What Is GEO Readiness, and Why Should You Care?
Generative Engine Optimization is the new competitive surface. Here is what it means for a small business website, and how to score your own readiness.
Search used to be a single surface called Google. In 2026 it is a family of surfaces: Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and a growing list of assistants embedded in apps you already use. Each one pulls from the open web a little differently. Each one decides, page by page, whether your business is worth citing.
From SEO to GEO
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of making your site easy for language models to read, quote, and attribute. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the narrower discipline of structuring content so it can be lifted directly as an answer. Together they replace what SEO meant ten years ago — not because SEO is dead, but because traffic no longer flows only through one pipe.
A simple readiness score
At ReTHINK CNERGY we use a short diagnostic called the GRI™ (GEO Readiness Index). It looks at five things: structured data coverage, answer-shaped content, authoritativeness signals, llms.txt completeness, and technical quality. A 5-out-of-5 site gets quoted. A 2-out-of-5 site gets skipped.
What to do this month
Publish an llms.txt at the domain root. Add FAQ schema to the three pages that answer real customer questions. Rewrite one service page so it leads with a one-sentence answer. Measure citations for six weeks. Small moves, compounded, are what shift the score.