How to offer generative engine optimization services

What are generative engine optimization services?

Generative engine optimization services help a business get found, described correctly and recommended when buyers ask AI engines for advice. The main engines in the US include ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot.

You will see the same work sold as GEO, AEO, AI SEO or LLM SEO. Our guides on generative engine optimization and answer engine optimization explain the terms. For a client, the label matters less than a clear promise of what you will do.

This guide is for US agencies and consultants packaging GEO or AEO as a service. It covers what to include, how to open the conversation, how to report and how to price it.

Why are US clients asking for GEO and AEO now?

Because their buyers are asking AI for advice. In a February 2026 survey, Pew Research Center found 49% of US adults use AI chatbots, and 44% had used ChatGPT. About four in ten use chatbots to search for information.

Clients also feel it in their traffic. Pew Research Center found Google users clicked a normal result in 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, against 15% without one. Seer Interactive found brands cited in an AI Overview earned 35% higher organic click-through and 91% higher paid click-through than brands not cited.

Local clients have extra reason to care. In BrightLocal's 2026 survey, 45% of US consumers had used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local business recommendations.

Some clients will quote a scarier number. In 2024, Gartner predicted that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026. That was a prediction, not a measurement. It helps to say so, and to point clients to measured data instead.

What should a GEO service include?

A sound service covers finding, fixing and reporting. Most of it will look familiar to an SEO team.

• An audit. The client's buyer questions run across the main engines, with who is named, what is said and which pages are cited.
• A fixed question list. Usually 20 to 30 questions to start, grouped by service, buyer stage and location.
• Ongoing tracking. The same questions on a schedule, so you can report trends rather than single answers.
• Accuracy fixes. Wrong prices, old addresses, closed locations and services the client no longer offers, traced to the page that says them.
• Technical access. Checks that robots.txt, the CDN and the firewall let AI search crawlers in, and that key pages are indexed in Google and Bing.
• Listings and reviews. Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Business Connect, Yelp and BBB, plus the client's industry directories.
• Content. Pages that answer buyer questions in the first sentence, cover the follow-up questions and use structured data that matches the page.
• Third-party presence. Getting the client onto the directories, best-of articles and review sites the engines cite for their questions.
• Reporting. A monthly report with trends, fixes and results, explained in plain words.

The industry directories change by client. Angi matters for home services, Avvo for law firms, and Healthgrades or Zocdoc for medical practices. Your audit will show which ones the engines actually cite.

How can you package GEO and AEO services?

Agencies often combine the packages below. The right one depends on the client and on what you already sell them.

A stand-alone retainer still needs the SEO basics, or it will not work. If another agency runs the client's SEO, agree who fixes what before you start.

How do you open a GEO conversation with a client?

Show, do not tell. Run the client's own buyer questions through the main engines and put the answers in front of them.

Take a dental group in Phoenix. You might run "best dentist for implants in Scottsdale" and "which Phoenix dentists offer payment plans". Or a 15-location franchise, where you run the same service question for each city it serves. Record who is named, in what order, what is said and which sources are cited.

The results often start the right conversation. A client who sees a rival named in most answers needs little convincing. A client who reads an old address or a wrong price for their own service needs even less. The AI visibility audit guide sets out the steps.

Which clients are a good fit for GEO services?

The best fits are businesses where buyers research before they choose, and where a recommendation carries weight. Home services such as HVAC, plumbing and roofing are good examples. So are law firms, dental and medical practices, med spas, B2B software and multi-location brands.

A business that sells mostly on impulse, or only through a marketplace it does not control, may gain less. It is fine to say so. Turning down work that will not pay off is part of setting honest expectations.

What should you promise, and what should you not?

Promise the work and the measurement. Never promise a mention.

Google's page on whether you need an SEO says no one can guarantee a top ranking in Google. That is truer still of AI answers. They vary from run to run, differ between engines, and change when models are updated. An agency selling "guaranteed ChatGPT placement" is selling something it cannot control.

Honest expectations sound like this.

• We will track your visibility across these engines, on these questions, every week.
• We will find wrong facts about your business and fix them at the source.
• We will improve the pages and listings the engines rely on in your market.
• We expect to see trends over three to six months, not in the first week.
• Some engines and some questions will move faster than others.

Promises like these can be kept. A guarantee that fails can cost you the client's trust.

What should a GEO report show?

Trends, causes and actions. A single answer from a single day proves nothing.

1. Visibility over time. Mention rate and share of voice per engine, across repeated runs.
2. Competitors. Who is named most, and whether that is changing.
3. Sources. Which domains and pages the engines cite, including the client's own.
4. Accuracy. Wrong or out of date facts found, fixed and still open.
5. Actions. What was done this month, and whether earlier actions worked.
6. Traffic. AI referral visits from GA4, noting that they may undercount AI's real effect.

Explain the method once, in plain words, at the front of every report. Remind readers that tracking is a sample. That protects you when one engine has a strange month.

How should you price generative engine optimization services?

Build the price from your real costs, then add a fair margin. We do not quote market rates here, because they vary widely and change quickly. What follows are approaches, not numbers.

Cost-plus. Work out the tool cost of the client's question list, on the engines you agreed, at the run frequency you agreed. Add the hours for analysis, fixes, content, outreach and reporting. Then add your normal margin. Fixing wrong facts across directories can take longer than expected, so be realistic.

Tiers by scope. Set tiers that scale with what drives cost. That means the number of questions, engines, markets or locations, and the amount of content and fix work included. A single-location HVAC company with 40 questions should pay less than a franchise tracked across several states.

Per location. For franchises and multi-location groups, a base fee plus a charge per location or market is easy for clients to follow. It also grows fairly as they add locations.

A fixed audit fee. A paid audit with a clear scope is an easy first yes. Some agencies credit it against the first months of a retainer.

Be wary of pricing tied to mentions. You do not control AI answers, and they vary from run to run. Tie any bonus to agreed work and measures instead, such as fixes shipped or accuracy issues cleared.

If your tool bills in another currency, allow for exchange rate changes in your margin. It also helps to use a tool that publishes a cost for every action, so you can cost a question list before you quote.

Should GEO be a separate service or part of SEO?

For many agencies, treating it as part of SEO works better. Google's guide to generative AI features says its AI features are rooted in its core ranking and quality systems. Structured data, site health, content quality and reputation help both.

Be careful with positioning. Calling yourself an AI SEO agency is fine if it describes what you do. Suggesting that SEO no longer matters is not honest, and clients who read Google's own guidance will know it.

How do you show results without overclaiming?

Link each action to a measure, record a starting point, and check it later. That is the fairest way to show value.

If you fix a wrong price that three engines were repeating, check whether later answers stop saying it. If you improve a page, check whether it starts being cited. The GEO research paper found the methods it tested raised source visibility in AI answers by up to 40% in its benchmark. Your reports should show whether your work moved anything for this client.

Where nothing moved, say so and say what you will try next. Reporting honest misses can build more trust than reports that are always good news.

How Axiom GEO helps

Axiom GEO is built for agencies and consultants. It is run from the UK and works for US brands and agencies, and prompts can run with US locations. Each client gets a workspace isolated at the database level, with staff and client logins. Answer accuracy can stay hidden from client users until your staff turn it on. Client reports go out as white label monthly PDFs, and work management records a baseline so you can later show whether a fix worked. Every action has a published credit price, and plans are billed in pounds sterling from £500 a month. The US pricing page shows an approximate dollar figure, and our US hub has more guides.