The Free Five: GEO You Can Do Without Hiring an Agency
We spend a lot of time on this blog talking about GEO like it requires a specialist. Some of it does. But a real chunk of it doesn't — it just requires you to actually do it. Here are five things you can start today, for free, without hiring anyone.
1. Run a "prompt audit" on your Business
Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini and ask each one: "What do you know about [your business]?" Then ask a question a real customer would ask — "Who's a good [your service] in [your area]?" — and see if you show up, and whether what they say about you is even accurate. This costs nothing and takes ten minutes, and most business owners have never done it. You can't fix what you haven't looked at.
2. Actually complete your Google Business Profile
This one's free and most businesses half-do it. Analyses from local-search research firms SOCi and Local Falcon have found that businesses showing up in AI-generated local answers are, almost without exception, ones with complete and actively managed Google Business Profiles — hours, categories, photos, posts, the works. If yours has been sitting untouched since you created it, that's likely costing you visibility in exactly the AI-driven answers this whole series is about.
3. Write your own FAQ page in real Q&A format
AI tools pull answers from pages structured as an actual question followed by a direct answer — not a wall of marketing copy. If you don't have an FAQ page, write one: list the ten questions customers actually ask you, and answer each one in two or three plain sentences before you elaborate. You already have this content — it's sitting in your inbox, your DMs, and your head. It just needs to be written down where a model can find it.
4. Make your business info identical everywhere it appears
Check your Google Business Profile, your website footer, your social profiles, and any directory you're listed in. Same business name, same address format, same phone number, every time. AI models cross-reference multiple sources before trusting one, and small inconsistencies — "Street" vs "St," a slightly different business name — quietly erode that trust even when a human wouldn't notice or care.
5. Get more reviews, and get them recent
Save the biggest one for last. Reviews aren't just a nice-to-have anymore. BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey (1,002 US consumers) found 47% of people won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% specifically look for reviews written in the last three months — 32% look for ones from the last two weeks alone. It's not enough to have reviews from three years ago. Separately, Yext's 2026 Consumer Search Behaviors Report found review signals — star rating, recency, sentiment, count — occupy five of the top six things people check after getting an AI recommendation, before they'll actually trust it. Ask your last five happy customers for a review this week. Of everything on this list, this is the single highest-leverage thing you can do.
None of these five need a developer, a budget, or us. They need about an afternoon.
Where it gets harder is everything past this list — the technical structure, the ongoing monitoring, the content strategy that compounds instead of stalling out after week one. That's the part most businesses don't have time for, which is exactly what we do. Get a free consultation, and we'll show you what's working, what isn't, and where the DIY stuff you just did needs backup.
