Generative Engine Optimization Checklist: Twenty Checks in Order of Cost and Impact

What this checklist is for

Generative engine optimization, usually shortened to GEO, means making your content and reputation easy for AI systems to find, understand and recommend. The AI systems here are built on large language models, or LLMs, the kind of software behind ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and similar assistants. A close cousin is answer engine optimization, or AEO, which aims at direct answers.

This checklist is a working list, not a theory. It has twenty checks in four tiers, ordered by what they cost to do and how much they matter. You can go through it in an afternoon to see where you stand, then work down it over a few months.

A few ground rules before you start. Nothing on this list guarantees you will be named. Nobody controls that, and anyone who promises it is overreaching. Each item improves your odds or removes a reason you might be skipped. The list also assumes your ordinary website work is in decent shape. If you want a team to run the work for you, our guide to having a team run GEO for you explains what that involves.

If you would rather see a more general audit-style list, our AI visibility checklist covers fourteen checks from another angle. This one is arranged around cost and impact.

How to use it

Work top to bottom. The tiers are in order for a reason. If machines cannot read your site, no amount of excellent writing helps. If your pages are vague, outside mentions have little to point at.

For each item, write down yes, no or not sure. Not sure counts as no until you check. Then pick the cheapest "no" in the highest tier and fix that first. It sounds almost too simple, and it works because most gaps in the top tier are fast to close.

Keep a dated copy of your answers. In three months, run the list again. The comparison tells you what moved, which is far more useful than a single score.

Two habits make the list work better. First, check things in a clean session, with no logged-in history, because a signed-in assistant may tailor what it says to you. Second, do not rely on one test. Answers vary, so ask the same question a few times before drawing a conclusion.

The pyramid below shows how the twenty items fall into four tiers. Most of the quick wins sit at the top, and most of the lasting value sits at the bottom.

Tier one: access, checks 1 to 5

These are cheap, fast and binary. A fault here blocks everything below it.

1. Your robots file does not block AI crawlers by accident. Open /robots.txt on your site and read it. Look for broad blocks that include AI crawlers. Our glossary entry on robots.txt explains the syntax. Decide on purpose which crawlers you allow.

2. Your security layer is not challenging crawlers. Some firewalls and bot protection services show a challenge page to automated visitors. A crawler that gets a challenge sees nothing useful. Ask whoever runs your hosting.

3. Your key pages work without scripts. Load a page with scripts turned off, or view the raw source. If the main text is missing, many crawlers will not see it either.

4. Your pages are indexed in ordinary search. Search your own page title in quotes. Assistants that search the live web tend to read pages that search engines already know. Check your coverage in Google Search Console.

5. Your sitemap is current. A tidy sitemap helps every crawler find new pages. Make sure it lists the pages you care about and none you have retired.

You can finish this tier in a morning. If something is wrong here, fix it before touching anything else.

Tier two: page writing, checks 6 to 10

This tier is editing, not rebuilding. It takes weeks, mostly because of judgment, not skill.

6. The first sentence under each heading answers the heading. If a heading asks a question, the next sentence should answer it. An assistant often lifts a single passage, and the lead sentence is the one most likely to be taken.

7. Each answer stands alone. Read a paragraph as if you saw nothing else on the page. If it relies on "as mentioned above," rewrite it so it makes sense on its own.

8. Claims are specific and have their conditions attached. "It depends" is not an answer. "It usually takes two days if the part is in stock and a week if it is not" is.

9. Who you are and where you operate is stated plainly. Name the services, the areas, the hours and the people. Assistants cannot recommend a business they cannot place.

10. Each page has real questions and answers. Add a short question and answer section using the words customers actually use. Mark it up with FAQ schema where it fits.

Start with your ten most important pages. Do not try to rewrite the whole site in one pass.

Tier three: depth, checks 11 to 15

Depth means owning one subject properly. It takes quarters, and it is where many businesses stop too early.

11. You have chosen the specific jobs you want to be known for. Assistants recommend for an exact job, so write the list. "Emergency repairs" and "installing a replacement unit" are different jobs.

12. You have a page for each job, not one page for all of them. A single page that covers everything answers nothing well.

13. Your pages cover the questions that come before and after buying. Cost, timing, what can go wrong, how to choose, how to prepare. See topical authority for why coverage builds trust.

14. Your content shows real experience. Photographs from real jobs, numbers from real work, named people. These are hard to fake and easy to trust.

15. Your pages are linked together sensibly. Related pages point to each other, so a reader and a crawler can move from one to the next. Our glossary entry on internal linking explains the habit.

This tier rewards patience. A steady stream of useful pages beats a burst of thin ones. If you prefer a team to produce them at pace, see the product section near the end of this page.

Tier four: outside evidence, checks 16 to 20

This is the slowest tier, and it carries the most weight. Assistants lean mostly on independent sources, and a company's own description of itself counts for less. We explain why, with the evidence and its limits, in how AI assistants pick businesses.

16. You have real reviews that mention specific jobs. A review that says "replaced our water heater in one visit" is worth more than "great service." We cover how in reviews and AI recommendations.

17. Your profiles are complete and consistent. Maps profile, social profiles and directories all show the same name, address, phone number and description.

18. You are listed where your field looks. Niche directories, trade bodies, marketplaces and guides. Pick the few that matter, not hundreds.

19. You have earned at least one mention in local or trade press. A short article, a quote or a feature on a site you do not own.

20. You take part in the places where people ask for recommendations. Forums and communities, honestly and without spamming. The rules for that are in Reddit and AI search.

How to measure whether it is working

A checklist without measurement is just housekeeping. Here is a simple way to know whether the work moves anything.

Write 20 questions your customers would actually ask. Use their words, not yours. Include a mix of broad ones, such as "who is a good X near me," and specific ones, such as "how much does Y cost."

Ask each one in two or three assistants, in a clean session. Record who is named, how you are described, and which sources are cited.

Repeat every month with the same questions. Changing the questions erases the trend.

Read the sentences, not just the count. Being named as the cheap option is different from being named as the specialist.

For a quick first look, an AI visibility checker helps. For a trend, your own dated notes are enough. Remember that most recommendations produce no click, so traffic alone will understate what is happening.

Where people go wrong with checklists like this

Four mistakes show up often.

Starting at the bottom. Chasing press and reviews while a firewall blocks crawlers wastes the effort. Go in order.

Treating it as a one-time project. Answers drift, competitors publish, and assistants change. A quarterly pass keeps you current.

Writing for the machine and forgetting the person. Pages stuffed with question lists read badly and earn nothing. The reader still decides.

Expecting speed. Tier one moves in days. Tier four moves in quarters. Judge each on its own clock.

An example pass for a small business

A walk through helps the list feel real. Picture a small heating and cooling company with a decent website and about eighty reviews.

In tier one, the owner reads the robots file and finds a broad block left over from a site migration. Fixing it takes ten minutes. Their security layer is fine, and pages load with scripts off. They find that a third of their service pages are missing from the sitemap and add them.

In tier two, they pick the five pages that bring the most calls. Each one used to open with a paragraph about the company's history. They rewrite the first sentence under each heading so it answers the heading, and they add the service area and the hours near the top. They add a short question and answer section drawn from real phone calls.

In tier three, they list three jobs they want to be known for: emergency repairs, replacing an old system and a yearly maintenance plan. Each gets its own page, with cost ranges described in words, what to expect on the day and what can go wrong.

In tier four, they start asking customers to mention the specific job in their reviews, they tidy their maps profile, and they pitch a short local article on how to prepare a home for winter. None of these is dramatic. All of them add up, and the order meant that each step had something to stand on.

Which items to do yourself and which to hand off

Not every item needs a specialist. A reasonable split looks like this.

Do yourself, today. Checks 1, 4 and 5 take little skill. Reading your robots file, searching your own page title and checking the sitemap are afternoon jobs. So is deciding the list of jobs for check 11.

Do yourself, over weeks. Checks 6 to 9 are editorial. You know your business better than any outside writer, so your judgment matters most here, even if someone else does the typing.

Ask your web person. Checks 2 and 3 involve hosting and how the site is built. A developer can answer them in minutes if you ask the right question.

Hand off if you can. Checks 13 to 15 and 18 to 19 are sustained work. They reward consistency more than cleverness, and they are the first things to slip when the business gets busy.

Whichever way you split it, keep ownership of the measurement. The one thing you should never fully outsource is looking at what the assistants actually say about you, because that is how you check that anyone's work is landing.

How RunOctopus handles the checklist

Tiers three and four are the slow part of any checklist, and they are where most businesses run out of time.

RunOctopus is a done-for-you service. Its AI, Ollie, researches a business, then writes and publishes pages directly on the business's own website. A team plans, writes, reviews and publishes alongside Ollie. It works with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Wix. There is nothing to install, nothing to approve, nothing to upload and nothing to schedule, and pages go live on their own.

The first week brings 8 long-form articles, 6 pages and a custom interactive tool built for the business's niche. After that it is 175+ pieces of content a month, written, published and linked. RunOctopus also reports on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini name the business. The 90-day promise is more visibility on Google and in AI answers within 90 days, measured against the 90 days before joining, or every dollar back.

For scale, in Google Search Console (28 days to Sep 29, 2026), Florida Realtor Careers went from 8 to 116 Google clicks a month since launching in June.

You can see the plan before deciding anything. Paste your address into the free site read and Ollie reads the site and shows the plan. No account, no call.