HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC — When a customer asks ChatGPT “who’s the best roofer in Hilton Head” or types “best Lowcountry wedding photographer” into Google’s AI Overview, the answer that comes back isn’t pulled from a Yellow Pages ad or a Google Ads bid. It’s synthesized by a large language model citing whatever sources the model trusts.
That shift — from blue-link search to AI-cited answers — is what Real Internet Sales is built to solve. Founded by Todd Hunnicutt, RIS is a marketing agency focused on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): the discipline of getting a client’s business named, quoted, and recommended by AI search engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot) and the AI-powered answer boxes that now sit above traditional search results.
In this month’s HERE City Network C-Suite Interview, Hunnicutt sits down to talk about what GEO actually is, how it differs from traditional SEO, why most local businesses are invisible to AI engines today, and the multi-channel content strategy his team uses to fix that — including digital PR, local media placements like HERECity.com, owned-asset SEO, structured data, and AI-citation auditing.
Q1 — For a business owner who’s never heard the term, what is Generative Engine Optimization?
A: Generative Engine Optimization — GEO for short — is the practice of optimizing a business’s online footprint so that AI search engines name that business when a user asks a question. Traditional SEO optimized for Google’s blue links. GEO optimizes for the answer itself.
When someone asks ChatGPT “who installs metal roofing in Hilton Head,” ChatGPT doesn’t return ten links and let the user pick. It returns a paragraph that names two or three companies. If your business isn’t in that paragraph, you’re invisible. The blue-link era let you fight for a click. The AI era either cites you or it doesn’t — there’s no second page.
And it’s already a massive share of search. Google rolled out AI Overviews to U.S. users in 2024. ChatGPT crossed 200 million weekly active users that same year. Perplexity is doing tens of millions of searches a day. The behavior shift happened faster than anyone in the marketing industry was ready for.
Q2 — How is GEO different from traditional SEO?
A: Traditional SEO is about ranking a URL. GEO is about being quoted by a model. Those are different optimization targets and the tactics diverge fast.
SEO rewards backlinks, page authority, and keyword targeting. GEO rewards three things SEO never cared about: citation density — how many third-party sources mention your business by name; semantic clarity — does your own content actually describe what you do in language a language model can lift; and structured authority — schema markup, Wikipedia presence, knowledge-graph entries, review-platform signals that models cross-reference when they’re deciding who to name.
A business can rank #1 on Google for “Beaufort County roofing” and still be completely missing from ChatGPT’s answer for the same query. We see this constantly when we audit new clients. Their SEO consultant did a fine job for 2015. For 2026, they’re invisible.
Q3 — Walk me through what a GEO engagement actually looks like.
A: Every engagement at Real Internet Sales starts with an AI Citation Audit. We query ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews with the questions the client’s actual customers ask — “best HVAC company near Hilton Head,” “who does foundation repair in Beaufort,” whatever the buyer-intent queries are for that business. We log which AI engines name the client, which name competitors instead, and what sources those engines are citing.
That audit is the baseline. From there the playbook splits into four workstreams.
Owned-asset optimization: we rebuild the client’s website with structured data, FAQ schema, location schema, and content that’s written in the question-and-answer shape that LLMs prefer to quote. We add author bios, expertise signals, and the kind of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) markup Google’s quality team published guidance on.
Digital PR and earned media: we get the client named in third-party publications — industry trade press, regional business journals, local news sites, niche blogs in the client’s vertical. Models trust mentions in places they didn’t train on the client’s own marketing copy. A local-news byline mentioning the business by name is worth more to an AI engine than ten paid links.
Review and reputation density: we drive review volume on Google Business Profile, Yelp, BBB, vertical-specific platforms (Houzz for contractors, Avvo for attorneys, Healthgrades for doctors). LLMs aggregate sentiment across these platforms when they decide who to recommend.
Knowledge-graph and structured presence: we audit and fix the client’s Wikipedia presence where applicable, Wikidata entry, Crunchbase listing, LinkedIn company page, and the dozen or so data-broker sources that feed into the entity graphs models use to disambiguate businesses.
Q4 — Where does HERE City Network fit into that?
A: HERE is one channel of many. We use it as a digital PR placement for clients whose buyer-intent queries are city-scoped — “best [service] in [city]” — because HERE publishes long-form local journalism that AI engines cite when they’re answering local queries.
But to be very clear: RIS and HERE City Network are two different companies. RIS is the marketing agency. HERE is a local-news publisher. We place client content on HERE the same way we place it on Upstate Business Journal, the Charlotte Business Journal, or any other vertical and regional outlet that makes sense for a given client.
For a roofer in Hilton Head, HERE Hilton Head is a strong channel because the AI engines treat local-news domain authority as a strong signal for local-intent queries. For a B2B SaaS company selling nationally, HERE wouldn’t be the right placement — we’d target the industry trade press instead. The channel mix depends on the client’s customers, not on the agency’s preferred channel.
Q5 — What’s the biggest mistake businesses make trying to do GEO themselves?
A: Three mistakes, in order of how often we see them.
One: they assume good SEO equals good GEO. It doesn’t. We have clients who paid $5,000 a month to an SEO agency for three years and rank beautifully on Google’s blue links, and ChatGPT has literally never heard of them. Different optimization target. Different tactics. Different success metric.
Two: they over-invest in their own website and under-invest in third-party mentions. Your own website is the least trusted source an AI engine has for what your business does. Models discount self-published claims by design — they’re trained to detect promotional language. You can write the best “About Us” page in the world and a model won’t cite it. But if a local newspaper writes a 600-word feature about your business, that’s a citation the model will use.
Three: they don’t measure. The companies treating GEO seriously have a dashboard tracking which AI engines name them, for which queries, with what frequency, vs. which competitors. We rebuild that audit every 30 days for every client. If you can’t see the score, you can’t move it.
Q6 — What kinds of businesses should be investing in GEO right now?
A: Any business where the customer journey starts with a question. That’s most service businesses, all professional services (legal, medical, accounting, financial advice), home services (HVAC, roofing, plumbing, electrical, landscaping), specialty retail, hospitality, and any B2B vertical with a research-heavy buying cycle.
Where GEO matters less is impulse retail and pure ecommerce — those buyers don’t ask AI “where should I buy a coffee mug.” They go to Amazon. But for anything with a consideration phase — anything where the customer types a question — GEO is now table stakes.
Geographic scope matters too. A national B2B SaaS company is fighting a much larger citation pool than a regional roofer. The regional roofer can win GEO in a market like Hilton Head with eighteen months of consistent third-party placements. The B2B SaaS company needs a sustained PR engine for years. Different timelines, same playbook.
Q7 — What should a business owner do this week if they want to start?
A: Three things, free, today.
One: open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overview. Type the three queries your best customers would type — the actual buyer-intent questions, not your branded keywords. If you’re a roofer in Hilton Head, that’s “best roofer in Hilton Head,” “metal roofing companies near Beaufort,” “who does storm damage repair Lowcountry.” Write down whether your business is named, which competitors are named instead, and what sources the AI is citing.
Two: Google your own business name and look at the right-side knowledge panel. Is it claimed? Is the information accurate? Are the hours, services, and service area correct? That panel feeds the entity graph that models use to disambiguate.
Three: count your third-party mentions. Search “[your business name] -site:[yourdomain.com]” on Google. How many independent sources mention you? If the answer is under twenty, you have a citation-density problem and that’s the single highest-leverage thing to fix.
That’s the audit. The hard work is what happens after — sustained content, digital PR, structured data, review velocity, knowledge-graph cleanup. That’s where Real Internet Sales comes in.
Real Internet Sales is an AI marketing and Generative Engine Optimization agency working with service businesses, professional firms, and B2B companies nationwide. Learn more at realinternetsales.com.
The HERE City Network C-Suite Interview Series profiles founders and executives of companies serving the markets HERE covers. Interview subjects are not paid; interview placements are not for sale. To apply for a future C-Suite Interview, visit herecity.com/csuite-interview.