What GEO services include, and what they don't
Good GEO work is not a new label on old SEO tasks, and it is not a bag of tricks. In practice, it covers four fronts:
- AI visibility measurement: a fixed set of prompts that reflect your buyers' real questions, tracked across engines and markets, with your citation share compared against competitors.
- Citable content: pages that answer clearly, cover the sub-questions buyers ask next, use sourced data and show who is behind them.
- Technical foundations: crawlability, rendering, indexation, structured data and access for AI crawlers. If search engines cannot read a page, AI cannot cite it.
- Authority outside your site: consistent entity information and mentions in the sources AI engines trust in your niche, from industry media to review platforms and expert content.
What it does not include: guaranteed placements in ChatGPT, mass-produced pages for every question variation, planted reviews or self-ranked lists, or llms.txt files sold as a solution. Google classifies manipulation of AI answers as spam, and there is no consistent public evidence that shortcuts like these earn citations.
GEO is SEO done with more rigor, measured where your buyers now research.
Who this is for
My work fits best when three things are true:
- You sell something buyers research before deciding: B2B services, SaaS, professional services, regulated industries or high-ticket e-commerce.
- Organic search already matters, or should matter, to your acquisition costs, and leadership wants to see it in revenue terms.
- You have, or can secure, someone to execute: content, development or communications. Strategy without execution produces beautiful documents and no results.
It is probably not the right fit if you are still searching for product-market fit, if you need large volumes of execution and have no team (an agency is a better answer in that case), or if you are looking for a quick hack.
How I work
I have been working with SEO for more than 11 years, leading in-house teams built from scratch, consolidated teams and consulting projects for global brands, scale-ups and smaller companies across Latin America, the United States and Europe. The style is the same in every project: senior, direct and transparent.
1. Assessment
Two fronts at once. In traditional search: a full technical audit, competitive analysis of the results that matter, content inventory and link profile. In AI answers: a prompt set built around your buyers' questions, your citation share against competitors, the sources AI engines use in your niche and the consistency of your entity across the web.
2. Strategy and prioritization
Demand research oriented to revenue, not to volume. A query with 200 monthly searches and clear purchase intent is worth more than one with 40,000 purely informational searches if the goal is pipeline. The most valuable deliverable here is a roadmap prioritized by impact and effort.
3. Execution with your team
I lead or oversee execution with your team: technical specifications for developers, briefs and reviews for content, and guidance for communications and PR. You always know what is being done and why.
4. Continuous optimization
Search changes constantly: Google confirmed three core updates in 2026 alone, and AI answers move even faster. Optimization means updating what exists, expanding what performs, recovering what lost ground and keeping monitoring on a fixed cadence.
5. Measurement and knowledge transfer
Reporting connects visibility to business: AI-referred traffic and leads, citation share, organic revenue and acquisition cost compared with paid media. And the knowledge stays with your team. A consultancy that leaves you dependent forever did not do a good job. It wrote a good contract.
My takeThe person in the sales meeting should be the person running your project. That is the main reason I chose to work as an independent consultant rather than build an agency.
Engagement formats
| Format | What it is | When it makes sense |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment | A two to six week analysis of SEO and AI visibility, with a prioritized action plan | Unexplained traffic drops, migrations, a second opinion on an agency's work, or defining budget before committing |
| Ongoing consulting | Monthly strategy, execution review, SEO and AI citation monitoring and regular meetings, usually for 6 to 12 months | Companies that decided to treat organic search as a channel, not an experiment |
| Embedded | Working inside your team for a defined period, with high dedication and participation in internal rituals | Scale-ups building their SEO and GEO operation and needing seniority while they hire |
| C-level advisory | Direction rather than execution: investment decisions, vendor evaluation and board-level reporting | Companies that already have an agency or in-house team executing |
How much do GEO services cost?
There is no standard price for GEO yet, and the published ranges are wide. These are the market references I found for 2026:
| Reference | Range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Agency GEO programs, monthly | US$1,500 to US$50,000+ per month | WebFX, October 2026 |
| Standard and advanced GEO retainers | US$3,000 to US$7,000 and US$7,000 to US$15,000 per month | Searchless, 2026 |
| One-off GEO audits | US$2,500 to US$15,000 | AI Growth Agent compilation, 2026 |
| Average SEO consultant rates | US$171 per hour, US$3,250 per month on average | Ahrefs survey, via GTM 80/20 |
For reference, my engagements usually fall within these ranges:
| Format | Typical investment |
|---|---|
| Assessment (SEO and AI visibility) | US$4,000 to US$10,000 per project |
| Ongoing consulting for scale-ups and mid-market | US$3,500 to US$8,000 per month |
| Strategic consulting for enterprise, multi-market or regulated industries | US$8,000 to US$15,000+ per month |
| C-level advisory | From US$2,500 per month |
What moves the price
- Size and technical complexity of the site.
- Competition in your segment.
- Scope: guiding execution costs less than executing.
- Number of markets and languages, and how many AI engines are monitored.
- Whether the scope includes the authority work outside your site.
One point worth bringing to any negotiation: GEO should not become a second budget line with the same deliverables renamed. What genuinely adds cost is citation measurement and off-site authority work. If a proposal charges separately for "AI optimization" without explaining that, ask what changes in practice.
The comparison that makes sense is the fee against the cost of the same demand in paid media. In a retail project I led, the organic strategy generated the equivalent of BRL 1 million in paid media savings over the period. In B2B, add the value of being on the shortlist buyers build before they ever talk to sales.
How long until you see results
- First 30 days: technical fixes and adjustments on pages that were already close to the top. Quick wins are common, but they are not structural results.
- 60 to 90 days: the most relevant optimizations and first new content start to perform. Citations in real-time engines may already appear.
- 4 to 6 months: consistent growth in qualified traffic and AI visibility. In a high-ticket B2B project, organic acquisition grew 62% in five months, and SEO became the main inbound channel of the quarter in front of an initially skeptical board.
- From month 6 on: organic stops being a project and becomes a channel. Content published in month 2 keeps generating demand in month 14 at no incremental cost.
If anyone promises first-page rankings in 30 days for a competitive term, or guarantees your brand will appear in ChatGPT, end the conversation.
Results from recent projects
Clients are not named for confidentiality, and every number comes from the client's own analytics and search data.
- B2B, RegTech, GEO: +763% in brand citations in Google's AI Overviews in under 12 months. AI-referred leads converted 5 times better than traditional organic and 6 times better than paid media, and paid search fell from 74% to 42% of leads.
- B2B, high-ticket services: +62% in organic acquisition in 5 months, with a record number of qualified leads for the ideal customer profile.
- B2B, business services: from zero to 22,000 organic clicks per month and 1.3 million monthly impressions at a company with no digital infrastructure, which became marketing's second-largest revenue source.
- B2B, retail scale-up: the equivalent of BRL 1 million saved in paid media, with more than 350,000 monthly organic sessions.
GEO consultant, agency or in-house team?
| Criterion | Independent consultant | Agency | In-house team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seniority you work with | High and direct | Variable, often diluted across junior analysts | Depends on hiring |
| Typical scope | Strategy, prioritization and direction | Execution at volume | Execution and strategy |
| GEO maturity | Depends on the consultant: ask for method and measurement | Variable, sometimes sold as a separate package | Requires training and tools |
| Speed to start | High | Medium | Low (recruiting) |
| Best for | Teams that execute but lack direction | Companies that need execution capacity | Mature channels with a relevant share of revenue |
| Main limitation | Someone needs to execute | Knowledge leaves when the contract ends | Fixed cost and hiring curve |
Many mature companies combine all three: an in-house team executing, an agency producing at volume and a senior consultant giving direction.
How to choose a GEO consultant
Good signs
- Case studies with concrete numbers and context, not generic testimonials.
- The senior person in the sales meeting is the one who runs the project.
- A methodology explained before the contract, including how AI visibility will be measured.
- Use of primary sources, such as Google Search Central documentation, and studies with clear methods.
- Willingness to tell you when your project is not a fit.
Red flags
- Guaranteed positions, aggressive deadlines or promises to "put you in ChatGPT".
- Packages of planted mentions in forums, reviews or "best of" lists.
- Mass production of pages for each question variation.
- Reports that only show keyword positions and never connect to revenue.
- No method to measure AI citations, or measurement based on isolated screenshots.
Questions to ask before hiring
- Who exactly will run my project day to day, and how senior are they?
- How do you measure my brand's presence in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI features, and how often?
- What is different, in practice, between your GEO work and your SEO work?
- What do you expect my team to deliver for this to work?
- What was the last project of yours that did not work, and why?
The last question is the most revealing. A consultant who has never had a project go wrong is either not telling the truth or has not worked enough.
Frequently asked questions
Do you work with companies outside Brazil?
Yes. I work remotely in English, Spanish and Portuguese, with clients in Latin America, the United States and Europe. Meetings follow your time zone, and reporting is delivered in your language.
Do you execute or only advise?
Both, depending on the format. In ongoing consulting I lead the strategy and work hands-on with your team on technical specifications, content briefs and reviews. For large production volumes, I coordinate with your agency or in-house team rather than replacing them.
Which AI engines do you monitor?
ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude, adjusted to where your buyers actually research. Prompts are tracked in each market's language.
Is GEO worth it if my SEO is weak?
Yes, but the work starts with the foundations. AI engines rely heavily on search results and on what they can crawl, so fixing technical and content basics is usually the fastest path to AI visibility too.
How do we start?
With a call to understand your business, goals and current situation. If there is a fit, I send a proposal with scope, timeline and investment. If there is not, I will tell you, and point you in a better direction if I can.
Sources
- WebFX. How much does generative engine optimization cost in 2026?
- Searchless. GEO pricing guide 2026.
- AI Growth Agent. GEO pricing in 2026: costs, models and what to budget.
- GTM 80/20. SEO and GEO pricing statistics for 2026.
- Google Search Central. Top ways to ensure your content performs well in Google's AI experiences on Search.