Technical Optimisation for GEO: A How-To Guide for Marketers to Increase Visibility in Generative Engines
By the end of this guide, marketing teams will have a thorough understanding of what technical GEO is, why it’s important for both SEO and GEO visibility, and what tech enhancements are needed to stay competitive as user search habits evolve with the times.
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Month-over-month traffic trends. Source: Google Search Console
Jump Ahead:
Recap on GEO
We’ve already covered GEO keyword strategy, formatting, and performance tracking in other posts, so if you’ve been following along, you know that generative engine optimisation is the process of improving your visibility in GenAI tools (like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot) through a series of techniques, e.g.:
- Question-based headers
- Page speed
- Schema
- Comprehensive coverage of a particular topic
If you’re thinking this sounds no different to SEO, you’re right; generative engine optimisation and search engine optimisation are very similar. An easy way to think about it is that these two approaches complement each other.
SEO represents a series of techniques aimed at increasing your website’s visibility and rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. SEO techniques include keywords, on-page SEO, technical optimisation, backlinks, and content to deliver it all on.
And (spoiler alert) technical optimisation for GEO is so similar to SEO that if you’ve already got a solid technical SEO game, chances are you’re pretty much nailing it on the GEO side without even trying.
But, if you’re looking to push AI search visibility to its maximum potential, keep reading.
- LLMO or large language model optimisation
- AEO or answer engine optimisation
- Optimisation for AI Overviews
- SEO for AI
What Is Technical Optimisation for GEO and Why Is it Important for Marketers?
Technical SEO for GenAI spans across the following areas:
- Core Web Vitals (page speed, etc.)
- Schema markup (structured data)
- Content formatting
- Secure, accessible infrastructure
The goal of technical GEO is to make sure AI bots can effectively crawl and index your site. Speed and mobile-friendliness play a role in this because crawlers are busy mole people. They don’t have time to wait around for content to load, let alone parse your content fast enough to instantly toss up AI-generated answers.
That’s also why schema is generally considered a top technical GEO technique. By implementing structured data, you’re communicating with AI bots more clearly and providing more context about the elements of your pages.
But if we zoom out for a minute and look at the bigger picture, technical GEO prepares your company’s digital presence for the future.
By aligning your site architecture, content formatting, and structured data with the technical requirements and ranking signals of generative AI engines, you’ll be securing your brand as the go-to source in AI-powered answers.
So, without further ado, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details.
Improve Visibility in Generative AI with Core Web Vitals
In traditional SEO, page speed is an important ranking factor. Even though the speed of your site is also largely dependent on the user’s internet service provider and there ain’t much you can do about that, you still don’t want to be the reason your ideal customer bounces out of your page.
Turns out, this is also an important GEO strategy, as the faster your page, the more likely it’ll show up in AI-generated responses. Like Google, LLMs are pulling from billions of websites ten times faster than it takes most of us to react to a traffic light. It should go without saying that sites that are fast, responsive, and stable will be prioritised over slow sites. They may only be bots, but they are impatient little creatures.
Check your Core Web Vitals in your aptly named Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console. This shows you real field data so you can get an idea of how well your site is performing. (Not sure how to get there? Click here.)
How do you improve your site’s speed and performance? Start with these:
- Use a content delivery network (CDN)
- Compress your image files, use responsive image sizes, and apply lazy loading (when you get images to load only as the user scrolls)
- Minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript
- Enable browser caching, server-side caching, and use correct HTTP caching headers
- Upgrade to faster hosting or optimise your server software to improve server response.
- Load non‑critical scripts asynchronously to avoid blocking rendering
- Clean up old or unused plugins and tracking scripts
In other words: A technical audit is like a full car inspection. The more you look, the more you find. At Geeky Tech, our checklist covers over 100 points to give us a thorough understanding of your site’s speed and responsiveness.
Add Schema to Increase Your Chances of Being Cited by ChatGPT and Other AI Engines
Back in the day, when traditional search engine optimisation was all digital marketing folks had to worry about, schema (or structured data) was used to describe the meaning and relationships of your page elements using a standardised vocabulary that all search engines understood. Besides enriching their understanding, structured data also enabled search engines to display enhanced search results, e.g., rich snippets.
Well, it still does all these things. But as it turns out, AI models favour schema too.
AI platforms prefer pages with schema because it reduces the level of ambiguity, and this allows them to sift through and extract your content even faster. The clearer the markup, the more likely it will be chosen by AI and cited in responses.
There are different types of schema. To optimise your content for AI visibility, focus on the following types:
FAQ Schema
Makes question-and-answer pairs really clear, which is helpful not only for AI but also for voice search and featured snippets on search engine results.
Article Schema
Helps ChatGPT and others understand the different elements of your content, like type and authorship, to make it easier for it to summarise your page.
Organisation Schema
Boosts your brand identity and authority by establishing your company’s logos, social profiles, content, etc., and linking them all together to build a knowledge graph.
Product Schema
Acts as shorthand for all important product details, like price, size, availability, and reviews. This gives shopping bots the precise details they need to help would-be customers.
How-To Schema
Gives AI clear and specific instructions to present in visual or voice formats. This is especially helpful for instructional content (as the name suggests).
Local Business Schema
Shares your essential on-site business details, which helps with local maps and AI-powered local search functions.
Review Schema
Adds ratings and feedback metadata, which answer engines use to show trust, authority, and quality around your products or services.
Schema best practices for GEO
- Update your schema whenever you update your content (or as needed)
- Stick with JSON-LD format
- Test with Schema Markup Validator or Google’s Rich Results Test
- Stick with the essentials. There can be such a thing as too much markup.
To make a long story short: Schema good.
To make a short story a little bit longer: Schema and structured data make your content even easier to understand because they deliver essential information in a standard vocabulary that eliminates ambiguity.
Structure and Format Your Content for Better Readability
This might be you right now:
‘Wait a second. They’ve already covered structure and formatting in their structure and formatting post. What’s this *waves hand over section* doing here?’
There’s not much more we can say other than, yes, when discussing the different aspects of optimisation, there is going to be some overlap.
But we’ll try to keep it light.
Whichever LLM is your favourite—whether it’s trusty ChatGPT or controversial DeepSeek or omnipresent Copilot—one thing you can rely on is its thirst for clarity. And seeing as how that’s also pretty much what human readers care about, there’s no reason to make humans, search engines, or ChatGPT have to work hard to understand your content.
From an on-page/technical point of view, there are ways to improve AI’s ability to parse and organise your content for better visibility. Here’s how you can make sure you’ve created well-structured content:
Use Logical and Straightforward URLs
This isn’t a contest for whoever can come up with the cutest or most clever slug. Make it short, descriptive, and straightforward. Where the URL sits in your sitemap will clarify its page hierarchy.
For example:
- Not great: www.icecream.com/the-top-ten-scoop-combinations-of-2025/
- Better: www.icecream.com/blog/top-ten-scoop-combinations-2025/
Stick With Internal Linking
If you’re already a proponent of traditional SEO tactics, then you’re probably already doing this. If not, what better time than now to adopt good internal linking practices?
When you link to other related pages on your site, you’re basically telling AI what your page is about within the wider context of your site. This, in turn, gives you a greater degree of authority, which, as you can probably guess, improves your chances of getting surfaced by AI. And since AI (and Google) prioritises authoritative content, you can’t go wrong.
Since we’re on the subject, remember to link bidirectionally; that is, keep linking to your pillar pages, but remember to link back from your pillar pages. How does bidirectional linking help with GEO? It strengthens your site architecture and topical relevance.
Use logical and descriptive headings
What do we mean by logical? We mean don’t use H4s to introduce one of the page’s main topics, and don’t use more than one H1 in your page. There is a reason that humans, AI, and search engines read your sections the way they do. It is simply logical to expect the most top-level information to sit under an H2 and all the other supporting points to follow in H3s and H4s. Rather than headers, think of them as levels that you shouldn’t skip.
Know what we mean? Test yourself!
Which is the most optimised heading structure?
If you guessed B, B, A, then you’re well on your way to nailing technical GEO!
Include Structured Elements
Carrying on with the theme of clarity and improving understanding, we’re about to wax poetic about the use of structured elements.
Ever notice how we, as earth people, often scan a webpage before diving in? We open the link, scroll down and jump from various elements like headers, lists, and tables? It’s not that we’re lazy, but we just want to make sure that we’re going to find what we’re looking for before we start reading.
To a large extent, this is what we want AI to do: Quickly scan the page and grab the important information.
These structured page elements not only break up your information into reasonable chunks, but they also deliver the most essential and helpful intel to AI bots on an easy-to-understand platter.
Remembering to include tables (like the world-famous table of contents), bullet points, and numbered steps is one of the least labour-intensive ways to facilitate AI’s comprehension and extraction.
Perform a Technical Infrastructure Checkup
It feels like everyone is in sheer awe of AI and what it can do. From helping you plan your next vacation to Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! to creating three-minute-long music videos in a flash, AI’s capacity seems limitless.
But there’s one thing well-behaved AI and LLM bots can’t do, and that’s ignore a disallow directive in a robots.txt file, or trust a website without a valid SSL, or read content hidden behind client-side rendering.
The smallest glitches can render your content optimisation efforts useless. You also have to bolster your site with impeccable technical infrastructure.
That includes stuff like:
- Running a site crawl and analysing the data to weed out broken links, redirect chains, etc.
- Ensuring your XML sitemap a) exists, and b) is up to date
- Updating your pillar content and clearly displaying the publication/modification dates
- Making sure your website has a valid SSL certificate
- Switching to server-side rendering rather than client-side JavaScript
Did you know: If Google is ranking your pages, there’s a good chance your technical infrastructure deserves a gold star, but if you want a complete technical check, Geeky Tech can help. But wait, this needs a bigger CTA:
Is Your Site Ready for Generative Search Engines? Use Our Checklist to Find Out
Final Thoughts on Technical Generative Engine Optimisation
GEO complements your existing SEO efforts and adds value to your overall digital marketing objectives. Not only does technical optimisation for GEO increase your brand’s visibility in AI answers, but it also improves your ranking potential in Google, which is still, by far, the number one way your target audience searches the web.
