{"id":132043,"date":"2025-09-12T10:38:33","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/132043\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T10:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:38:33","slug":"how-to-position-your-agency-as-an-ai-search-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/132043\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Position Your Agency As An AI Search Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was sponsored by Visto<\/a>.\u00a0The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor\u2019s own.<\/p>\n

Clients keep asking a new question: \u201cAre we visible in AI search?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the reality: Google\u2019s AI Overviews are reducing organic traffic by 30-70%<\/a> for many businesses.<\/p>\n

In fact, we\u2019re seeing that SEO agencies that incorporate GEO<\/a> (Generative Engine Optimization) tactics into their SEO strategy and offerings are charging $4,000\/month<\/a> for these additional menu services.<\/p>\n

However, when it comes to GEO, a newly evolved and still-evolving branch of SEO, answering the AI visibility question is:<\/p>\n

Less about grand strategy.
\nMore about a quick field check.<\/p>\n

But if you skip the check and jump straight to fixes, you risk solving the wrong problem.<\/p>\n

SEO & GEO Checklist To Regain Client Visibility<\/p>\n

Phase 1. Perform An AI Visibility Audit To Confirm If There Is A Visibility Gap<\/p>\n

Start with a simple AI Visibility Audit:<\/p>\n

Select five to 10 key phrases that align with the business\u2019s goals.
\nSearch those phrases across Google\u2019s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, Perplexity, and ChatGPT.
\nLook at the AI answer first, not the classic blue links.
\nDo you show up? Are you cited? Which competitors are visible and cited? Notate this for each phrase.
\nNotate down which competitors are cited and where any links point; take screenshots to showcase in any presentations.<\/p>\n

Once you identify which phrases you display and those you do not, you can begin to build a comprehensive audit, repeating the steps as you would for keyword research or, traditionally, People Also Ask research.<\/p>\n

The Easy Way: Use this AI Visibility audit<\/a> and bring the snapshot to your next client call. It gets you out of the \u201cwe think\u201d zone and into \u201chere\u2019s what we saw today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phase 2. Interpret Your AI Visibility From The Audit Results<\/p>\n

Once you have your audit results in hand, it\u2019s time to determine where you stand:<\/p>\n

Highly visible: Your brand is named inside the answer. Great. Assess what\u2019s working<\/a>, and expand upon it.
\nPartially visible: Your content fuels the answer, but the brand is missing. That erodes authority<\/a> over time.
\nAbsent: The answer engines are leaning on other sources. That\u2019s your gap, and your opportunity.<\/p>\n

Notice how some of this is traditional ranking talk, and other facets are new.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s time for a new lens here.<\/p>\n

Look at GEO as more of a traffic channel, as opposed to a new technique: Do we show up in the answer people actually read?<\/p>\n

This is where agencies need to act fast. If you\u2019re not helping clients with GEO now, they\u2019ll find someone who will.<\/p>\n

Phase 3. Showcase The Real Problem Behind Falling Organic Traffic<\/p>\n

In this step, it\u2019s time to connect the dots for everyone outside of your SEO team.<\/p>\n

How will clients or bosses handle a change to your reporting?<\/p>\n

What is the best way to convince a stakeholder that they need additional SEO services to stay ahead during the GEO boom?<\/p>\n

How To Clarify The AI Addition To SEO For Clients & Stakeholders<\/p>\n

This is how to turn a vague \u201ctraffic is down\u201d conversation into \u201chere\u2019s where we\u2019re missing in the answer and what we\u2019ll fix.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within your audit presentation, the AI Search findings should follow this structure:<\/p>\n

Rule out serving issues<\/a> that can tank crawl or clicks. Do not include these in the report during this part of the conversation.
\nSplit branded from non-branded terms<\/a>, as AI answers often cluster around certain intents. Display this information broken out.<\/p>\n

Pro Tip: Leverage a side-by-side comparison. The left side could include the AI answer with your brand\u2019s status. The right side a quick look at on-site metrics for those same topics.<\/p>\n

Phase 4. Consider The Perfect Mix Of Traditional SEO & GEO<\/p>\n

Once your audit is approved, and a contract is in place to expand your SEO offerings to include GEO techniques, it\u2019s time to apply the perfect mix of traditional SEO and GEO to improve visibility in the areas you\u2019ve identified in the audit.<\/p>\n

From a high level, there are two constraints that change the game, especially when adding GEO tactics to your SEO offerings:<\/p>\n

Speed (\u201ctime to first token\u201d). AI systems have to answer fast. Crawlers are impatient, so pages that surface the right answer early tend to win the tie.
\nContext window<\/a>. Models skim and compress. Think skim-friendly, middle-school clarity: straightforward headings, unambiguous entities, and no padding.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why old habits can backfire. You\u2019re optimizing for clarity, entities, and extractability, not density.<\/p>\n

How Do I Approach SEO & GEO The Right Way?<\/p>\n

The way we think about it is this: if SEO is about ranking for keywords, GEO is about showing up for prompts.<\/p>\n

How Does A Prompt Differ From Keywords?<\/p>\n

When someone types a prompt, modern AI doesn\u2019t just \u201clook up\u201d one thing. It:<\/p>\n

Breaks the prompt into sub-questions<\/a>.
\nRuns background searches<\/a>.
\nShortlists<\/a> a small set of pages worth crawling right now.<\/p>\n

From our perspective, that\u2019s the bridge between SEO and GEO: your classic search visibility still matters, but only as a feeder into which sources the AI decides to read.<\/p>\n

What To Focus On When Incorporating GEO Into Your SEO Strategies<\/p>\n

You will see overlaps here; that\u2019s because there are slight changes to traditional methods that you\u2019ll need to consider when optimizing for answer engines.<\/p>\n

What to focus on, from a traditional SEO angle:<\/p>\n

On-page SEO: answer-first structure<\/a>, clean headings, scannable evidence.
\nTechnical\u00a0SEO (or GEO for Answer Engines): Fast paths to answers; crawlability that supports quick fetches.
\nContent gaps your competitors are filling in AI answers.\u00a0We\u2019re consistently surprised by how often the \u201cnearly there\u201d pages win. If the AI crawler already understands a page, one sharp paragraph and a clearer H1 can push it over the top.
\nLink analysis to strengthen credible citations<\/a>.
\nCompetitor analysis of who\u2019s being named in answers (and why).
\nSentiment analysis to catch how your brand is described when it\u2019s mentioned.<\/p>\n

What to focus on, from the GEO perspective:<\/p>\n

The semantic space<\/a> AI explores vs. the entity mapping<\/a> in your content.
\nTechnical GEO (or SEO for Answer Engines): Fast paths to answers; crawlability that supports quick fetches<\/a>.
\nContent gaps your competitors are filling in AI answers.<\/p>\n

The Easy Way: Visto<\/a> can consolidate these checks into a single workflow, allowing you to baseline quickly and track progress without needing a dozen tools.<\/p>\n

Phase 5. Implement GEO Tactics Into Your SEO Strategy To Regain & Grow Visibility
\nStep 1. Provide Answers Upfront<\/p>\n

Within traditional SEO, this refers to improving readability.<\/p>\n

Your goal here is to give the answer engine what it needs as quickly as a good support team would:<\/p>\n

Lead your most important pages with the plain-English answer your buyer is after.
\nOne or two sentences up top, then the detail and sources.<\/p>\n

If the reader needs to scroll to find the point, the crawler will likely give up at that same point.<\/p>\n

Step 2. Strengthen Entity Clarity<\/p>\n

Next, make the page unambiguous with consistent:<\/p>\n

Product names.
\nCategories.
\nSpecs.
\nSimple schema<\/a> to help the system map your entity to the right concepts.<\/p>\n

Think of this as labeling the shelves in a small shop. If the labels are clear, the model finds what it came for without guessing.<\/p>\n

Step 3. Implement Technical GEO<\/p>\n

Then handle the technical side of GEO. AI crawlers care about<\/a> time to the first useful token, so shorten the path to the answer.<\/p>\n

Tighten titles and H1s, move key facts above the fold, and keep interstitials from blocking the first read. The AI crawler has a limited context window and reads fast. Help it skim the right lines.<\/p>\n

Step 4. Assess Comparison Coverage<\/p>\n

If your customers compare options, publish a straightforward comparison that highlights only the differences people ask about.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019ve seen is that honest tables and short \u201cwho it\u2019s for\u201d notes get cited more than glossy positioning.<\/p>\n

Step 5. Manage Links & Sentiment<\/p>\n

Finally, reinforce what supports the page. Link credible sources to the version you want cited. Check how your brand is described in the existing answers. If the tone is off, correct the original source you\u2019re referencing.<\/p>\n

Then, regularly review your metrics: presence, named mentions, and competitor share. GEO isn\u2019t a set-and-forget channel, so a light monthly review helps prevent drift.<\/p>\n

Visto\u2019s platform automates much of this tracking, giving agencies the tools to prove value with measurable, prompt-level insights and easy-to-share reports.<\/p>\n

Examples: Learn From Early GEO Adopters Who Are Rebuilding Traffic<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the first two quarters, we have seen an 88% year-over-year increase <\/a>in organic traffic and a 42% YoY increase in unique pageviews from organic traffic.\u201c<\/p>\n

Agencies using a platform like Visto\u2019s see their clients\u2019 brands referenced more in AI answers after tightening entities and updating a handful of high-value pages.<\/p>\n

The agencies succeeding are those positioning themselves as AI search authorities now, not waiting to see how things shake out.<\/p>\n

Get Started With Visto<\/p>\n

Visto helps agencies measure AI visibility and manage the work.<\/p>\n

Built specifically for marketing agencies, the platform shows where your brand appears in AI answers, summarizes citations across engines, and highlights the pages most likely to move the needle.<\/p>\n

Visto provides:<\/p>\n

Direct access to GEO experts who understand agency needs.
\nConsistent product updates aligned with the latest AI search trends.
\nThe ability to influence the roadmap with your input.
\nEducation and support to confidently lead your clients through the AI shift.
\nSales enablement tools that are purpose-built for marketing agencies to prospect clients.
\nA focus on actionability and optimization, in addition to visibility and analytics.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t wait for your clients to ask why they\u2019re invisible in AI search. Position your agency as the AI search authority they need right now.<\/p>\n

Special Offer: For SEJ readers, sign up for three months free access and start prospecting and serving clients.<\/p>\n

Image Credits<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Image by Visto. Used with permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post was sponsored by Visto.\u00a0The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor\u2019s own. Clients keep asking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-132043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}