GEO for agencies

Why clients will ask about this

Buyers increasingly ask an AI assistant for a shortlist before they search, and AI-generated summaries now sit above many branded results. The practical question a client will put to you is simple: when people ask AI for the best option in our category, are we named?

Most clients have never checked. When they do, the answer is often no. In the 50 brands we tested, 39 were never named for their own category's buyer questions. That gap is the opening for an agency conversation.

Why agencies are well placed to sell GEO

• GEO uses the skills you already sell: content strategy, digital PR, technical SEO, review management and community work.
• The deliverables are concrete: comparison pages, roundup outreach, structured data, review generation and category positioning.
• The before-and-after is visual. A screenshot of an AI answer naming three competitors and not the client is a stronger opener than a rankings table.
• It deepens retainers. Tracking AI visibility monthly gives you a recurring metric to report alongside rankings and traffic.

What our own data shows

We ran unbranded buyer questions ("best [category]", "[competitor] alternatives", "X vs Y") through AI search for 50 software brands. These are the only numbers we quote anywhere on this site, and we quote them as they are.

• 39 of 50 brands (78%) were never named in any answer to their own category's buyer questions.
• All 30 brands that had launched in the previous month scored 0.
• Being known is not enough: an established e-signature tool scored 52/100 and an AI voice tool scored 37/100.
• In 33 of 50 cases the most cited source was a competitor's own website: its "vs" pages, docs and help centre.
• Review sites were the most cited source for only 6 of 50 brands.

A simple way to package GEO

1. 01Entry: a one-off GEO audit. 10 to 20 unbranded buyer prompts, competitor share of voice, cited sources and a 30-day fix plan. Easy to say yes to and quick to deliver.
2. 02Sprint: four to eight weeks of fixes from the audit. Category messaging, two or three honest comparison pages, structured data and llms.txt, and outreach to the most cited roundups.
3. 03Retainer: monthly tracking of the same prompt set, a short report on what moved and why, and the next set of sources to work on.

How to open the conversation

You do not need a long pitch. Pick three buyer questions for the prospect's category, ask them in an AI assistant, and screenshot who gets named. If the prospect is missing, that screenshot does the selling. If they are present, the conversation becomes how to defend the position against the competitor named first.

Be careful with promises. There is no paid placement in organic AI answers and results take weeks. Agencies that set honest expectations keep the client when the first month moves slowly.

What to deliver in the first 30 days

• Week 1: audit and baseline. Record the prompt set, scores, competitors and top sources so later reports compare like with like.
• Week 2: on-site basics. One plain category sentence everywhere, public pricing where possible, FAQ schema, Organization schema and llms.txt.
• Week 3: comparison content. Honest "vs" and "alternatives" pages. In our data the most cited source was a competitor's own site in 33 of 50 cases, so these pages matter.
• Week 4: off-site. Pitch the authors of cited roundups, complete review profiles, and answer relevant community threads with disclosure.

How ShownInAI fits an agency workflow

• Free checks for prospects so you can bring evidence to a first call.
• A $299 one-time audit you can white-label and resell, delivered within 48 hours, if you want to test demand before building the service in-house.
• The Agency plan at $499 a month tracks up to 25 client brands weekly, with a client dashboard, white-label PDF reports and an embeddable lead-capture widget for your own site.

Objections you will hear, and honest answers

• "Isn't this just SEO?" It builds on SEO, but the inputs differ. Show the client the cited sources: many will be pages they do not own, which their SEO work has never targeted.
• "Can you guarantee we'll be recommended?" No. Nobody can. Offer a measured baseline, a defined set of fixes and monthly reporting on the same prompts.
• "We're a well-known brand, surely we're fine." Fame is not enough. In our data an established e-signature tool scored 52/100 and an AI voice tool 37/100.
• "How fast will it work?" Weeks to a few months. Answers that use live web search respond as cited pages change; set expectations in the proposal.

Building the service without big upfront cost

You do not need to hire a specialist to start. Run free checks on five existing clients, pick the two with the biggest gap between their SEO strength and their AI visibility, and propose a fixed-fee audit plus sprint. Use the results as a case study before you add GEO to your public service list. If you would rather not build the audit process yourself, white-label ours for the first few clients and bring the delivery in-house once demand is proven.

Pricing GEO for clients

Price on the value of the deliverables, not on the tool. The audit is a fixed fee; the sprint is priced like a content and outreach project; the retainer is priced like ongoing SEO reporting with a defined monthly workload. Keep the prompt set fixed per client so month-on-month comparisons are fair, and report share of voice against the top three competitors, not just a single score.