A GEO agency is a team that specialises in getting ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews to mention and recommend your business when someone asks about what you sell. Its work starts from classic SEO, the same foundation any SEO and GEO consultancy in Barcelona relies on, and adds citable content, mentions on external sources and tracking of how the brand appears in AI answers.
GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimisation. A GEO agency works to make sure that AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot or Perplexity, along with Google’s generated answers, know your brand, understand it properly and cite it when a user asks for a recommendation. The goal is no longer just to appear in a list of ten links, but to be part of the answer the customer actually reads.
The difference from an SEO agency lies in the end goal. An SEO agency measures its work in rankings, clicks and traffic from Google. A GEO agency measures it in mentions, citations and the share of questions in your sector where your company shows up. The tools are very similar: content, authority, structured data and a technically clean website. What changes is the focus, because AI does not choose a page, it chooses sources it trusts and sentences it can reuse.
That is why GEO does not replace SEO. AI models query search engines to build their answers, and a website that is poorly indexed or lacks authority is unlikely to be cited. In practice, a good GEO agency is an SEO agency that has added a new layer of work and measurement, designed for users who no longer always click.
Although every agency packages it differently, a serious GEO service usually includes five areas of work:
On top of this comes monthly tracking of a fixed set of questions, which is what tells you whether the work is paying off. If you want to see how all of this applies to a specific assistant, our guide on how to appear in ChatGPT and get it to recommend your business explains it step by step. Be wary of any proposal that only talks about tricks or a single area, because AI visibility comes from the sum of all of them.
For twenty years the journey was the same: the user searched on Google, compared several results and visited two or three websites. Today a growing share of those searches ends earlier. Google’s AI Overviews show a summary at the top of the page and, in many cases, the user no longer clicks. At the same time, more and more people ask ChatGPT or Gemini directly which plumber in their area they would recommend or which invoicing software a small business should use.
In this scenario AI acts as a filter. If it names you, you reach the customer already recommended, with a level of trust an ad rarely achieves. If it does not name you, it usually names a competitor, and the query ends without you ever existing for that customer. This affects large companies and local businesses alike, because assistants also answer questions that include a city or a neighbourhood.
Traffic coming from these answers tends to be lower in volume but more qualified: the user has already compared options and arrives with the decision half made. That is why many companies are starting to measure their presence in AI just as, years ago, they began measuring their position on Google. Hiring a GEO agency is, at heart, a way of not being left out of that first filter.
Not every business needs a dedicated GEO service from day one. The key lies in two questions: whether your customers consult AI before deciding, and whether your SEO foundations are in order.
A GEO agency makes sense if you sell services people compare before hiring, such as advisory firms, clinics, renovations, software or training; if your competitors already appear in ChatGPT or Google’s answers and you do not; or if your website ranks well but that does not translate into mentions in AI assistants. It also makes sense when AI gives incorrect information about your business, such as opening hours, prices or services you no longer offer.
Good SEO is enough, at least at first, if your website is not yet properly indexed, has technical problems or has very little content. In that case any GEO work has no foundation, because AI models rely on what they find in search engines. The sensible approach is to fix the basics first and add the GEO layer once the website already brings in some traffic and has clear service pages.
A good agency will tell you honestly where you stand. If it proposes a full GEO plan without first reviewing your SEO, that is a sign it is selling an off-the-shelf product rather than a solution designed for your case.
Many GEO agencies display logos of multinationals, which gives the impression that AI optimisation is only for huge brands. It is not. Assistants answer local and very specific questions every day: the best dentist nearby, an accountant for freelancers in a given city or a garage that repairs a particular car brand. In those queries competition is much lower, and a well-optimised small business can appear ahead of a large chain.
For a local business, GEO rests on three pillars. The first is a complete Google Business Profile, with genuine reviews and owner replies, because Gemini and AI Overviews use it as a source. The second is a website with clear service pages that say what you do, where you do it and at what guide price. The third is mentions in your local ecosystem: industry directories, local press, associations and the websites of suppliers or clients.
With these three pillars properly in place, many small businesses go from not appearing at all to being cited in questions about their area within a few months. The budget required is also more modest than for a national brand, because there are fewer questions to work on and competition for each of them is lower.
There is no official rate, but the Spanish market shows some fairly clear ranges. A one-off GEO audit, which analyses your visibility in AI and delivers an action plan, usually costs between 300 and 900 euros depending on the size of the website and the number of questions analysed. A monthly service for small businesses, covering content, mentions and tracking, typically ranges from 600 to 1,200 euros a month. Plans for brands that want to dominate a category nationally start at around 1,500 or 2,000 euros a month.
What affects the price most is how competitive the sector is, the number of services or products to work on, the amount of new content each month and whether the campaign includes media mentions, which is usually the most expensive part. Many agencies build GEO into their SEO service rather than selling it separately, which makes sense because much of the work is shared.
When comparing proposals, look at what each euro includes and not just the final figure. A low price with no defined deliverables usually ends up costing more than a slightly higher plan with measurable goals and a clear monthly report.
We review your website and your current visibility on Google and in AI, and advise you on the SEO and GEO plan that fits your business.
GEO is long-term work and its results are not always visible at first glance, which is why deliverables are the best way to know whether the agency is actually working. At a minimum, every month you should receive:
Also ask for the set of questions to be defined with you at the start, using the queries your customers really make, and not to be changed every month to dress up the figures. If an agency cannot show you what it has done and where, it has most likely done little. Transparency in deliverables is, together with results, what sets a good provider apart from one that only sells smoke and mirrors.
Measuring GEO is not as straightforward as checking a keyword’s position on Google, but it can be done rigorously. The four most useful metrics are these.
The first is the appearance rate: out of a fixed set of questions, how many each assistant names you in. The second is share of voice, that is, what percentage of mentions in your sector go to your brand compared with each competitor. The third is linked citations, when AI not only names you but links to your website as a source, which is common in Perplexity and AI Overviews. The fourth is the traffic and enquiries coming from AI, which can be identified in Google Analytics by the source of the visit and by asking each new customer how they found you.
Bear in mind that AI answers vary from one query to the next, so it is worth repeating each question several times and across different assistants before drawing conclusions. A good agency will show you the month-by-month trend using the same method, without changing the rules along the way. What matters is not a single snapshot but the trend: if every quarter you appear in more answers and more customers reach you through them, the work is paying off.
GEO is a new service and, as happened with SEO years ago, providers have appeared that promise more than they can deliver. These are the signs that should make you wary:
None of these signs on its own rules an agency out, but if you see several together it is better to keep looking. A serious proposal explains the method, acknowledges what cannot be controlled and sets clear deliverables from the first month. That initial honesty is usually the best indicator of what the work will be like afterwards.
A half-hour conversation with the agency will tell you far more than its website. Before signing, it is worth asking these questions and paying attention both to what they answer and to how they answer it:
An agency that knows its craft will answer with concrete examples and without beating around the bush. If the answer to most of these questions is vague, or everything comes down to a proprietary methodology that cannot be explained, there is probably no real work behind it. Also ask for a sample monthly report from another client, with the data anonymised, to see the level of detail you will receive. And make sure the content and improvements to your website remain yours, whatever happens with the contract.
GEO does not deliver results overnight, although for questions with little competition it tends to move somewhat faster than traditional SEO. As a guide, in the first four to six weeks the audit, technical fixes and brand entity clean-up are completed, and the first changes start to appear in assistants such as Perplexity, which query the web in real time.
Between the second and fourth month, with citable content published and the first external mentions in place, it is normal to start appearing in some of the target questions, especially the most specific and local ones. From the sixth month onwards the work consolidates: the brand appears more consistently, across more assistants and in broader questions.
These timelines vary a great deal depending on the sector, the website’s existing authority and what competitors are doing. A local business with little competition may notice improvements within a few weeks, while a brand in a highly contested national market will need considerably more time. What matters is that the agency explains these timelines from the start, without promising shortcuts, and that every month you can see measurable progress even if it is not yet final.
No. GEO builds on SEO, because AI assistants query search engines and authoritative sources to produce their answers. Without a well-indexed, fast website with useful content, it is very hard for AI to cite you. The usual approach is to work on both at the same time: SEO as the foundation and GEO as an added layer to earn mentions in generated answers.
No, and be wary of anyone who guarantees it. Nobody controls the answers of an AI model, which also change from one query to the next. What an agency can do is greatly increase the likelihood of being named, by improving your content, your brand entity and your external mentions, and prove it with monthly tracking of a fixed set of questions.
It depends on the agency. Audits are usually a one-off service with no commitment, while monthly plans sometimes require a minimum of three to six months, because results take time to consolidate. What matters is that any tie-in period comes with written objectives and deliverables, and that the content created always remains yours.
Yes, in part. You can complete your Google Business Profile, check that your website clearly explains what you do and where, add useful FAQs and test from time to time how assistants describe you. The hardest parts to do alone are earning quality external mentions, handling the technical side and measuring results methodically.
AI Overviews draw mainly on pages that already rank well on Google and answer clearly and directly. A GEO agency works on that format: short answers at the start of each section, structured data, visible authorship and content that makes sense on its own. This increases the chances that Google extracts your text and links to your website as a source for the summary.
If your business is based in Barcelona or elsewhere in Catalonia, look for an agency that understands both sides of the work. On one hand, the SEO that makes your website exist for Google and, by extension, for AI models. On the other, the GEO layer that turns that visibility into mentions and recommendations in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews. Separating the two usually costs more and delivers worse results.
Choose a provider that starts with an honest audit of your situation, explains what can and cannot be controlled, defines with you the questions that matter to your customers and shows you every month what it has done and what has changed. At JRC Web this is how we work with small businesses and local companies: first we put the SEO foundations in order, then we build your presence in AI answers, with clear metrics from the first month.
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