What is a GEO audit? Boost AI search ROI in 5 steps
- Will Tombs
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Contents
Search has changed. People no longer rely only on Google. They now ask AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude for direct answers, recommendations, and comparisons.
This shift has created a new risk for brands. If AI models do not recognise, trust, or reference your business, you simply do not appear. No clicks. No traffic. No revenue.
What is the first step in understanding AI search visibility?
A GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) audit is a structured analysis of how visible your brand is within AI-driven search engines. It analyses how you show up in AI-generated answers, which are quickly becoming the new 'page one'.
As a specialist UK-based organic search agency, we at Buried see a GEO audit as the critical first step in optimising for AI search. This guide provides a simple, 5-step GEO audit process to improve your visibility and boost your return on investment from organic search.
What is a GEO audit?
A GEO audit is a thorough analysis of how your brand appears in AI-generated answers.
Instead of asking, “Do we rank on Google?” a GEO audit asks:“Do AI tools talk about us, trust us, and recommend us?”
When someone asks ChatGPT or another AI tool for advice, comparisons, or suppliers, the model decides which brands to mention. A GEO audit checks whether your business is part of that decision.
How a GEO audit differs from an SEO audit
A traditional SEO audit focuses on:
Content
Technical
Authority
A GEO audit focuses on:
Brand mentions inside AI answers
Whether AI understands what you do
How often you are referenced or implied as a trusted option
The tone used when your brand is mentioned
For a full breakdown of GEO vs SEO, read our in-depth article on the Buried website.
What a GEO audit actually looks at
A proper GEO audit reviews four core areas that influence AI visibility:
AI visibility - How clearly AI understands who you are, what you offer, and how you differ from competitors.
Content analysis (inclusion and citations) - Whether your brand is directly mentioned, referenced, or indirectly used in AI-generated answers.
Schema and structured data - How well your website explains key facts about your business in a format that AI bots can easily understand.
Off-site authority and sentiment - What trusted third-party sites, articles, and reviews say about you, and whether the overall sentiment is positive.
Together, these signals determine if AI models see your brand as relevant, credible, and worth recommending. That is why a GEO audit is now a critical part of protecting and growing your AI search ROI.
Why a GEO audit is essential in 2026
AI search is now a core discovery channel. People use tools like ChatGPT for early research, comparisons, and recommendations. These platforms often return a clear, combined answer. This means -
Fewer links. Fewer clicks.
That creates a real risk. If your brand is not referenced in the AI’s response, you are invisible at the exact moment buyers are forming opinions.
But this shift also creates opportunity. GEO is a new frontier. Brands that audit and optimise early can become the trusted source AI models rely on and recommend. This is the goal of Generative Engine Optimisation.
A GEO audit provides the roadmap to capture this emerging "citation share," making it a crucial part of any modern organic search strategy.
5 steps to conduct your first GEO audit
Step 1: Benchmark your current AI visibility (Prompt tracking)
Before you improve anything, you need a starting point.
A GEO audit begins by understanding how visible your brand is inside AI platforms like ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews today.
This starts with prompt research. Prompts are the natural, conversational questions people ask AI. These are usually longer and more detailed than traditional keywords, for example:
“Which companies offer alternatives to [competitor name], and how do they compare on price and features?”
“How do UK businesses typically solve [specific problem], and which providers are most trusted?”
“What should I look for when choosing a [service] agency in the UK?”
“Who are the top [industry] companies for growing businesses, and why?”
These prompts reflect how real buyers think at the top of the funnel. They are exploratory, comparison-driven, and focused on trust and suitability, not just search terms.
Once prompts are defined, you set up prompt tracking to monitor:
How often your brand is mentioned
Whether your website or content is cited
The tone of the mention (positive, neutral, or negative)
Which competitors appear instead of you
Image - Tracking AI visibility on GEO monitoring tool.
This gives you a clear baseline. You can then measure progress over time. This type of benchmarking is a core part of a professional GEO Audit service.
Why prompt tracking is the foundation of GEO
Prompt tracking is one of the biggest discussion points in GEO. Unlike keywords, prompts are longer, varied, and harder to quantify.
Moreover, there is no reliable “search volume” for AI prompts yet. While Google provides fairly accurate keyword volume data by location, GEO tools have not yet achieved the same level of accuracy.
Without a prompt tracking framework, teams struggle to know what to monitor or prioritise. That’s why we developed our own structured prompt tracking approach, helping each business identify the most commercially relevant prompts and focus efforts where AI visibility truly matters.
Step 2: Analyse content & entity gaps
Next, you review your content through the eyes of an AI model.
AI does not “read” a website like a human. It looks for clarity, definitions, and relationships. This step asks a simple question: Does AI clearly understand who you are and what you do?
Key questions to answer include:
Does your website clearly explain your brand, products, and services in plain language?
Are these offerings treated as distinct things, not vague marketing statements?
Do you explain how you compare to alternatives, competitors, or old ways of doing things?
Do you publish educational content that explains your industry and common problems?
Many brands fail here. Their content sells, but it does not explain.
AI needs explanations to build confidence. Well-structured, educational content makes it easier for AI to include and reference your brand.
Step 3: Audit your technical & structural foundation
Even strong content can be ignored if AI struggles to read your site.
This step checks whether your website is machine-readable, not just visually appealing.
Key technical areas in a GEO audit include:
Structured data (Schema) - This is like adding labels to your website's code to tell AI exactly what your content is about (e.g., this is a Product, this is an Organization, this is an FAQ). A deep audit of this "Schema markup" is crucial for helping AI process your information accurately.
Site speed and accessibility - AI models, like human users, prefer fast-loading and accessible websites. Slow sites may get overlooked.
Crawlability - AI tools prefer clean, server-rendered HTML (content visible in raw page code). Heavy JavaScript can hide text until it loads, making key information harder for AI to access.
This is not about chasing perfection. It is about removing friction so AI can confidently access and reuse your content.
Step 4: Assess your off-site authority & citations
AI does not trust brands based on their own websites alone.
It looks outward for confirmation.
This step reviews how your brand appears across the wider web. A GEO audit examines:
Mentions and links from respected publications and news sites
Inclusion in “best of” articles, comparisons, and reviews
Discussion on platforms like Reddit, forums, and communities
Presence in knowledge bases such as Wikipedia
These third-party signals help AI decide whether your brand is credible and established.
If trusted sources talk about you positively, AI is far more likely to reference you. This is why Digital PR plays a critical role in GEO success.
A strategic campaign from a digital PR agency is one of the most effective ways to build the credible, third-party signals that AI models rely on.
Step 5: Develop a prioritised GEO roadmap
The final step turns insight into action.
A GEO audit is only valuable if it leads to clear next steps. The findings should be organised into a roadmap based on impact versus effort.
For example:
Priority | Task example | Rationale |
High | Fix broken Product labels (schema) on key service pages. | Low effort, high impact. Directly helps AI understand your core offerings. |
Medium | Create a "Brand vs. Competitor" comparison page. | Medium effort, high impact. Directly targets common comparison questions. |
Long-term | Launch a digital PR campaign to earn mentions in top blogs. | High effort, high impact. Builds long-term authority and third-party validation. |
This roadmap aligns GEO with your wider marketing strategy. It ensures every action supports long-term AI visibility, not quick wins.
Conclusion: From audit to action and lasting ROI
A GEO audit is the first and most important step towards building a brand that can win in the era of AI search. By following this five-step process - benchmark, analyse content, audit technicals, assess authority, and build a roadmap - you can move from uncertainty to a clear, actionable plan.
The goal is not to trick AI but to help it understand your value, ensuring you are accurately represented and recommended to potential customers.
The brands that act now will secure a powerful competitive advantage in 2026 and beyond.
To discover more about future-proofing your growth, explore our latest articles on the Buried Insights blog.
At Buried, we follow an integrated approach to GEO and SEO services to help businesses achieve holistic organic growth.
If you are ready to understand and improve your performance in AI search, contact us today to discuss a comprehensive strategy for your business.
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