Ranking on AI founder shares GEO playbook: How to get AI to recommend your SaaS and drive real conversions
Success is measured by one thing: real sign-ups and paying customers. The core strategy boils down to one rule: stop writing "What is X" and start targeting "Best X."
- Traditional SEO competes for a spot in Google's ten blue links. GEO competes for the few recommendations AI names when a user asks ChatGPT. If you're not named, you don't exist.
- Educational content like "What is X" is dead. The only queries left worth targeting are high-intent terms like "Best X" or "A vs. B"—searches made by people ready to buy.
- AI-driven traffic accounts for just 0.5% of total visits, yet delivers 12.1% of sign-ups—a conversion rate 23x that of organic search (misstated as 17x in the interview).
- However, click-through rates on AI answer links are only around 1%, meaning you should multiply your chatgpt.com row in GA4 by 100 to estimate actual impression volume.
- The full 6-step playbook: Build a clean, crawlable site → Mine high-intent queries → Write comparison posts → Target source sites AI already cites → Leverage third-party platforms → Measure only sign-ups and revenue. Complete with copy-paste prompts, outreach scripts, and real pricing.
- Three wasted efforts: llms.txt (97% of 137k sites were never crawled by any bot), fixing technical SEO while ignoring content, and buying "product+review.com" domains to stack fake positive reviews.
The difference between GEO and SEO
Tanya van Gastel, founder of Ranking on AI, recently sat down with Florian Darroman to dissect her Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategy: how to get your SaaS actively cited and recommended by AI models like ChatGPT and Claude—and how to convert those mentions into actual sign-ups and revenue.
What is Ranking on AI?
Ranking on AI is a specialized consultancy and service platform focused exclusively on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) for SaaS companies. It was founded by Tanya van Gastel.
If traditional SEO (Ranking on Google) helps your site land on page one of Google's ten blue links, Ranking on AI does something fundamentally different: ensuring AI models prioritize and recommend your product when users ask questions in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Google AI Overviews.
Best CRM tools
Returns 10 blue links; user clicks through to compare
Recommend 3 CRMs for small teams
Returns a direct answer naming just 3 products
Ten blue links offer ten chances for comparison. An AI recommendation names only a few, and users rarely look further once they get their answer. If you are not named, you do not exist.
Tanya uses "AI visibility" in the interview to describe the same concept as Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). The terms are used interchangeably below.
- SaaS Only
- No other verticals. Handles strategy, roadmaps, and execution as an outsourced growth team.
- Clients
- Suno (AI music generation), Cal.com (open-source scheduling), HappyRobot, Akiflow, and more. Most have raised $10M–$100M, alongside bootstrapped solo developers.
- Background
- Former founder of an AI photo SaaS ($30 one-time fee) built entirely via SEO and exited for six figures.
Two core problems it solves
Fewer users—especially software buyers—are clicking through traditional search results. Instead, they ask ChatGPT directly: "Recommend 3 CRMs for small teams" or "Is Software A better than Software B?"
These users are already at the bottom of the buying funnel. If AI leaves you out of the answer, you lose high-intent buyers without even knowing it.
Getting mentioned by AI and sharing a screenshot produces zero revenue. Their work focuses on two fronts: decoding how LLMs extract information from the web, and restructuring SaaS content to penetrate the source sites and rankings AI relies on.
The ultimate success metric is real sign-ups and paying customers—down to tracking which specific article drove revenue. This closed loop is the central theme of the conversation.
What this one-hour interview covers
The breakdown covers seven key areas, moving from high-impact priorities to total wastes of effort. The core actionable workflows are highlighted in the middle sections.
Let's start with the fundamental question: Is GEO actually worth your time?
AI drives low traffic volume, but converts 23x better than organic search
Her core pitch for solo developers centers on compounding returns. Paid ads stop delivering the moment you stop paying. Content published today continues driving traffic next year, making it the highest-margin acquisition channel available.
Her second point is psychological: AI recommendations feel like word-of-mouth advice from a colleague. Users who rely on ChatGPT or Claude daily have built trust with the tool. When it suggests a product organically, users click—a completely different dynamic than seeing an ad.
Tanya cited Ahrefs data claiming AI traffic converts 17x better than standard Google clicks. She actually understated the figure. Ahrefs' official blog reported a 23x gap: over a 30-day period, AI search accounted for just 0.5% of site visits but generated 12.1% of sign-ups. That 0.5% driving 12.1% is where the 23x multiplier comes from.
More important than conversion multipliers, however, is this reality: your analytics dashboard obscures how often you are recommended. A user journey from AI recommendation to recorded visit must pass through three distinct filters.
Her tactical recommendation: open GA4's Source/Medium report and multiply traffic numbers from chatgpt.com and claude.ai by 100 to estimate true brand impression volume. She remains skeptical of commercial AI rank trackers; because ChatGPT tailors answers to individual users, automated tools query via synthetic accounts and yield proxy data far removed from actual performance.
Educational "What is X" content is dead—focus solely on "Best X"
This was the most insight-packed section of the interview and her single most important recommendation. Consider how the same search intent plays out across two eras: