Define Your Firm’s GEO Program

2.1 Set Objectives for Accurate Representation, Relevant Consideration, and Qualified Opportunities

Start by naming the client decision the program should support. “Improve our AI visibility” leaves open whether the firm wants to correct an outdated description, help a referrer explain a service, appear among suitable advisers, or generate more conversations with prospective clients. Each purpose can lead to different work.

Use three categories of objectives, and identify which one takes priority in the initial phase.

These objectives are connected, but they are not interchangeable. An accurate description may properly exclude the firm from an unsuitable engagement. A relevant appearance may never produce an inquiry. A valuable inquiry may begin with a human referral and involve AI only during subsequent investigation.

Make the objective specific enough to guide work

A useful objective identifies the audience, the service, the decision, and the improvement sought. For example: “Help owners of growing businesses assess our outsourced monthly accounting service by making its scope, delivery responsibilities, and client requirements clear in the AI answers we monitor.”

That objective suggests what to investigate and which professionals need to contribute. It also gives the team a way to reject unrelated work. A proposal to publish generic personal-finance articles would need a separate business justification.

Choose a primary objective and, where useful, a supporting one. A newly launched practice may first need accurate descriptions. An established specialist who receives referrals may prioritize how assistants assess a named professional. A firm seeking entry into a market may investigate whether suitable buyers encounter it at all.

Define an opportunity before counting one

Agree with business development what constitutes a qualified opportunity. Specify the service need, client characteristics, geographic requirements, plausible engagement timing, and evidence that there is a real decision to make. Include whatever further client-acceptance checks the firm requires.

Keep “appears to fit our commercial criteria” separate from “approved to accept as a client.” A promising legal matter may still require conflict checks; an accounting engagement may require an independence assessment. The GEO dashboard should use the firm’s established intake definitions rather than create a shortcut around them.

Ask intake staff to record how prospects found and evaluated the firm, including AI when the prospect mentions it. Preserve the other influences in the same account. A statement such as “A colleague referred us, then we used an assistant to compare your experience” is more informative than assigning the entire opportunity to a single channel.

Set commitments for controllable work at the outset. Set numerical targets for changes in AI answers after establishing a baseline and agreeing how those changes will be measured. Record the targets before making the changes being evaluated, so the team cannot redefine success around whichever answers look most encouraging. Chapters 5, 6, and 18 develop these measurement and commercial definitions.

2.2 Choose the Practices, Services, Industries, Client Groups, and Markets in Scope

Give the initial phase a boundary that people can repeat accurately. For many firms, one service offered to one defined client group is a workable starting point. That is a management recommendation, not a claim that a particular scope is optimal for every firm.

A larger organization can run several workstreams if each has an accountable owner, adequate review capacity, and a clear reason to proceed. The important discipline is to specify the boundaries and resource them.

Write the scope in one sentence: “We will examine and improve how selected AI experiences describe and consider our [service] for [client group] facing [need] in [market].” Then resolve the choices hidden inside that sentence.

• Practice and service: Identify the actual engagement offered. “Finance consulting” may include strategy, transaction support, systems implementation, or interim leadership; select the relevant service.
• Industry and client group: Specify the situations where the firm’s expertise is applicable. Include size, ownership, or operating characteristics when they affect the engagement.
• Market and language: Distinguish the location of the client, where the work occurs, and where the firm can provide the service. Identify the languages the team can support and review.
• Engagement boundaries: State what the offer includes, what it excludes, and any conditions that materially affect suitability.
• AI experiences: Name the interfaces and modes the initial observations will cover. Treat that selection as provisional until client and referrer research informs it.

Do not turn a geographic ambition into a claim about present capability. A staffed office, remote service delivery, a professional’s authorization to practise, and access to an independent affiliate describe different arrangements. The scope should reflect the arrangement the firm can actually explain and deliver.

Consulting example

A boutique consultancy wants additional working-capital engagements. It has demonstrable experience with midsize distributors and capacity to staff two more projects. Its initial scope covers inventory and receivables improvement, including implementation support, for U.S. distributors.

The firm leaves treasury outsourcing and software implementation outside this phase. It includes questions from CFOs and referral sources, because either might be evaluating the consultancy. The capacity limit informs intake and investment decisions; it is not presented as a claim that the program will generate two projects.

This scope is useful because the firm can connect the commercial objective, delivery capability, available evidence, and responsible experts. “Become prominent for operational excellence worldwide” would leave those decisions unresolved.

Choose work that the firm can complete

Before confirming the scope, check four conditions: the service matters commercially; the firm wants and can serve suitable engagements; relevant expertise can be explained with publishable evidence; and someone has time to verify the information. If one is missing, identify the dependency or choose a more workable starting point.

A service does not need named client case studies to qualify. Approved descriptions of methods, professional experience, deliverables, and other evidence may provide a useful starting point. What matters is that the firm can substantiate the claims it intends to make.

Record explicit exclusions and the reason for them. Put additional requests on a later-phase list. A practice leader can then see that a request has been considered without assuming it is already funded.

Your initial asset list can remain provisional. The audit may show that one service page needs revision while another is already adequate. Commit to investigating and addressing the scoped information problem; let the evidence determine the detailed work list.

2.3 Agree Priorities Across the Firm, Its Practices, and Individual Professionals

Different parts of a professional services firm can reasonably want different things from GEO. Leadership may want the firm understood as a whole. A practice leader may want consideration for a particular service. A partner may want an individual biography to reflect current expertise. Agree how these interests will be reconciled before requests compete for the same people.

Separate shared foundations from discretionary expansion. Correct firm identity, current affiliations, functioning public pages, and accurate descriptions of professionals support several priorities at once. These foundations should not depend entirely on whether one practice wins the next marketing allocation.

Beyond those foundations, use the same questions for each proposed area of work:

• Business relevance: Does this support a service and client group the firm wants to develop?
• Information need: Is there an important gap, ambiguity, or recurring misrepresentation to investigate?
• Evidence and capacity: Can the firm substantiate the intended claims, provide expert input, and serve suitable engagements?
• Effort and dependencies: What must be available before useful work can be completed?

You can rate these factors if that helps a larger firm compare proposals, but the explanation matters more than the score. A precise-looking total cannot resolve an unverified assumption about demand or an expert who has no time to participate. Record the reason for the chosen priority in plain language.

Engineering consulting example

An engineering consultancy wants to develop a structural assessment service. Prospects often ask about the director who would lead the work. The firm’s priority is the service; the immediate information problem concerns that professional’s experience and its relationship to the current team.

The initial work therefore connects the service description, the director’s biography, and appropriately attributed project experience. Publishing an equal number of articles for every engineer would not necessarily address the decision a prospective client is trying to make.

The example also shows why firm and professional visibility need not compete. A clear account of the expert can support consideration of the practice, while a clear practice description explains how the expert’s knowledge becomes a service the client can buy.

Make priority decisions explicit

Give the sponsor authority to settle conflicts over scope and capacity. Practice leaders supply the business case and verify the facts; the operator explains the workload and dependencies. A useful decision might be: “We will complete the accounting-service pilot before adding tax advisory because the same reviewer is needed for both.”

Avoid using article quotas or a firmwide visibility score as a substitute for that decision. Equal production does not establish equal value. Nor does an individual partner’s appearance automatically mean the firm is being described correctly.

For networks and multi-office firms, state which decisions are central and which remain local. Shared measurement definitions and website standards can sit centrally, while service facts, professional status, local suitability, and publication approvals remain with the people authorized to verify them. Do not assume that independent member firms share the same capabilities or permissions.

Material factual errors deserve attention even when they sit outside the growth pilot. Give the operator a route for referring those issues to the responsible owner without silently expanding the entire program.

2.4 Assign Ownership Across Leadership, Marketing, Business Development, Technology, and Professional Reviewers

Name one person who is accountable for the program’s purpose and resources, and one person who runs the work. In a small firm, these may be the same person. In a larger firm, an executive sponsor and a marketing or GEO lead will usually have different responsibilities under the operating model proposed here.

The sponsor settles priorities and resource conflicts. The operator coordinates tasks, maintains records, checks progress, and prepares decisions. Neither role removes the need for people who can verify professional claims or make website changes.

Put actual names against these responsibilities in the charter. “Marketing and the partners” is not an assignment. Each task needs a person who can finish it or identify the decision preventing completion.

Reserve the expertise the program needs

A writer can turn an interview into a clear service explanation. The writer cannot independently establish that the firm can deliver a capability, use a client’s name, claim a credential, or attribute a project to the current team. Identify the sources and people who can confirm those facts.

Reserve review time before commissioning a large batch of content. Give the reviewer a short, organized brief: the intended audience, the proposed claims, their supporting sources, and the decisions required. Agree a turnaround and an escalation route when the reviewer is unavailable.

Use the firm’s existing approval process where it works. Routine corrections can follow a light process; technical assertions, client disclosures, and claims about results need the appropriate expertise. Match the review to the material instead of sending every formatting change through the same queue.

Law firm example

A law firm retains an agency to revise a practice page and several biographies. The agency manages drafting and publication logistics. A designated lawyer checks the description of services, the professionals’ roles and admissions, material qualifications, and the basis for any experience claims.

ABA Model Rule 7.1 addresses false or misleading communications, including material omissions. Model Rule 5.3 addresses lawyers’ managerial and supervisory responsibilities concerning nonlawyer assistance. These are model rules; the firm must apply the requirements governing its own jurisdictions. They support taking professional oversight seriously, rather than prescribing this chapter’s exact workflow. 

The charter therefore identifies who can approve publication and who supervises the agency’s work. It also specifies what the agency may change within an approved brief and what requires a new decision. Paying a supplier does not answer those management questions.

Keep the operating model proportionate

A solo practitioner may perform several functions and retain help for editing or website work. A boutique may use a partner as sponsor, a marketing manager as operator, and its existing website provider. A larger firm may coordinate common standards centrally while assigning reviewers within each practice.

The firm should retain access to its program accounts, source records, approved content, and observation history. Make export and handover requirements explicit when hiring a supplier. This keeps the program usable when personnel or vendors change.

2.5 Budget for Expert Time, Internal Work, Specialist Support, and Tools

Build the budget from the work required. Include the time needed to obtain expertise, verify claims, write and edit, publish changes, observe answers, and review results. A software subscription covers only part of that work.

Separate staff capacity from additional cash expenditure. An existing employee’s hours consume capacity even when payroll does not increase. A supplier invoice is additional spending unless it is already covered by an existing agreement. Record both so leadership understands what it is authorizing.

A worked resource example

Assume a twelve-week pilot covering one service, two specified AI experiences, and revisions to four existing public assets: a service page, two biographies, and an approved case summary. The firm already has a functioning website, basic analytics, and a place to record inquiries. No website rebuild, original research study, or major integration is included.

The following allocation is an illustrative work plan. Actual requirements depend on the condition of the materials, the observation design, and the firm’s review process.

At an assumed planning cost of $100 per hour, the 144 hours represent $14,400 of staff capacity. A separate software allowance of $600 for the phase, equivalent to three monthly allowances of $200, produces a total planning allowance of $15,000. These are constructed assumptions, not market rates or quoted tool prices.

Replace the uniform hourly assumption with the firm’s chosen cost basis and actual role costs. Identify incremental cash separately. If some hours displace billable work, assess that opportunity cost explicitly; multiplying every hour by the headline billing rate can overstate the economic cost.

If a contractor replaces internal writing work, revise the corresponding internal allocation and include the contractor’s quote. Do not count both as though they were separate deliveries. Where a retainer already includes relevant work, clarify what capacity is available and what would require extra spending.

The example is a starting point for estimating, not a minimum budget. A smaller firm can reduce the scope and do more of the work itself. A firm with several languages, complex website changes, or substantial professional review will need a different estimate. Reserve an explicit contingency if important dependencies remain uncertain.

Buy capabilities that solve a defined problem

Begin with the systems the firm already uses for documents, work tracking, website management, analytics, and client records. Add a specialist tool when its capabilities justify the cost and the team has time to use its output.

For monitoring, ask whether the tool preserves the question, answer, date, source links, and the experience tested; whether observations can be exported; and what its scores actually mean. For content workflows, ask how experts supply facts, approve changes, and maintain published material. A product that does one job well does not automatically do the other.

Google states that third-party tools do not have access to its internal ranking or AI systems and recommends evaluating their advice against official guidance. Use that distinction in procurement: ask a provider to demonstrate the observations and workflow it supplies, and how those support your decisions. 

Check official reporting before buying overlapping functionality. Google Search Console provides a dedicated report of link impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode, with dimensions including page, country, date, and device. A property may not show the report when impressions are insufficient. These counts do not establish accurate description or client suitability; saved answer reviews address different questions. 

Have prospective suppliers demonstrate a small set of the firm’s actual use cases. Evaluate the records and decisions you can obtain, the human review required, relevant data-handling terms, and the total cost at your planned usage. Chapter 6 provides the detailed tool evaluation.

2.6 Define the Initial Phase, Success Criteria, Review Points, and Investment Decisions

Choose an initial period long enough to establish a baseline, complete a manageable set of improvements, and inspect subsequent answers. The twelve-week example is a budgeting and management choice. It is not a forecast of how quickly platforms will discover changes or how soon prospects will engage the firm.

Authorize a bounded phase, with resources and a decision date, rather than a standing commitment to produce an unspecified volume of content. Chapters 7 and 20 turn the approved scope into a detailed work plan and operating calendar.

Define what the first phase must establish

Specify three kinds of evidence.

• Delivery evidence: The selected facts have been verified; agreed materials have been updated and approved; relevant technical work has been checked; observations and costs have been recorded.
• Representation evidence: Repeated observations show how accurately and appropriately the firm appears for the agreed questions, with saved answers supporting the assessment.
• Commercial evidence: Relevant inquiries, reported AI involvement, qualification decisions, and subsequent progress are recorded alongside other influences on the client’s decision.

Set acceptance criteria for deliverables in concrete terms. “Update four pages” describes volume. A better requirement is that each page has a verified service or professional description, support for material claims, the required approval, and an owner responsible for maintaining it.

For answer changes, agree the evaluation rule after the baseline and before making the changes being evaluated. Define which questions and experiences count, what constitutes an accurate description, and what pattern would justify continued investment. Report small or inconsistent samples as uncertain rather than converting them into a confident success story.

Fix known material errors in the firm’s own public information promptly. Preserve a record of the correction; do not leave a misleading statement live simply to protect a test design.

Schedule decisions as well as activity

Use three review points for the initial phase.

• Readiness review: Confirm the scope, responsible people, available evidence, initial observations, and resources. Resolve dependencies and agree to the evaluation rules before expanding production.
• Progress review: Check completed work, blocked approvals, effort used, and whether the original information problem still appears important. Change the scope or resources explicitly if necessary.
• Investment review: Compare what was delivered, what changed in the observed answers, what business evidence exists, and what the next phase would cost.

If publication occurs late in the phase, say so. A review date does not create a meaningful observation period retroactively. Decide whether a limited extension would answer a specific unresolved question, and state its cost and end date.

Accounting example

An accounting firm’s pilot clarifies its outsourced monthly service. At the investment review, the selected pages are current, repeated answer checks more often describe the intended scope correctly, and intake staff can distinguish relevant inquiries from requests for services the firm does not provide.

Those findings support a claim about completed work and the observed descriptions. They do not yet establish incremental revenue. If the firm wants to extend the program, the proposal should identify the next question to resolve, such as whether suitable prospects are using those descriptions when evaluating the firm.

Leadership can continue the same scope to collect better evidence, expand into a related service, redirect effort toward a newly identified information problem, or stop discretionary activity that does not justify its cost. Expansion should have both a business rationale and the people needed to deliver it.

A disappointing visibility result does not erase the value of correcting inaccurate public information. Equally, useful housekeeping does not establish that an expensive expansion will pay for itself. Record both conclusions honestly and authorize the next investment on its own merits.

Practical Output: Write a One-Page GEO Program Charter

Use the following worked example as a structure for your own charter. Replace the hypothetical scope, roles, hours, and review points with the firm’s actual decisions. Put named people against each responsibility, and attach detailed work lists or budgets separately.

The sponsor and operator should be able to use the finished page to answer a new request: is this already in scope, what would it displace, and who can authorize a change? If the answer remains unclear, tighten the charter before commissioning more work.

Illustrative Charter: Consulting Service Pilot