You can rank first and still not be the answer.
Search stopped being a list of links. Google answers the question itself, and a growing share of your buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity instead. We optimise for both — the rankings that still earn clicks, and the citations that decide who gets named in the answer.
- Every page, fix and article stays yours — permanently
- The $650 audit is credited back if you start a plan within 30 days
- 3-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days' notice
The report still looks fine. The traffic does not.
Nothing dramatic happens when search changes shape. No penalty, no drop in position, no warning. The rankings hold and the sessions quietly fall, which is why this usually goes unnoticed for a couple of quarters.
Rankings held. Clicks left.
Your positions are where they were promised. Sessions from search keep sliding anyway. Nothing broke — the answer simply moved above you, and the person who needed it never had a reason to scroll.
You are missing from the answers
Ask an assistant a question in your category and see which brands it names. If yours is not among them, a shortlist was drawn up and handed to a buyer without you ever being in the room.
Nobody can tell you why
The monthly report shows positions, impressions and maybe backlinks. It cannot show whether you were quoted in an answer, because almost nobody is measuring that yet.
There are two scoreboards now, not one.
Ranking and being cited are different outcomes with different causes, and a brand can be winning one while losing the other. Work out which box you are in before you buy anything from anyone.
What is Generative Engine Optimization?
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring content so that AI answer engines — Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot — can extract it, trust it and name your brand as a source. Where classic SEO competes for a position on a page of links, GEO competes to be the sentence inside the answer.
The two share a foundation. An engine that cannot crawl, parse or trust your site will not rank you and will not quote you either. Beyond that foundation the jobs diverge: ranking rewards relevance and authority against a query, while citation rewards passages that are self-contained, specific, answer-first and easy to lift without distortion.
How that changes what actually gets done
Content stops being written to hit a keyword and starts being written to answer a question completely in its first two sentences. Headings become the questions people actually ask. Facts get stated once, consistently, everywhere your brand appears, because an engine that finds three different versions of who you are will trust none of them. And structured data stops being a technical checkbox and becomes the machine-readable version of every claim you make.
What makes a passage quotable.
The fairest question to ask any SEO retainer is what will physically be different about your website. Here is the honest answer, in the form it usually takes — the same claim, rewritten so an engine can lift it without distorting it.
Before — nothing to lift
After — extractable
Three things have to be true first.
Content strategy is the interesting part and the part everyone sells. It is also worthless on a site an engine cannot crawl, parse or trust. The audit exists to find out which of these is quietly costing you, before anybody writes a word.
It can be crawled and read
Speed, rendering, internal linking, duplicate and thin pages, indexation, broken canonicals. Unglamorous, and the reason a lot of good content never had a chance. Monitored and fixed every month on every plan.
It is machine-readable
Structured data that describes what each page actually is — the organisation, the service, the FAQ, the article, the breadcrumb. This is how a claim on your page becomes a fact an engine is willing to repeat.
It says the same thing everywhere
One name, one description, one set of facts across your site, your profiles and every directory you appear in. An engine that finds three versions of who you are will confidently repeat none of them.
What lands every month, at each level.
Three plans, separated by how much writing we do for you and how far the visibility work goes. Everything is countable on purpose — if a line cannot be counted, it should not be on an invoice.
Scroll the table sideways to compare all three plans →
| Every month you get | Essential$850/mo | Growth$1,600/mo | Authority$2,800/mo |
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The audit, before anyone promises you anything.
We will not quote you a plan before we have looked. The SEO & AI Visibility Audit is $650 one-time, takes about a week, and produces a prioritised roadmap you keep regardless of what you do next. Start a plan within 30 days and the $650 is credited back in full.
- Technical crawl — what is stopping pages being found, read or indexed at all
- Content and structure review — which pages can be made quotable, and which should be merged or retired
- Authority position — who is beating you, on what, and whether it is winnable
- AI visibility check — whether assistants name you for the questions your buyers ask, and who they name instead
- A prioritised roadmap — ordered by impact against effort, and yours to keep or hand to anyone else
All prices in USD. Plans are invoiced monthly in advance with a 3-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. Search work needs a full quarter before the numbers mean anything, which is the only reason the minimum exists.
Four commitments most search retainers avoid.
Worth asking whoever else you are speaking to, because the answers separate a search partner from a monthly ranking report.
We measure both scoreboards
Rankings are easy to report and increasingly incomplete. On the Authority plan we track whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity actually name you — and treat it as a number to move, not a curiosity.
We tell you what is not worth chasing
Some terms are owned by someone with ten years and a thousand links on you. We will say so and spend your budget on the ones that are winnable, rather than billing you to lose slowly.
Every fix and article is yours
The rewritten pages, the articles, the schema, the roadmap and the data belong to you permanently. Nothing is held on our platform, and nothing switches off when we stop.
Written for your market, not translated into it
Search behaves differently in every language and every local variant of it. Content is written in the language your buyers actually search in, by someone who speaks it natively.
What you keep, and what you are committing to.
The uncomfortable questions are the ones worth answering before you sign, not after. Here are ours, unprompted.
- You own the work. Pages, articles, schema, the audit roadmap and all the data — during the engagement and permanently after it.
- The audit is credited back in full if you start a plan within 30 days, so the diagnosis never costs you twice.
- 3-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days' notice. Search needs a full quarter before its numbers are trustworthy.
- No guaranteed positions, ever. Anyone guaranteeing you a rank is either buying links you will pay for later or describing a term nobody searches.
- A dedicated strategist as your single point of contact, replying within one business day.
What search cannot do on its own.
Search compounds, which is its strength and its problem — it is slow at the start. These three sit around it, and during the session we will say plainly if you do not need any of them.
Media Buying
Search takes a quarter to be trustworthy. Paid buys the enquiries in the meantime, so cash flow does not depend on a curve that has not turned yet.
Website Development
Sometimes the honest audit finding is that the site itself is the blocker — unfixable templates, no structure, nothing an engine can read. Then the site is the project, not the retainer.
CRO & Analytics
Ranking sends people. It does not make the page convert them. CRO turns the traffic search earns into enquiries instead of sessions.
Everything worth asking before you sign.
How much does SEO cost?
Three monthly plans: Essential at $850, Growth at $1,600 and Authority at $2,800. They differ by how many pages we optimise, how much writing we do for you, and how far the AI visibility work goes. Every engagement starts with a one-time SEO & AI Visibility Audit at $650, which is credited back in full if you start a plan within 30 days.
What is GEO, and is it a real thing or a buzzword?
Generative Engine Optimization is the practice of structuring content so AI answer engines can extract it, trust it and name your brand as a source. It is real in the sense that the behaviour is measurable — you can ask an assistant a question in your category and observe which brands it names. It is a buzzword when someone sells it as a separate product with no technical foundation underneath. It is not separate from SEO; it is the second half of it.
Why do I have to pay for an audit first?
Because quoting a plan without looking would be guessing, and because roughly a third of what limits a site turns out to be technical rather than editorial. The audit takes about a week, gives you a prioritised roadmap you keep whatever you decide, and is credited back in full against your first invoice if you start within 30 days.
How long before we see results?
Technical fixes can move things within weeks. Content and authority work takes a quarter before the trend is trustworthy, and competitive terms often take two. This is why the minimum term is three months. Anyone offering you a position by a specific date is either guessing or buying links you will pay for later.
Can you guarantee we will rank first?
No, and neither can anyone else honestly. Nobody controls the ranking algorithm or the answer engines. What we will do is tell you which terms are realistically winnable for a brand your size, show you the movement each month, and say plainly when something is not working.
We already rank well. Why would we need this?
Ranking well and being cited in AI answers are different outcomes. If your rankings are holding but search traffic is drifting down, that gap is usually the cause — the answer is being given above your listing, assembled from sources that were structured to be quotable. The audit will tell you whether that is happening to you specifically.
Who writes the content?
On Growth and Authority we write it, to a brief, in your voice, and you approve before anything publishes. On Essential we supply briefs and your team writes. If you have an in-house writer we can work that way at any tier — say so during the session and we will scope it accordingly.
Do I own the work if we stop?
Yes, completely and permanently. The optimised pages, the articles, the structured data, the audit roadmap and all the reporting belong to you. Nothing lives on our platform and nothing is switched off when the engagement ends.
What is the minimum commitment?
Three months on monthly plans, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. The three months exist because search results need a full quarter to produce a trustworthy signal, not to lock you in.
Which languages can you do this in?
We work in the language your market actually searches in, and in its local variant — search behaviour, phrasing and even question structure differ between US and UK English, and between Spanish written for Madrid and for Mexico City. English and Spanish are in active use today; any other language is taken on only with a native speaker of that market on the account.
Book a strategy session
45 minutes. $95, credited in full toward your first invoice.
We look at your site live, run your category through an assistant to see who it names, and tell you whether your problem is technical, editorial or authority — before you have spent anything on fixing the wrong one.
- A live look at your site, not a discovery questionnaire
- We check whether assistants name you — and who they name instead
- The $95 comes straight off your first invoice