The Problem
The Agency Gap
The rise of generative search has rendered many SEO best practices incomplete. Yet a surprising number of agencies continue to sell packages focused on keywords, meta tags and link building. Others claim to offer "AI‑powered SEO" but lack a concrete understanding of retrieval‑augmented generation, query fan‑out or passage optimisation. Without the right partner, you risk wasting budget on tactics that don't influence AI visibility. Worse, an uninformed agency might recommend blocking AI bots out of fear, effectively removing you from the answer surface altogether.
The Hypothesis
Expertise and Alignment Drive Results
Choosing a GEO agency is not just about credentials; it's about alignment with your organisation's needs and values. The hypothesis is that agencies demonstrating both **technical expertise in AI search** and **strategic alignment with your business goals** will deliver better outcomes. A qualified partner should understand RAG, query expansion, measurement and content engineering. They should also be transparent about their methods and open to collaboration with your in‑house team.
The Solution
How to Evaluate and Choose a GEO Agency
**Assess technical knowledge.** Ask potential partners to explain how they optimise content for retrieval‑augmented generation, hybrid search (lexical and semantic) and multi‑turn prompts. Do they understand embedding models, semantic chunking and structured data? Can they demonstrate a workflow for testing content in AI search environments?
**Examine case studies and proof of performance.** Request examples of client content that appears in AI answer surfaces (Google SGE, ChatGPT, Perplexity). Look for detailed explanations of the strategies used and metrics achieved. Avoid agencies that rely on vanity metrics like "number of keywords ranked" without addressing generative search inclusion.
**Evaluate measurement capabilities.** A competent GEO agency should track input, channel and performance metrics, as outlined in the GEO analytics stack. Ask about their tools and methodologies for monitoring citations, bot crawls and business outcomes.
**Understand their team structure.** Inquire about the roles on their team: do they employ relevance engineers, prompt strategists, data scientists and content specialists? How do they collaborate internally and with clients? A one‑person "SEO expert" may not suffice for GEO.
**Check cultural fit and collaboration.** A good partner will respect your brand voice and work collaboratively with your internal teams. They should be willing to share knowledge and build your in‑house capabilities rather than keeping their methods opaque.
**Start with a pilot project.** Before committing to a long‑term contract, run a short engagement focused on a specific topic or content set. Use this pilot to evaluate the agency's communication, expertise and results. If the collaboration is successful, expand the scope.