Describe Yourself Clearly First: A Company Fact Base Is the Foundation of GEO
When an AI describes a company, it can only use what it finds online. If you haven't organized your own company, product and certification information, and different channels say different things, the AI may get it wrong, stay vague or leave you out. The first job in GEO is to build an internal "company fact base".
Why AI gets your company wrong
Common situations:
- Your website says "founded in 2008", a B2B platform says 2010, and LinkedIn shows another year.
- Your Chinese name has been translated into three English spellings, and the AI thinks they are three companies.
- Product specifications exist only in PDFs and images; the web page just says "efficient and energy-saving, quality guaranteed".
- An expired certificate is still on display, while a newly issued one was never added.
An AI won't call you to ask which version is right. When information conflicts, it picks one or says less.
What the fact base should contain
Put this information in one internal document, have one person maintain it, and make it the reference for everything you publish:
| Category | Contents | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Company basics | Full legal names in Chinese and English, brand name, founding year, factory address, floor area, headcount | Use only one English spelling |
| Products and specifications | Models, key specification ranges, suitable applications and unsuitable cases for each series | Include units; match the product catalog |
| Certifications | Certificate name, number, issuing body, expiry date | Remove expired ones promptly |
| Production and quality | Main equipment, capacity, inspection process, lead time range | Use numbers instead of adjectives |
| Markets and cases | Export countries, typical projects, trade fairs attended | Name customers only with their consent |
| FAQs | The 20 questions buyers ask most, with standard answers | Collect them from sales emails and chats |
The last item is especially valuable. The questions buyers ask your sales team by email are very likely the questions they ask AI.
How to use the fact base
The fact base is an internal tool; public AI tools can't read it. Its job is to make every public channel say the same thing:
- Website: rewrite the company, product, certification and FAQ pages from the fact base, with specifications and certifications written as text.
- LinkedIn: keep the company page's description, industry, size and website consistent with your site; sales staff profiles should name the company clearly.
- Social media: take TikTok, YouTube and Facebook bios and video captions from the fact base.
- B2B platforms and directories: check them one by one and correct outdated information.
- Content production: when you write articles, including with AI help, give the AI the fact base as source material and tell it to use only those facts, so it doesn't invent specifications or case studies.
How to tell if it's working
After the fact base is in place and your channels are updated, ask AI the same few questions at regular intervals:
- "Tell me about [your English company name]"
- "What products does [company name] make? What certifications does it have?"
- "What applications is [company name]'s [product] suited to?"
Compare each answer with the fact base and note what is right, what is wrong and what is missing. GEOmonitorai's buyer-question tests follow the same approach: fixed questions, recorded test conditions and regular retests to see whether accuracy improves.
AI answers vary with wording, language and time, so don't judge from one screenshot. Look at the trend over a period.
Further reading: Why ChatGPT Doesn't Mention Your Company: 7 Technical Causes · What Is an AI Visibility Tool? And What It Should Measure · Free AI crawler robots.txt checker
GEO Basics series, part 6 of 10. Next: One Compressor, Two Descriptions: Which Will AI Quote?
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