Is "AI SEO" or GEO worth paying for?

What's usually on offer

Generative engine optimisation, or GEO, and "AI SEO" are names for broadly the same work: writing and structuring content so AI assistants find and quote it, earning mentions on sites those assistants trust, tidying reviews and listings, and adding markup to your pages. Much of it overlaps with good search work, and done well it can genuinely help an AI agent know you exist and describe you accurately.

Which part of the job it does

An AI agent recommending a place gets through four things in order: it finds the place, tells that it fits the question, trusts what it reads, and completes the booking or purchase. Content and mentions work on the first two, and partly on the third. They can't make your live availability and price readable, because those live in your booking system and change every day, and they can't give an AI agent a way to book with you. A business can be quoted beautifully and still lose the booking to a listing that could be checked and completed.

Reading a proposal

Take a typical proposal for a small hotel: a dozen new pages answering guest questions, an audit of directory listings, a push for mentions on travel sites, and monthly reports on how often the hotel appears in AI answers. The first three are real work on being found and described, and could be worth paying for. The fourth measures mentions, and our Myth vs fact piece on ChatGPT mentions explains why a mention on its own proves little. What's missing is any line that touches your rates, your availability or the route to a booking, so you'd want to know who handles that before you sign.

The questions that sort a good offer from a weak one are short. What will actually change, and where? How will success be measured, and can it be traced to enquiries and bookings? Will it help across assistants, or only one? And if anyone promises a guaranteed position in AI answers, treat that as a warning sign, since nobody outside the assistants controls it.

Find out where you break first

Before paying anyone, run the free buyability check on your web address. It tests the same four steps and shows which one fails first. If you're falling at being found or at fit, content work may well be the right spend. If you're found and still not booked, the gap sits in trust or in the booking route, and more content won't reach it.

Where Selfe fits

Selfe does the part content can't: the connection between your booking system and the AI agents asking about you, so your live prices, availability and terms are readable and a booking can land with you. Good content work and a connection answer different steps, and the check shows which one you need first.

Is GEO just SEO with a new name?

Partly. Clear, accurate content helps in both. The difference is that an AI assistant combines several sources into one answer and often names a business without a link, so being quoted counts for less than being bookable.

What should I measure?

Enquiries and bookings you can trace back. In most analytics tools, visits from assistants usually show up as referrals from sites such as chatgpt.com, which tells you more than a count of how often your name appears.