When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews a question related to your business, one of two things happens: either your website is cited as a source, or someone else's is. Which outcome you get depends on whether AI tools can read your site, understand who you are, and trust your content enough to quote it. That is what Generative Engine Optimization, or GEO, is about. And a lot of what you can do depends on which platform your site runs on.
Why this matters more than it did two years ago
Search behavior is shifting. A growing share of people now ask AI tools their research questions instead of typing into Google and clicking links. When someone searches for "best accountant in [city]" or "how to choose a web designer" and an AI tool answers, the businesses that get named are the ones whose websites made it easy to be cited. The ones that do not show up may not even know they are missing from the conversation.
Three things that determine GEO readiness
You do not need to understand every technical detail to take meaningful action. There are three things that matter most:
- •AI bot access: whether the tools that power ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews are allowed to crawl your site. This is controlled in your robots.txt file, which tells crawlers what they can and cannot access.
- •Schema markup: structured data that tells AI tools who you are (your business name, location, what you do) and what kind of content you publish (FAQ answers, how-to guides, blog posts). Without it, AI tools have to guess.
- •Content in the HTML: for most sites on Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress, this is not a problem. Those platforms render page content in the initial HTML that crawlers receive. The narrow exception is custom JavaScript components, such as an accordion or FAQ section built with a third-party script that only reveals text when a visitor clicks. If you built something like that using a code block or a custom plugin, the answers may not be in the HTML at all. Native platform components do not have this issue.
WordPress: the most you can do
WordPress gives you complete control over every GEO signal. If your site runs on WordPress, none of the following require a developer. They all work through free plugins.
- •AI bot access: install Rank Math (free) or Yoast SEO (free). Both give you a robots.txt editor inside the WordPress admin. Add allow rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended if they are not already permitted.
- •Organization schema: Rank Math's Knowledge Graph settings let you input your business name, type, logo, and description. It outputs the correct JSON-LD automatically. Yoast SEO's equivalent is under SEO > Search Appearance > Knowledge Graph & Schema.
- •FAQPage schema: Rank Math adds FAQPage schema automatically when you use its FAQ block in the WordPress editor. Add questions and answers to any page and the schema is generated without any code. Yoast SEO handles this similarly through the Yoast FAQ block.
- •Content visibility: standard WordPress themes do not hide content from crawlers the way some JavaScript-heavy frameworks do. If you use a page builder like Elementor, check that FAQ sections use native accordion elements rather than JavaScript-dependent show/hide components.
Wix: better than most people expect
Wix has the strongest built-in GEO capability of any fully managed platform. Most of what matters is available directly in the Wix dashboard without any code.
- •AI bot access: Wix provides a robots.txt editor at Settings > SEO > robots.txt. It is limited compared to a fully custom file but lets you add allow rules for major AI crawlers. Add rules for GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, and Google-Extended.
- •Organization and LocalBusiness schema: Wix auto-generates Organization or LocalBusiness schema at the site level based on your business information. Make sure your business details are complete under Settings > Business Info -- this feeds the schema automatically.
- •FAQPage and custom schema: Wix's Structured Data Markup tool (Marketing & SEO > SEO Tools > Structured Data) lets you add custom schema types including FAQPage. You can build FAQ question and answer pairs through a form interface with no code required.
- •Content visibility: Wix's platform handles its own rendering. Pages built with Wix's native blocks and widgets are generally readable by crawlers without the JavaScript visibility issues that affect custom-coded sites.
Squarespace: some good news, some real limits
Squarespace controls its own infrastructure, which limits what you can change. But the starting position is better than many Squarespace users expect.
- •AI bot access: Squarespace generates your robots.txt automatically and you cannot edit it. The good news is that Squarespace's default robots.txt allows all crawlers, including AI bots. No action is needed here. AI tools can already access your site.
- •Organization schema: Squarespace auto-generates basic schema for your site including Organization markup. You cannot customize or validate it directly. If there are errors in the auto-generated schema, they cannot be fixed without contacting Squarespace.
- •FAQPage schema: Squarespace does not generate FAQPage schema natively. The only way to add it is through Squarespace's custom code injection feature (Settings > Advanced > Code Injection). You would paste a JSON-LD block into the header. This is doable but requires writing or copying specific code, which is more technical than the Wix or WordPress approaches.
- •Content visibility: Squarespace's native FAQ and accordion blocks generally keep content in the page HTML. If you have built your FAQ using a custom code block with JavaScript show/hide behavior, crawlers may not see the answers.
What works on any platform
Two GEO signals are within reach regardless of which platform you use:
- •Add a sitemap and make sure it is referenced in your robots.txt. WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace all generate sitemaps automatically. Submit yours to Google Search Console to confirm AI crawlers and Googlebot can discover your pages.
- •Write FAQ content in plain, direct language. AI tools quote content that clearly answers a specific question. A paragraph that begins with the question and answers it in the next sentence is more citable than the same information buried in a general description. This applies to any page on any platform.
Start here
If you are not sure where to begin, this order covers the highest-impact steps first:
- •Check that your sitemap exists and is submitted in Google Search Console. All three platforms generate one automatically.
- •Confirm your business name, location, and description are complete in your platform settings. WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace all use these details to generate schema automatically.
- •If you are on WordPress: install Rank Math (free) and use its FAQ block on your About or Services page. It generates FAQPage schema automatically.
- •If you are on Wix: open the Structured Data Markup tool and add a FAQPage entry with your most common customer questions.
- •If you are on Squarespace: your robots.txt and basic schema are already handled by the platform. Focus on writing clear FAQ content directly on your pages.
- •Run a free Stackra scan to see your current GEO signal scores, which bots are allowed, what schema is detected, and whether your entity information is clear enough for AI tools to recognize you.