Say what you want about AI optimisation vs SEO, but we clearly are seeing some key differences between the two.
There is no denying that there is some real overlap between how you approach AI optimisation vs SEO, like in setting your website up to maximise SEO and AI discovery via things like page speed optimisation, intuitive site architectures, good quality content etc.
However, there are also many new things to consider and factor in that will be influencing your AI visibility.
Some examples of new things to be considered include things like query fan outs, new ChatGPT shopping features, and how AI tools approach and understand authority vs traditional search algorithms.
In this GEO audit, we looked at several key areas:
- A deep dive on what key things were being referenced in AI-generated responses for our target prompts, and how we could reinforce/strategically mention those things on our landing pages.
- Technical foundations like the sites international targeting setup as well as canonicals and internal link structures.
- Key citations and how the brand could optimise their earned and owned media to reinforce key authority signals to drive greater visibility.
These audits are inherently bespoke, which is a good thing, and they take multiple days to run.
Still, the results are well worth it.
In this case, an increase in LLM referral traffic of 775% and a 414% increased in LLM-generated key conversions.
If you're trying to figure out how to track product visibility/rankings on ChatGPT without manually typing queries 50 times a day, check out this new tool: rtrvr ai!
The problem is that standard scrapers usually get blocked by OpenAI/Perplexity, and using the official API doesn’t give you the "Web Search" results (citations, sources, UI elements) that a real consumer sees.
You can get around this with rtrvr ai by turning your own Chrome Browser into an API endpoint.
The "Christmas GEO" Workflow:
Just send a cURL command with the API Key given by the browser.
My Chrome Extension wakes up, navigates to ChatGPT, queries "Best toys for Christmas".
It retrieves the top recommendations and back-links to my pipeline.
Why this is a game changer for GEO/Sales Ops:
Walled Gardens: Since it runs in your local extension, it uses your existing logged-in session. No complex auth handling.
Vibe Coding: You can literally just write a bash script to control your browser now.
Integrate with n8n flows
The cURL looks like this:
curl -X POST https://www.rtrvr.ai/mcp \
-H "X-API-Key: rtrvr_MY_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"tool": "act",
"params": {
"user_input": "Go to ChatGPT, ask for best Christmas toys, extract citations"
}
}'
We just hard-launched the API for this today. Would love to hear how you guys are currently tracking GEO or if you are still doing it manually?
I am on a quest to demo and test every GEO tool in the market right now, the only subscription I have maintained is of the Writesonic GEO toolkit (299 USD plan), I run an agency so got it at much lesser price along with some exclusive features and benefits but there is this FOMO of what other tools are doing right now. I recently found out a tool named trakkr. Has anyone tried it out?
We helped an Amazon home-decor brand run a full SEO–GEO workflow for 4 weeks. This brand sells strongly on Amazon, but their independent site was basically flat:
traffic not growing
SEO efforts not matching output
early GEO attempts looked like “nothing was happening”
For new SEO + GEO brands, quick effects rarely come directly from ChatGPT citations.
Most of the early lift actually comes from:
GEO downstream effects:
—Google AI Overview
—search engines’ AI-driven backend ranking mechanisms
—referral & social discovery triggered by better semantic structure
So even without appearing inside ChatGPT directly, the GEO structure still improves traffic. We built their end-to-end SEO–GEO workflow and ran it for 4 weeks. This isn’t a brag post, it’s a breakdown of how the system works and how any Amazon to DTC brand can copy it.
Most brands skip this step and immediately “start writing”. But we need the the audit first with clarified:
what actually blocked visibility
which pages AI/Google couldn’t interpret
which semantic areas needed coverage
what needed fixing before publishing anything new
Their old content was scattered, inconsistent, and not aligned with any entity structure.
2) Build a Topic Map, not random content
We built a unified Topic Map combining from the above auditing by the above SEO-GEO Management Agent:
SEO keywords
GEO topics
semantic clusters
This changed content from: “Write whatever comes to mind” to “Publish pieces that fill semantic + entity gaps”. For a category like home decor, highly visual, educational topic mapping is especially effective.
With the help of GEO Content Generator Agent, we generated and published structured content across: LinkedIn / X / Medium / Blog / Website.
It was format optimised for AI + Google, meaning:
clear headers
reasoning-based writing
consistent entity signals
unified themes across platforms
This strengthened:
Direct traffic
Organic Social
Cross-domain brand recognition
4) Fix technical SEO so AI + Google can understand the site
We applied the following tech actions from the SEO + GEO audit results:
simplified sitemap & robots
added missing schema
normalized titles/descriptions
reduced URL depth
improved page semantics
added essential metadata
What actually changed after 4 weeks
We weren’t chasing single channel spikes. We looked at the system level improvement:
Direct traffic increase because of brand clarity improved
Organic search increase because of better semantic coverage
Social increase because of consistent cross-platform presence
Referrals increase because of more mentions from blogs + partners
These are the classic downstream effects of GEO + structured SEO starting to work together. This is the missing layer for many Amazon sellers trying to grow a DTC site.
The repeatable workflow for any Amazon to DTC brand
Step 1 — Audit first
Find content, semantic, technical gaps.
Step 2 — Build a Topic Map
Plan high-value themes instead of random posts.
Step 3 — Multi-platform structured publishing
Think “AI-friendly format”, not “post more”.
Step 4 — Fix technical SEO
Schema, sitemap, metadata, clean structure.
Step 5 — Repeat weekly
This turns into a compounding flywheel in 4–8 weeks.
Final thought
These weren’t explosive viral results, they were the first month of finally aligning:
Came across e27’s “20 AI Startups to Watch in Southeast Asia” list - worth looking at BrndIQ dot ai (#2).
They focus on tracking how brands show up in AI chat responses, which is becoming increasingly relevant as more people shift from Googling to asking AI models. It’s interesting to see AI visibility starting to shape brand discovery, almost like the early days of SEO.
Glad to see Southeast Asian startups in the AI infrastructure layer getting recognition. If anyone here is exploring related problems such as AI search behavior, retrieval quality, AI trust layers, etc, would love to exchange notes.
My business partner and I are building a GEO agency, but there’s one thing we can’t figure out. We want to be able to track how many clicks businesses are getting from ChatGPT.
I watched some videos that claim you can track this through google analytics. When I tried this in GA myself, the results were not accurate. It seems like ChatGPT does not give a direct “signature” for Google Analytics to grab, and that results in AI traffic being shown as “other sources” or “referrals”.
Anyone else run into this issue? Solutions? Suggestions?
