An SEO agency can offer GEO as a 4-stage service: a baseline of AI citations, an access check, page work, and measurement against that baseline with untouched pages as a control.
Generative engine optimization aims to get a client's pages cited in AI answers from tools such as ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Sell it next to SEO, not instead of it: Google says SEO best practices remain relevant to its AI features.
Qualify the Client First
Be selective, because one disappointed client costs more than one lost sale.
- Check whether revenue depends on being found online. Clients with content and commercial pages fit well. Businesses that sell only through relationships or tenders, and sites with almost no content, do not.
- Set expectations in writing. Nobody can guarantee a citation. A SparkToro study reported by Search Engine Journal, which was not peer reviewed, found under a 1-in-100 chance of the same brand list appearing in two runs of ChatGPT or Google AI.
- Decline anyone who demands guaranteed rankings or citations.
Stage 1: Build the Baseline
Measure before you change anything, or you will have nothing to show later.
- List the prompts that matter to the client's business, and the AI engines to track.
- Record which brands and pages are cited for each prompt now.
- Keep some pages untouched as a control.
Grimpe's Visibility Dashboard shows how often a client is cited per engine and who is cited instead. Citations has one row per prompt and one column per engine, each linked to the real answer. See How to Measure Brand Visibility in AI Search.
Stage 2: Check Access Before Writing Anything
Content changes cannot help if an AI bot cannot reach the page.
- Test with real requests, and name the cause of any block: robots.txt, a CDN, or a firewall.
- Fix the block before you rewrite anything.
- Write down the bot tested, the result, the cause, and the fix. That is your first client deliverable.
Grimpe's Access tests each AI bot with real requests, names the cause of a block, and generates the robots.txt you need. See Which AI Bots Should You Allow in Robots.txt?.
Stage 3: Do the Page Work
- Start with the pages that matter commercially, and list the exact questions each should answer.
- Write the pages that are missing.
- Put the direct answer in the headline and opening lines, because an AI engine can judge a page by a short preview.
- Match the page type. A sales page states the offer, audience, and terms. A comparison page applies the same criteria to each option. An informational page gives measured results and method. A reference page gives numbered steps.
Our view on rewriting: it is not about swapping words. In a Grimpe test on one page, the version holding the real answer was cited in 3 of 3 runs, and a same-length version with unrelated facts in 0 of 3. A complete answer is necessary, but it does not guarantee a citation.
Grimpe's Rewrite rebuilds a page while keeping its meaning, terminology, and data, and returns the finished page, not a list of suggestions. Create writes a missing page from the client's material, and Prompt-Specific Optimization aims a page at one question. That is what lets a small team deliver page work across many clients. See How to Rewrite a Page for AI Citations.
Stage 4: Test, Measure, and Report
- Test each page in a real AI engine before it goes live.
- Run the same prompts on the same engines after publishing, and compare with the baseline and the untouched pages.
- Report citation frequency per engine, who is cited instead, and AI assistant visits.
- Report what you measured and what changed. Do not promise what happens next.
Grimpe's Simulate tests a live page, a rewrite, or a draft and shows which pages a real AI engine found, read, and cited. Traffic reads GA4 with read-only access and separates AI assistant visits. History keeps every run, and the Citations grid can be exported for your reports.
What to Tell Clients About Google
Clients will read that Google says no special writing, llms.txt, or structured data is needed for its AI features, and that making pages mainly to manipulate AI responses violates its scaled content abuse policy. That guidance is about Google Search, and you should follow it. Do not sell tricks. Sell the work above: complete answers, clean access, and honest measurement. llms.txt is a low-cost map for other assistants whose citation effect nobody has shown, and structured data makes a page clearer without promising citations. See What's the Difference Between AEO and GEO?.
How to Do This in Grimpe
Grimpe is built for agencies first. The Agency plan holds 10 client workspaces with shared quotas and consolidated reporting, and on request your own logo can replace the Grimpe logo in the product.
- Set up a workspace for each client, and add their prompts.
- Run Access, and fix what blocks AI bots.
- Find the weakest pages with the AI Readiness Score, and check their openings in AI Preview.
- Fix them with Rewrite, or write what is missing with Create.
- Test with Simulate before publishing.
- Report from the Visibility Dashboard and Citations.
Run a free scan or book a demo at grimpe.ai to see where a client's pages stand today.