshot proves nothing, and the service must be based on a series of measurements. The differences between SEO, GEO and AEO We have compiled the information in a table on the website SEO, GEO and AEO: the differences.

What does the GEO service include?

Three tiers of work, which can be sold separately or together:

  • measurement: a fixed set of customer questions, asked without mentioning the brand name in several AI chatbots, with results reported separately for each model; the metrics are mention, citation pages, sentiment and competition in the answers,
  • diagnosis and plan: determining whether the model is unfamiliar with the brand, is familiar with it but does not recommend it, or recommends it only rarely, and a list of tasks designed to change this,
  • implementation and off-site activities: changes to the content that provide models with facts to quote, and the brand’s presence in comparisons, catalogues and trade publications.
THE GEO SERVICE AT THE AGENCY
Three levels of work
Each one can be sold separately, but it is only when taken as a whole that they produce results.
LEVEL 1
MeasurementA fixed set of customer questions across several AI chatbots, with results shown separately for each model.
THE CUSTOMER RECEIVESA report on trends in mentions, citations and competition.
LEVEL 2This is where the value begins
Diagnosis and planWhat is preventing the recommendation: a lack of facts on the website, poor external sources, technical issues.
THE CUSTOMER RECEIVESA list of tasks with justifications in the data.
LEVEL 3
ImplementationChanges to content, structural data, profiles and posts on websites that models read.
THE CUSTOMER RECEIVESTasks completed and their impact on subsequent measurements.
A measurement on its own, without a plan, simply gives the client some figures, but does not tell them what to do next.
aeloapp.io

Most of the Level 3 work is already being carried out by the SEO agency: content rewriting, structured data, and link building. What’s changing is the criterion used to select tasks. In GEO, what matters is whether the website provides the model with specific facts to quote, and which third-party websites the model consults for confirmation. Read more about this in the article How to get AI to recommend your company.

How do I get started with the GEO service and my first client?

Starting with a baseline audit using a fixed set of questions. Together with the client, select a dozen or so questions that their customers ask before making a purchase, pose them without mentioning the brand name in several AI chatbots, and record the results for each model. This set must remain unchanged throughout the collaboration, as this is the only way to ensure that subsequent measurements can be compared. The principle is explained by the slogan frozen query set, and the website describes the manual method for the first test How to find out what AI says about your business.

FIRST CUSTOMER
Five steps to implementing the GEO service
The order matters: without a baseline measurement, you won’t be able to demonstrate the results.
01Set of questionsa dozen or so customer enquiries about the category, without mentioning any brand names, which have been agreed with the customer and are on hold for the entire duration of the partnership
02Initial measurementresults from several AI chatbots, broken down by model: mentions, website citations, competitors in the responses
03DiagnosisDoes the model not know the brand, know it but not recommend it, or recommend it only rarely? What sources do they use when answering these questions?
04Task planFirst, technical corrections and factual updates to existing subpages; then, new content and off-site activities
05Monthly reporttrends based on the same set of questions, actions taken and the plan for the coming month
The highlighted step is usually what determines whether the customer will see the result.
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The diagnosis usually indicates one of three scenarios. If the model does not recognise the brand at all, the work begins with the basics described on the page ChatGPT doesn’t know my company. The most common scenario is one in which the model is familiar with the brand but does not recommend it, as described in the text Knows the brand, but doesn’t recommend it. If competitors feature prominently in the responses, a text would be useful Why does AI recommend the competition?.

How should the GEO service be priced?

The simplest way is to look at the three models that agencies are familiar with from SEO. We do not quote specific figures here, as these depend on the number of enquiries, the models and the scope of implementation, and the market for this service is still taking shape.

  • subscription fee for measurement and reporting: a fixed monthly fee for monitoring a fixed set of questions; a good starting point for customers who want to see where they stand first,
  • implementation package: a one-off piece of work on content and sources following a diagnosis, priced as a content project,
  • extension of the SEO contract: GEO as an additional module to the existing service, with a separate line item in the report.

The cost of the tool increases with the number of questions and models analysed, so it’s worth calculating the cost per customer before setting a price. Aelo’s plans and phrase limits are available on the website Price List.

How do I report GEO to a client?

Once a month, based on data from more frequent measurements. The report shows how many times the brand is mentioned in responses, separately for each model; in how many questions the model refers to the client’s website; who they recommend instead; and what has changed since the previous period. It does not show rankings or individual screenshots. The full structure of the report is described in the text AI Visibility Report for the client, and the frequency of measurements on the website How often should visibility be measured?.

It is worth highlighting changes relating to the models in the report, as these can affect the results regardless of the agency’s work. An example from October 2026 is described in the text GPT-6 in ChatGPT: what it means for brand visibility.

What promises should you not make to a customer?

Those that cannot be verified or fulfilled. The three most common ones are:

  • „You’ll be at the top of ChatGPT”: AI chatbots do not have a fixed ranking, and the order of brands changes with each new session; the article explains why Why does AI give a different answer every time?,
  • „Results in two weeks”: changes to the sources the model searches online take effect more quickly than changes to the knowledge gained from training, but recommendations usually take weeks to appear; find out more on the website Why do changes take time?,
  • „We’ll buy our way into the responses”: adverts in ChatGPT are labelled and, according to OpenAI, do not influence the content of the responses; see the text for details Advertisements on ChatGPT in Poland.

It is better to promise a process and a measurable trend. In the case study of the lime manufacturer, the brand went from 0 to 17 out of 18 enquiries containing a mention within five weeks, and the first recommendation appeared after 11 weeks. The process is described in three parts of the case study: From 0 to 17 mentions on AI in five weeks, An AI model recommends a brand for the first time and Citing a webpage in AI.

How does Aelo help agencies run the GEO service?

The GEO service for agencies requires a consistent measurement approach and a plan that the client cannot dispute. We assess whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity mention the client’s brand, identify what is preventing a recommendation, draw up an action plan and prepare the materials needed to implement it. Measurements in the module Visibility They are based on a fixed set of questions; the tasks go to Tickets, and materials for Studio. The article explains how this works in practice How Aelo works, and we compare measuring tools on the website AI visibility tools.

You can find out more about working with the agency’s clients on the following pages Aelo for agencies and Aelo for SEO agencies. You’ll carry out the first measurement for a single brand on Free account.

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FAQ

Does an SEO agency need new specialists to sell GEO?

Usually not. Keyword analysis, content audits, structured data and link building are all skills that an SEO agency already possesses. What’s new is measuring responses across several AI chatbots and a report based on a series of measurements rather than on rankings.

How many questions should a survey contain for a single client?

Just enough to cover the main services or products and the questions asked before a purchase – usually a dozen or so. More important than the number is that the set remains consistent throughout the collaboration, otherwise subsequent measurements will no longer be comparable.

How long will it take for a customer to see the results of the GEO service?

The first changes in the website’s search rankings may appear after a few weeks, whilst a recommendation usually follows later. In the case of the lime manufacturer, mentions rose from 0 to 17 out of 18 search queries in five weeks, and the first recommendation came after 11 weeks.

Does GEO replace SEO?

No. SEO provides the foundation: indexing, accessibility for web crawlers, and the content used by AI chatbots. GEO adds the measurement of presence in responses, work on facts that the model can cite, and presence in external sources.

Sources

  • Ahrefs, update to the citation study in AI Overviews (March 2026): https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-citations-top-10
  • SparkToro and Gumshoe.ai, a study into the consistency of brand recommendations in AI (January 2026): https://sparktoro.com/blog/new-research-ais-are-highly-inconsistent-when-recommending-brands-or-products-marketers-should-take-care-when-tracking-ai-visibility/
  • Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation (KDD 2024): https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735
  • Aelo reports for Wapiennik „Węże” dated 24 June, 27 July and 10 September 2026 (published with the client’s consent)
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Karolina Wcisło
Author
Karolina Wcisło
Co-founder of Aelo, she is responsible for product, content and communications. She has been designing and building websites for over ten years. At Aelo, she decides what goes into the app, what the reports look like and how we describe the measurement method.

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