GEO Strategy: 5 Ways Multi-Location Brands Can Maximize AI Coverage

We’re at a turning point in how people find businesses and information online.

But, as we honor this shift to AI search, we need to establish how — if at all — this affects the ways in which SEOs optimize their websites and business profiles for online visibility.

Everyone’s talking (a lot more seriously now) about Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO — and whether it will become the new battleground for businesses to compete for local customers.

One thing is clear: We need a grounded, actionable understanding of whether a GEO strategy means a complete departure from current SEO strategies. We need to help our clients with multiple business locations know how to respond.

Let’s talk about how we, as marketers and agencies, can lead the way.

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Search Is (Still) Changing, and So Are Local Consumers

It’s almost been a full year since we launched our GEO course on the Uberall Academy. And in that short time, we’ve seen major developments in search — and marketing teams arerattled by them.

We’ve seen firsthand how the rise of AI and new consumer habits are dismantling traditional marketing strategies. The marketers and agencies we speak with know something has changed — they’re just not always sure where to start when it comes to a search strategy that now includes answer engines.

Local search is now about far more than just googling something nearby and clicking on a blue link. Discovery has moved to AI engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. It’s moved to visual searches through TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and Reddit — and to voice assistants like Siri or Alexa.

For marketers, this raises a simple but urgent question: How does your brand show up when consumers aren’t searching the old way anymore? Visibility — a key pillar of optimizing your locations’ performance — is still in some ways about ranking, but not by SERP position. Now it’s about metrics like Share of Voice. 

But besides these new GEO metrics, which we will explore more in another article, here’s what else your team needs to consider for a successful GEO strategy.

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Many people are still asking “What is Generative Engine Optimization?” — so, before taking you through GEO strategy, let’s cover this question. 

It’s the practice of influencing how AI engines include, describe, and recommend brands in AI answers rather than focusing on optimizing for clicks or rankings.

GEO is about preparing your content for inclusion in AI-generated search results – not just blue links. But GEO goes beyond a website; it’s about a brand’s total online footprint. That includes their website, social media, listings, directories, and so on. Successful GEO strategies therefore demand marketers adapt to this new search reality, in which users often interact with AI-generated summaries and recommendations rather than clicking through to websites. 

Our Technical Expert for AI Search, Visibility, and Local Pages/Websites, Luma explains the nuances between the acronyms SEO, GEO, AEO, and LLMO brilliantly and explains this all using her library analogy:

“For years we’ve focused on SEO, which was used to make sure your books have the right title, and they’re placed correctly on the shelves in this library so people can find it using a catalog, etc. 

Now, we have GEO. Instead of just finding your books on this shelf, you’re now using AI as a librarian and you’re asking it questions: ‘What’s the main idea in this book? How do I find this type of book that I'm looking for?’ AI reads the cover. It reads all the content. It reads the first chapter, the second, and the third, and it gives you a summary of everything that you're looking for based on what you prompted, what you’ve asked it, etc. 

So, GEO is about making sure your content is so clear, so structured, and authoritative that AI, the librarian, summarizes you accurately and favorably to the end user.”

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I really recommend giving that entire episode a listen.

Let’s focus on understanding what GEO means for your multi-location marketing strategy. For marketers and agencies, this is the moment to coach clients and teams on a new type of visibility — being answerable, not just rankable. 

How to “Do” Generative Engine Optimization: 5 Focus Areas

We need to help brands shift from simply ranking content to creating answer-ready content. But how do we do that?

If you’ve been staying true to SEO best practices, you can breathe a sigh of relief — just double down on these five focus areas of your GEO strategy.

1. Semantic Keywords and Prompts

Content teams and SEOs have long focused on top-of-the-funnel, high-volume keywords. That strategy won’t work for GEO.

If someone asks, “What is a shoe?”, the AI, whether that’s AI Overviews, Claude, or ChatGPT, just gives a definition without citing brands, companies, or sources. These generic queries won’t bring you visibility, authority, or traffic. In GEO, keywords still matter, but they’re only one factor among many that LLMs consider when generating answers.

You want to look at prompts. They’re the specific questions your audience or industry asks generative search tools. In our GEO Studio, the Prompt Center helps you identify the most relevant prompts for your brand — and see which ones competitors are already covering. Higher-priority prompts with more estimated search volume and value, like “Where to buy pickleball shoes,” can then be addressed in the Action Center, where teams can create new, in-depth content or optimize existing pages to close the mention gap and secure your brand’s inclusion in AI responses.

While effective keyword management remains important for successful GEO, deeper user research on high-value prompts can significantly improve your accuracy, visibility, and credibility in AI-generated results.

Finally, continue to write for humans and AI at the same time. Use conversational queries and a tone that mirrors how your customers write their prompts. Clear, human-sounding content is easier for AI to parse — and more likely to be included in answers. Generative engines rely heavily on natural language processing (NLP) to evaluate the context of a phrase or statement, far more than conventional search engines.

2. Consistency and Structured, Contextual Content

While SEO focuses more on keywords, ranking, and linking, GEO focuses on structure, clarity, and retrievability by AI. 

Consistent Information

If their business information is mismatched across sources, your clients won’t be included in results — or misinformation will occur, which is when AI presents outdated or incorrect info about your brand as fact. It can confuse customers, damage trust, and cost conversions. 

Brands with multiple locations can win trust quickly by helping teams clean up listings, select smart categories, and unify their online presence everywhere.

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Structured Information

Proper schema markup and NAP consistency make brands machine-readable and easily digestible by both traditional and generative engines. Multi-location businesses should also add markup tags, metadata, and consistent labeling to highlight products, local stores, or upcoming events. This ensures AI systems can easily parse and cite content.

On-page blog content accounts for 44.6% of entry points,  followed by the homepage (19%) and product pages (13%). These are the “doors” through which AI engines find and cite brands. That’s why strong editorial hubs and clear navigation matter. So, keep key information accessible on your blog and homepage, avoid hiding it behind forms or paywalls, and provide clear context so AI models can easily interpret and trust your data.

Contextual Information

Implment contextually named photos and videos as well as relevant, precise business profile categories and attributes. Attributes are especially powerful for providing greater business context, so turn them on and monitor them.

Additionally, make sure reviews aren’t just collecting stars but collecting detailed stories from customers — ask them to include more details about their experience when they leave a review. That’s because AI pulls insights from how people talk about your brand.

3. Rich, Unique, Fresh Content

Content shouldn’t just exist. 

Consumers are asking better questions — and they need better content in response. They now ask more specific, intentional questions than ever in traditional search. They often compare, ask follow-up questions, and spend their awareness, consideration, and decision-making stage entirely in the tool before choosing to convert.

As we already explained, GEO is about being the best answer to prompts. Once you understand what customers are asking or doubting, your content has to evolve to better explain why your location or brand is better than the alternatives. If your answer isn’t specific, detailed, relevant, or insightful enough, LLMs might look elsewhere when synthesizing a response.

How do you create “rankable” answers? Use statistics, photos and videos, user-generated content, reviews and testimonials, promotions, live updates, or blog and forum posts — anything that can’t be found anywhere else. Not only does this differentiate your brand, it also boosts engagement and signals your expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) to AI systems. Use credible sources, recent references, and expert insights to position your content as a trusted reference point.

LLMs also pay attention to what’s current. That’s because fresh content signals that your business is active and trustworthy. Post regularly about product updates, promotions, and customer stories — not just to Google Business Profiles, but also to Apple, Facebook, Instagram, and other social platforms to keep your brand active and visible. 

4. Brand Mentions for Authority Signals

Building authority is key to GEO strategy for local businesses.

Trusted and consistent citations and backlinks matter more for GEO — especially, when an LLM tries to validate information. The more your brand or location is seen as a reliable source, the more likely it is to be cited in AI responses.

That’s why you should always work on off-page and on-page initiatives to establish your presence in authoritative external ecosystems like industry-specific directories and review platforms. Backlinks to review platforms, and authoritatively integrating credible statistics that reflect your brand’s online reputation.

The experts at AthenaHQ highlight in their report: “Models often highlight new content from competitors, but this advantage will fade if they cannot back their claims with coverage from highly reputable third-party sources.” If customer reviews fail to support a competitor’s positioning over time, that competitor loses influence and credibility — exactly as it should.

Even unlinked brand mentions across the web act as authority signals. That’s because LLMs, unlike search engines, understand a brand’s authority based on the prevalence of particular words and how brand names appear in the context of these words. 

You can and should create surround sound around your product – via different content formats too – such as top-cited AI sources Reddit, YouTube, TikTok.

5. Monitoring Your GEO Strategy

Marketers, CMOs, enterprise business owners: I’m sure we can all agree that declining traffic requires immediate action.

Traffic hasn’t always directly moved the needle — but it has influenced success across other pillars of Location Performance Optimization, including visibility, brand engagement, reputation, and conversions. What’s become clearer after initial skepticism is this: GEO is the antidote to this declining traffic.

By keeping on top of these metrics, brands can counter the panic of declining traffic and shifting search behavior, gaining solid insights into how to attract high-intent customers and outpace local competitors.

Regularly tracking your brand’s presence in AI responses is crucial. It shows where to adjust coverage, strengthen visibility, and optimize for prompts that matter most to your brand or location. The GEO metrics that provide the clearest insights include Share of Voice (SoV), Mention Rate, Citation Rate, and Prompt Opportunities.

By keeping on top of these new metrics, brands will be able to counter the panic of the traffic decline and the shifting search behavior with some solid insights into how they can keep attracting high-intent customers to their locations and win over local competitors.

• Understanding local prompts
• Creating content to fill those prompt gaps
• Iterating and improving that content continuously to win citations and backlinks
• Securing SoV over local competitors

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Will GEO Force Us to Depart from Traditional SEO?

Everyone knows they need to perform well in AI search, but many don’t yet know how that works. There are new metrics to track and new strategies to implement.

You probably haven’t heard it here first (but we’ve hopefully cut through some of the noise) — GEO won’t fundamentally change good SEO strategies (for now) — but the metrics do look different. So, no, SEO is not dead; it remains foundational. There’s just added complexity, and the stakes are higher if you ignore the five focus areas above. By keeping on top of these areas, brands can counter the panic of declining traffic and continue attracting high-intent customers to their locations.