5 GEO Hacks to Get Your Startup Mentioned by ChatGPT (Step by Step)

GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is how your startup or brand gets recommended by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini — and most go-to-market teams are ignoring it. In this episode of GTM Hackers, host Charles Brun sits down with Mehrab Hojjati Pour, founder of SEO and GEO agency SEOMode, to walk through 5 practical AI search hacks you can run this week to win AI search visibility, earn brand mentions in LLM answers, and drive high-intent inbound leads. 🚀 Mehrab shares the exact playbook his agency uses to rank clients in AI search results in as little as two weeks: how to find the bottom-of-funnel prompts your ICP actually asks, how to extract the hidden search queries ChatGPT runs behind the scenes, a 4-agent AI content generation workflow, the striking distance strategy for fast page-one wins using Google Search Console, and how to find the Reddit threads LLMs cite most. Whether you're a startup founder, GTM engineer, or marketing leader, you'll discover why SEO and GEO deserve a place at the START of your go-to-market strategy — and why inbound leads from AI search convert significantly better than traditional SEO traffic. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – Intro: the most overlooked growth channel in GTM 01:00 – Meet Mehrab: from backlink service to full SEO/GEO agency 04:30 – Hack #1: Finding high-value GEO prompts your ICP actually asks 09:00 – Why to track high-level prompts, not every query variation 11:00 – Hack #2: Extracting ChatGPT's hidden search queries (DevTools walkthrough) 13:30 – Turning those queries into guest posts and listicles that get cited 18:00 – Ranking difficulty by LLM: why Claude (Brave search) is the hardest to crack 21:00 – Hack #3: The 4-agent AI content generation workflow 26:00 – Using Google itself to pick your internal linking opportunities 27:30 – Content freshness: what to refresh, what to leave alone 30:00 – Hack #4: The striking distance strategy (Search Console + Claude Cowork) 33:30 – Hack #5: Finding the Reddit threads that rank — and getting mentioned 44:00 – Where to start: GEO first, then traditional SEO 48:00 – The one takeaway every GTM leader should keep in mind 🔑 KEY HIGHLIGHTS 1. A proven Claude prompt that reverse-engineers your website into the exact buyer prompts to target in AI search 2. Focus on 4-10 commercial, bottom-of-funnel prompts that trigger a live search — skip informational queries 3. The DevTools trick to see ChatGPT's real "search model queries" and use them as guest post titles 4. Why unique content is overrated: topical authority, backlinks, and internal linking move rankings more 5. Easiest to hardest AI platforms to rank in: Grok, Perplexity, Gemini → ChatGPT → AI Overviews → Claude 6. Reddit is the most-cited source in LLM answers, followed by YouTube and LinkedIn 7. Why GEO leads convert significantly better than traditional SEO traffic 👤 ABOUT THE GUEST Mehrab is the founder of SEOMode, an SEO and GEO agency that helps startups get ranked and cited across Google and AI search engines. A software engineer by background, he builds custom tracking tools, MCP servers, and agent workflows that automate the boring parts of SEO — while keeping human judgment where it matters. 🎙️ ABOUT THE HOST Charles Brun is a startup founder and GTM leader, and the host of GTM Hackers — the show that goes inside the minds of revenue architects building AI-powered go-to-market systems. 👍 ENJOYED THIS EPISODE? Subscribe for more no-fluff GTM and AI growth tactics, drop a like, and tell us in the comments: is GEO part of your go-to-market strategy yet? 🔗 RESOURCES & LINKS Charles Brun on LinkedIn:   / charlesbrun   GTM Hackers: https://gtmhackers.com/ Follow Mehrab on X (@mehrab_build) and LinkedIn:   / mehrab-hp   Sponsor: Everest | The AI assistant that schedules your meetings and syncs your calendars | https://everest.ag/