Expertise / 04
SEO, AEO and GEO
Found in Google. Cited in AI answers.
Search is where I learned marketing: nine content sites to 300,000 monthly pageviews during college, then a brand-new enterprise domain from zero to 30,000 monthly users. The work now has three parts. Rank in search. Be the answer in AI assistants and Google's AI features (AEO). Show up and get cited in generative search (GEO). All of it measured like-for-like.
Highlights
0 to 24domain authority in one year, new domain
30k+monthly users at about 55% engagement
0 to 3inbound quality leads a month
63questions in the quarterly AI search test
45issues in the last site audit, each with a named source
300k+monthly pageviews on the earlier sites
No traffic number leaves the building without a like-for-like comparison and a page breakdown next to it.
What this covers
01Technical SEOCrawl and index control, speed, structured data, redirects at a domain change, Core Web Vitals, and hack detection and cleanup on WordPress.
02On-page and contentPages written for the search, not the org chart. Titles and headings from real queries, internal links that pass authority, entity signals that tell machines who the company is.
03AEO: answer enginesllms.txt, question-shaped pages, clean facts and citations. A 63-question test every quarter across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews to see which answers name the company.
04GEO: generative searchBrand and entity mentions where generative engines read: listings, directories, third-party pages, consistent names. AI-referred sessions measured on one basis, engaged against engaged.
05Links and authorityDomain authority 0 to 24 in a year through listings, mentions and partner links. No bought links. Every link source named in the plan with an owner and a date.
06Honest measurementOrganic share by first-user channel. Employee logins and job seekers separated from commercial pages. Old brand name demand tracked after a rebrand so nobody claims it as growth.
How it runs
1Audit with sourcesEvery issue in the audit carries a named source, a page and a fix, so an agency can execute it without a meeting.
2Fix the technical floorIndex bloat, redirects, speed, security. Nothing above it works until this holds.
3Build pages for searchesOne page per real query cluster, written for the reader who typed it, with the proof the answer engine needs.
4Earn links and mentionsListings, partners, press, directories. A monthly count, named sources, no bought links.
5Test the AI answersThe same 63 questions every quarter, scored for mentions and citations. What moved and why goes in the review.
Work
Employer not named. Numbers as reported internally.
| Work | What was done | Result |
|---|---|---|
| New domain from zero Listed IT services and BPM company, 2025 to 2026 | A new website on a new domain at the listing. Technical and on-page SEO, link building, AI search visibility, one set of definitions for every traffic number. | 30k+ monthly users, DA 0 to 24, inbound quality leads 0 to 3 a month. Case |
| 45-issue site audit 2026 | Technical, on-page and off-page audit with a named source for every finding, turned into an execution pack with owners and dates for the agency. | Six-month plan in four buckets, handed over and tracked. |
| Hack found and cleaned 2026 | A cloaked gambling injection found through an unexplained ad-spend drop, not a security alert. Cleaned, 150 URLs rescanned, the ad account appeal filed, the month's search data excluded from reporting. | Site clean, reporting kept honest. |
| AI search visibility 2025 to 2026 | A 63-question test across ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews each quarter, llms.txt shipped, AI-referred sessions tracked like-for-like. | A quarterly AI search card leadership can read. |
| Search demand after a rebrand 2026 | Measured how much search demand still sits on the old company name, where those searches land, and what the new brand's volume looks like against peers. | Brand search planned on evidence. |
| Nine content websites Freelance, 2019 to 2023 | Built from zero to first-page rankings. 1,000+ articles written, affiliate revenue, all the technical and on-page work done by hand. | 300,000+ monthly organic pageviews. |
Rules
- Audit facts need named sources. A finding without one is an opinion.
- Organic growth is shown by page group. A headline growth figure that was mostly employee logins left the deck until it could be shown honestly.
- AI visibility is tested, not felt. The same questions, the same engines, every quarter.
- The old brand name is not growth. It is tracked separately until it fades.
ResearchAhrefs, Semrush, Keyword Planner, Google Trends
TechnicalScreaming Frog, Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, PageSpeed, WordPress
AI searchChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Perplexity, llms.txt
MeasurementGA4, Search Console API, Python, a data warehouse
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