How we compare to other agencies
As of October 2026: most agencies sell a visibility score and leave the fix to you, while we run 4 measured steps in order: the buyer questions, the answers we capture, the pages that change them, and the same measurement again on the same questions. Across 15,745 checks, a brand was cited in only 13.8% of answers (Boring Marketing, 2026), which is why the score alone is not worth buying. What follows is how our work differs from Answer Engine Optimization sold as a dashboard.
Why the score is the easy half
Anybody can run your name through four engines and put the result in a dashboard. That takes an afternoon. The part that decides whether you get found is what happens next, and it is work rather than software: the pages that answer the question your buyer asked, written for a reader first and a machine second.
So the difference between us and other agencies is mostly about where the job ends. If the engagement ends at the score, you have bought a photograph of a problem.
Side by side
| What you usually get | What we do instead |
|---|---|
| A score out of 100 with no source behind it | The answers we actually captured, with their citations and the date we ran them |
| One blended number across every engine | A separate result per engine, because a business can win in one and be absent in another |
| A mention counted as a win | A mention, a citation and a recommendation scored apart, since they need different fixes |
| A report that ends at the gap | The page that would close the gap, written, then the same questions run again |
| A new question set each month | The same questions frozen, so a change you see is a change and not a different test |
What we will not claim
We cannot promise that an engine recommends you. Answers are generated when they are served and they vary by place and by day, so any firm guaranteeing a position in one is guessing. What we can commit to is narrower and checkable: your buyer's questions, frozen, run across named engines, recorded before and after, with the answers kept so you can read them yourself.
We also will not tell you this is the biggest channel you have. It is not. Search still sends far more visitors, and the reason to do this now is that these answers are being written today and the businesses already named in them get harder to displace each month.
When another agency, or nobody, is the better choice
If your pages cannot be crawled, or your titles do not carry the words people search, fix that first and do not pay anyone for visibility work yet. If you have a writer in house and only need to know where you stand, have the measurement done and keep the writing to yourself. Both of those are honest answers, though we would rather say them before an invoice than after one.
The work earns its place when nobody in the building has time to write the pages, or when the pages that would answer your buyer's question do not exist yet at all.
Five questions that separate the two
- Which engines, exactly, and can I see a captured answer? A screenshot of a dashboard is not a capture. Ask for the text of the answer with its sources and the date.
- Do you report one score or three states? Mention, citation and recommendation are different outcomes. One number hides the one you need to act on.
- Are the questions frozen between months? If they change, the movement is theirs, not yours.
- Who writes the page? If the answer is "your team", you are buying a measurement, which may be all you need.
- What will you not promise? A firm with no answer to that has not done the work.
What the first 90 days look like
Five phases, fifteen tasks, in this order. The order matters more than the list: measurement comes before content, and content comes before any attempt to be quoted. If a firm shows you a plan that starts with writing pages, they are guessing at what to write.
Days 1 to 14: foundations
- Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, and confirm both can see the site.
- Run a full crawl and fix broken links and redirect chains.
- Check that every important page is actually indexed, and name the ones that are not.
- Fix mobile speed on your ten busiest pages.
Days 15 to 28: what your buyers ask
- List the searches your buyers make, in their words rather than industry words.
- Map one page to each of those searches.
- Name the gaps: the searches with no page behind them at all.
Days 29 to 56: the pages
- Refresh the pages that already get impressions before writing anything new.
- Write the missing pages, answer first.
- Add internal links between the related ones, so a reader and a crawler both find the path.
Days 57 to 70: being quotable
- Put the answer in the first lines of the key pages, where a machine can lift it.
- Let the AI crawlers in, in robots.txt, deliberately rather than by accident.
- Get listed and reviewed where the engines actually look.
Days 71 to 90: earning and measuring
- Pitch the roundups and lists in your niche that already rank for your terms.
- Track rankings, clicks and AI mentions monthly, on the same questions each time.
Two of those tasks are the ones clients tell us they had never been given: naming the searches with no page behind them, and freezing the questions so the monthly number means something. The rest is work, done in order.
Where to go next
What an AI SEO agency does sets out the job and how it is priced by scope of work. AI visibility and AI SEO covers what we measure and how it is run. If you run a clinic, start with med spa SEO or dental clinic SEO.
You can also see where you already stand before spending anything: the free report runs your own buyer questions and shows you the answers, including who was named in your place.