Train ChatGPT to Recommend Your Substack: GEO for Beginners
Why your expertise might be invisible - and what to do about it
The world of online search is changing.
People are starting to turn away from Google and other traditional search engines.
Instead, they’re asking ChatGPT and other generative chatbots for expert recommendations.
And that has birthed another ‘EO’...
‘Generative Engine Optimisation’.
Or ‘GEO’.
What is GEO?
GEO is the art of becoming discoverable inside ChatGPT and other generative tools, like Claude, Grok and Perplexity.
It’s making sure these AI chatbots can read what you have written about your niche topic.
It’s ensuring your name is tied to the niche topic you want to be known – and recommended – for.
It’s taking steps to boost your discoverability, so, when your ideal clients ask AI for the person they need, you’re on their list of recommendations.
How Search is Changing…
Instead of typing what they are looking for in Google and wading through a ton of ads to get the answers they want, people are hopping into a conversation with their friendly chatbot and asking it to make recommendations:
“Hey ChatGPT, who’s a [topic] expert?”
Or
“Who is a [role] who helps [audience] with [topic]?
And if Chatty, Grok, Perplexity and their AI search tool buddies cannot see you or recognise you’re who the person is looking for, your name isn’t going on the list.
How Generative AI Search Tools Decide Who to Recommend
Chatbots will decide to recommend you (or not!) based on being able to see:
Your “Body of Work” - public visibility, long-life (persistent) authority content
Your own indexable content (e.g. Substack, Medium and blog posts about your niche topic, with ‘everyone’ visibility, blog posts. LinkedIn featured posts, etc.)
Other authority mentions of you
Reputable podcast interviews, press coverage, etc.
What you tell the chatbot in your sessions
(Paid accounts only.)
When you are brainstorming ideas and prompting suggestions about your work, it’s learning about you.
Location and other demographic info - ONLY if requested
Unless specified in the request, location is assumed to be ‘global’. Other demographic details are taken to include ‘everyone’.
And then this data is matched for relevance to the specific question being asked.
If you want to be found and recommended by the AI tools, there is a few things you need to know…
1. Your Name Must Be Linked With Your Niche Topic
The AI tools can only recommend by learning who to recommend, based on the content they’ve already been trained on.
Each AI tool runs on a different model.
The recommendations they give today are based on the information available on the date it was last trained.
Each AI model is trained on data available up to a different cut-off date.
For instance, ChatGPT -4o, released in May 2024 is trained on publicly available data up to approximately October 2023.
There is typically a lag of several months to a year between the most recent data the model is trained on and the release date.
The longer you ignore GEO optimisation, the later your name will be associated with your niche in that training data.
If the chatbots can’t connect your name with your niche topic, you won’t be mentioned.
Start taking action now to influence recommendations in the next updates.
2. 80% of Social Media Is Invisible to AI
Substack posts (with ‘Everyone’ visibility) are prime real estate for the AI search tools.
So if you’re here writing about your niche topic, you’re ahead of the game.
But if you are only posting client attraction on platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook, there is some bad news:
80% of it is invisible to AI!
Adapt your content strategy to incorporate BOTH short-term and long-term outcomes:
For content that is available long-term for AI search tools’ discoverability, so you receive more recommendations:
Publish some of your authority content in the places that AI can crawl and index (like Substack posts and LinkedIn articles).
For content that is visible short-term, boosts your impact and generates revenue:
Publish some of your content on the 80% of social media platforms that are generally NOT findable by AI, but ARE how your potential clients get to meet, like and trust you - such as your Facebook page and LinkedIn profile.
3. You Must Consistently Talk About What You Want to Be Known For
If you want clients in a specific niche, AI tools need to see you showing up with content about that topic again and again.
Your digital footprint needs to tell them clearly: “This is what I do. This is who I help. This is why I’m the one.”
The numbers turning away from Google are increasing daily.
I personally go direct to ChatGPT or Grok when I want to find something. I only use Google now when the thing I want to find is new or topical.
NOW is the time to take AI search seriously, and start optimising your content for GEO - to boost your discoverability.
I created a FREE GUIDE called “Recommend Me, GPT”. It explains:
How to make your content discoverable in the right conversations
How to train AI to understand who you are and what you want to be known for
And how to ensure it’s you the chatbots are sending your ideal clients and subscribers to when they ask for recommendations in your niche topic.
Want to be findable by Ai search tools?