Keep a log of how LLMs are mentioning your brand.
While GEO may initially feel intimidating, Michael Lamp, chief digital and social officer at Hunter, says companies can understand where they’re showing up through regular audits.
“The first thing you should be doing right now is running visibility reporting for your brand or organization,” he said.
Lamp will speak on this topic at AI Horizons Conference during the session, “AI Search Workshop: Turn GEO into ROI with an AI-First Content Strategy.”
The method isn’t complicated, he said. It’s a back-to-basics audit designed to help organizations understand when people ask AI tools about your brand how you’re showing up.
Here’s an easy checklist to get you started.
- Start with the LLMs that matter
Instead of thinking about GEO as a total overhaul of your current strategy, Lamp says teams should begin with everyday user behavior.
The first step of any GEO audit is deciding which LLMs to track. Lamp suggests using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot as a good starting point.
“It’s just figuring out the engines you care about most and doing the same searches over a period of time,” Lamp said.
Assign each LLM to one team member. That person is responsible for running the same searches every day for a set number of weeks.
- Build a set of 5 prompts
The next step is creating a fixed set of general prompts tied to your brand and the questions consumers actually ask, he said.
The prompts should be the same every day so you can see how answers shift.
“Five questions are the sweet spot,” Lamp said.
As an example, these could include questions like:
- What are the best products for…?
- What should I know about…?
- Who are the leading companies in…?
- How do I choose a…?
- What’s the difference between…?
When team members run their daily checks, they should plug in the five prompts and record what the LLM gives back.
- Screenshot everything
Screenshots are a key component in the audit. Models update constantly and small changes in language or data sources can shift what an LLM pulls up.
“You screenshot all the answers,” Lamp said. “Put them somewhere (your team) can all see them whether it’s a Google Doc, a shared folder, whatever,” he said.
Saving the raw responses matters because it helps teams track patterns, spot inconsistencies and identify where the brand is absent, misrepresented or overshadowed by competitors, he said.
- Meet weekly and compare
After five to seven days, trends start to emerge. That’s when it’s important to review what everyone is seeing across the different LLMs.
You might find that your brand appears in ChatGPT but not in Claude, Gemini pulls outdated facts from an old press release or Copilot hallucinates details that aren’t true, he said.
These are bits of useful information and an indication of what’s working and what isn’t, Lamp said.
“You might discover inaccuracies,” he said. “You can’t make hallucinations snap away, but you can improve them over time.”
The best way to fix bad or missing information is to put out better, clearer information, Lamp said.
If your audit shows outdated facts, update your website. If LLMs aren’t citing reputable coverage, pitch new stories. If your owned content is thin, publish stronger FAQs, explainers or education pages, Lamp said.
AI systems prefer structured, authoritative and recent information. If you give them more of it, they’ll use it, he said.
“One of the simplest extensions of visibility reporting is testing your press releases,” he said.
Teams can benefit by taking a standard release, then rewriting it with a GEO structure, meaning a TL;DR at the top, subheads throughout and a short FAQ at the end.
“Then it’s critical to run your five prompts again,” he said. “LLMs see structured data and structured blocks of text more than anything.”
See which version shows up more consistently or more accurately in AI-generated answers.
“That’s your new model,” he said.
- Keep the cadence simple
A GEO audit doesn’t need to be overly complex or fully automated. Manual work has real value because it forces teams to learn how these systems behave, Lamp said.
“Do it daily if you can,” he said. “Weekly at minimum. It’s about getting familiar.” he said.
Visibility reporting gives teams a clear picture of how AI tools interpret their brand today and what’s required to influence those results tomorrow.
“It’s about understanding how people now discover information. You just gotta take your first step today,” he said.
Register here to learn more from Lamp and other industry experts during Ragan’s AI Horizons Conference Feb. 2-4 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
Courtney Blackann is a communications reporter. Connect with her on LinkedIn or email her at courtneyb@ragan.com.
The post How to run a GEO visibility audit in 5 steps appeared first on PR Daily.
