Before investing in GEO, you need to know where you stand. This 60-minute audit provides a reliable baseline of your current AI visibility — no tool costs, no agency required.
Preparation (5 Minutes)
Create a document with three columns: Prompt, ChatGPT Result, Perplexity Result. Define 10 to 15 prompts reflecting typical customer questions across three categories: Information prompts ("What is [your core topic]?"), Recommendation prompts ("Which provider for [your service] do you recommend?"), and Comparison prompts ("[Your company] vs. [competitor] — which is better?").
Step 1: Manual Visibility Check (20 Minutes)
Open ChatGPT and Perplexity. Enter each prompt in both systems and document: Is your company mentioned by name? Is your website linked or cited? Which competitors are named instead? Is the context positive, neutral, or negative?
Rate each prompt: Green (mentioned and positive), Yellow (mentioned but neutral/incomplete), Red (not mentioned or competitors preferred).
Step 2: Technical Check (15 Minutes)
robots.txt review: Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Look for entries regarding GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot. If these crawlers are blocked, that is an immediately fixable issue.
LLM.txt present? Check yourdomain.com/llm.txt. If the file does not exist, an important GEO signal is missing.
Schema.org verification: Use Google's Rich Results Test on your homepage and a key service page. Are Organization, Person, and Service schemas present?
AI referrers in GA4: Check Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition for referrers like chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, or gemini.google.com.
Step 3: Content Analysis (15 Minutes)
Evaluate your three most important pages (homepage, main service, most visited page) against these criteria: Are there citable statements in one to two sentences? Are FAQ sections present? Is there an author box with expertise credentials? Are headings formatted as question-answer pairs?
Step 4: Competitive Comparison (5 Minutes)
Enter three recommendation prompts in ChatGPT and note which competitors are mentioned. Visit their websites and quickly check: Do they have Schema.org? An LLM.txt? FAQ sections? This gives you a sense of how far the competition has already progressed.
Evaluation
Tally your Green/Yellow/Red ratings from Step 1. Create an action list from Steps 2 through 4. Prioritize: robots.txt adjustment and LLM.txt creation are quick wins with minimal effort and immediate impact. Content optimization and Schema.org implementation follow as medium-term measures.
This audit provides a solid basis for deciding whether and how to invest in GEO.
FAQ
How often should I repeat the audit? Every six to eight weeks to track changes. Between audits, spot-check individual prompts periodically.
What if I am not mentioned in any prompt? This is normal for most SMEs — and simultaneously the biggest opportunity. Start with technical quick wins and systematically build citable content.
Can I run this audit for competitors too? Yes. Use the same prompts and document results in a comparison table. This reveals where competitors are already visible and where gaps exist.
