GEO for startups: what to do before you can afford an agency
A low-cost GEO and AEO plan for startups: the free checks, the pages to write, the profiles to set up and the first reviews to collect, before you hire anyone.
SEO
Rank on Google
Blue links, snippets and maps — and the base layer AI reads from.
AEO
Named by assistants
Cited in the answers ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot give.
GEO
Synthesised by AI
The source Google AI Overviews and Gemini build their answer from.
One shared foundation: crawlable, structured, trustworthy content — run as a single program.
Startups have a particular problem with AI search: most models were trained before you existed, so nothing knows who you are. The good news is that the first steps cost very little. Here's what we'd do with a small budget and a few hours a week.
Week one: the free basics
- 1Allow AI crawlers in robots.txt and check your CDN isn't blocking them.
- 2Add Organization structured data with your name, logo, URL and social profiles.
- 3Verify your site in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and submit your sitemap to both.
- 4Write one plain sentence about what you do and use it everywhere.
Weeks two to four: the pages that matter
- An About page with founders, location and founding date.
- One page per product or service, with the answer at the top.
- A pricing page, even a simple one.
- One honest comparison page against the tool or approach buyers use today.
Month two: get confirmed by others
- Set up LinkedIn, Crunchbase and the main directories for your category.
- Create a Wikidata entry if you meet its notability guidelines, kept neutral and factual.
- Ask your first happy customers for honest reviews on the platform buyers in your category use.
- Answer questions in the communities where your buyers ask for advice, openly saying who you are.
What not to spend on yet
- Expensive tracking tools. A spreadsheet and weekly manual checks are enough at first.
- Paid placements in "best of" lists.
- Large volumes of generic blog posts.
When to bring in help
A weekly 30-minute routine
- 1Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini your five most important buyer questions.
- 2Record who's named and which sources are cited.
- 3Pick one source you're missing from and take one step towards it, such as a profile, a review request or an email to an author.
- 4Note any wrong facts about your company and fix one at the source.
Thirty minutes a week, every week, beats a big effort once a quarter.
Once you have a handful of customers and a clear market, a short AI visibility audit or a one-topic pilot is usually the best next step. It tells you where the real gaps are before you commit to a retainer.
Frequently asked questions
- Can a startup get recommended by ChatGPT?
- Yes, mainly through live search. Clear pages, open crawler access, consistent profiles and early reviews give assistants something to find, even before new models learn about you.
- What's the cheapest way to start GEO?
- Free technical checks, a few clear pages, consistent profiles and your first genuine reviews. None of it needs paid tools.
- When should a startup hire a GEO agency?
- When you have a clear market and some customers, and the remaining gaps are mostly off-site work your team has no time for.
AI VisibilityAEOGEO
M
Magathi
AI Visibility specialist at Edthi · SEO, AEO & GEO
Leads AI Visibility programs at Edthi, helping companies get found and recommended across Google and the AI engines. Writes about how AI search actually decides who to cite.
Ready when you are.
Book a 30-minute call, message us on WhatsApp, or drop your details and we'll reach out. We'll show you where you show up today across Google and the AI engines — and the plan to become the answer.