GEO Checklist

This is the checklist we work through when a new client asks us to get them into AI answers. It is written for a local service business with one website and a handful of listings. Work top to bottom. The early items block everything below them.

Part 1: can AI read you at all?

1. Open your robots.txt and confirm there is no Disallow rule for GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, PerplexityBot, ClaudeBot or Google-Extended.
2. View the page source of your homepage and one service page. Confirm your main text is in the HTML, not injected by JavaScript. Counters, tabs and sliders are the usual offenders.
3. Check that every important page returns a 200 status and is indexable. If Google cannot index it, no assistant will cite it.
4. Confirm the site has one canonical version (www or not, https) and every listing links to that version.

Part 2: do your facts agree everywhere?

5. List every place your business appears: website, Google Business Profile, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing Places, industry directories, association pages.
6. Check name, address, phone, hours and services on each. Fix every mismatch.
7. Add Organization or LocalBusiness schema to the site with the same facts, plus a Service entry for each service you sell.
8. If people at the business are part of how customers choose (attorneys, doctors, licensed contractors), give each one a profile page with credentials and a Person schema entry.

Part 3: are your pages quotable?

9. On each service page, state in the first two sentences what the service is, who it is for and where you offer it.
10. Answer the questions buyers ask before they call: cost range, timeline, what happens first, what to bring. One heading per question. Answer in the first sentence under it.
11. Put comparisons in tables and processes in numbered lists.
12. Remove every claim you cannot source. Replace “award-winning” with the award’s name and year, or delete it.
13. Add a visible author or reviewer name with credentials to every informational page. Add a published date and a last-updated date.
14. Cite the law, the code, the study or the official source where one applies.
15. Add a short FAQ section with FAQPage schema that matches the visible text word for word.

Part 4: are you where the assistants look?

16. Search your category plus your city in Google and note every directory and “best of” list on the first page. Those pages feed AI answers.
17. Claim and fully complete your profile on each directory that will list you.
18. Ask for reviews on every platform that appears in those results. Google is one of several.
19. Pitch the roundups and local press where competitors appear and you do not.
20. Check your Wikipedia and Wikidata presence if you are large enough to have one. Correct errors.

Part 5: are you measuring?

21. Write 20 to 40 real customer questions, half informational and half “who should I hire”. Freeze the list.
22. Run each through Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity three to five times a month. Log whether you are named, whether your site is cited, who else is named and any wrong facts.
23. In GA4, track sessions and leads from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com.
24. Fix every wrong fact at its source and check next month whether it cleared.

What is deliberately not on this list

Writing a separate “AI version” of your pages. Splitting pages into fragments. Publishing a self-ranked “top companies” list. Generating dozens of thin pages with AI. Google names the first three as spam risks in its guidance on AI features, and all four hurt the human reader too.

Frequently asked questions

What should a GEO checklist include?

Crawler access, server-rendered content, consistent business facts across listings, schema for the organization and services, pages that answer buyer questions directly, named authors with credentials, presence on the directories and roundups AI assistants read, and a monthly measurement routine.

Do I need an llms.txt file?

It does not hurt, and some assistants read it, but Google says it is not required for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Treat it as a minor item after crawler access, content structure and business facts are handled.

How often should I go through the checklist?

Run the full list once, then the measurement steps monthly. Rerun the technical and listings steps whenever the business changes: a new location, a dropped service, a new phone number.

Full measurement routine: how to measure generative engine optimization. If you would rather have someone run the list for you, our generative engine optimization services cover every item on it, with a monthly report. Book a free GEO strategy session.