Question 1

What is AI search visibility (AEO / GEO) and how is it different from SEO?

Accepted Answer

Traditional SEO competes for a position in a list of links. AI search visibility — sometimes called answer engine optimisation (AEO) or generative engine optimisation (GEO) — competes to be the source an AI system quotes when it answers a buyer's question. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity synthesise an answer and cite a handful of sources. There is no page two. The work overlaps with SEO on fundamentals — crawlability, structure, genuine expertise — but adds question-led content architecture, explicit entity signals, machine-readable structured data, quotable evidence and off-site consistency, because these systems assemble a view of your business from everywhere it is mentioned, not just your website.

Question 2

How do I get my business mentioned or recommended by ChatGPT?

Accepted Answer

Five things move the needle. One: answer specific buying questions directly, in the first two sentences, on pages devoted to them. Two: make your entity unambiguous — consistent name, location, services, credentials and schema, so the model knows what you are and who you serve. Three: publish evidence that is quotable — specifications, comparisons, pricing logic, process detail, named expertise. Four: appear in the third-party sources these systems trust for your sector: trade publications, directories, associations, review platforms, industry roundups. Five: keep it current, because answer engines strongly favour recently confirmed information.

Question 3

Can you actually measure AI search visibility?

Accepted Answer

Yes, imperfectly but usefully. I track a defined set of buying questions across the major assistants at a regular cadence and record whether you are cited, how you are described and who is cited instead. Alongside that: AI Overview presence for your commercial terms, referral traffic from assistant domains in GA4, and the qualitative signal that matters most — enquiries that arrive already informed, saying they were told about you. That combination tells you whether visibility is improving even though no platform offers a rank tracker.

Question 4

Is AI search going to reduce our website traffic?

Accepted Answer

For informational queries, almost certainly — zero-click behaviour is rising and generic top-of-funnel content is losing sessions. Commercial-intent traffic behaves differently: buyers still click through to verify specifications, pricing and credibility before enquiring. The strategic response is to stop measuring success in sessions and start measuring qualified enquiries, and to shift content investment from generic explainers towards the specific, evidenced pages that answer engines cite and buyers verify.

Question 5

Do we still need traditional SEO if we optimise for AI search?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and they reinforce each other. AI systems draw heavily on conventional search indexes, so a fast, crawlable, well-structured site with authority still underpins everything. What changes is emphasis: less chasing volume, more owning specific questions; less keyword-stuffed prose, more structured, quotable, verifiable content. Businesses doing both are compounding two channels off one body of work.

Question 6

Do you use AI in your marketing consultancy work?

Accepted Answer

Yes — deliberately, and I help clients do the same. AI is used for research and synthesis, keyword and intent clustering, first drafts that a specialist then corrects, campaign variants and reporting commentary, all under human review with a written data and brand policy behind it. It is never used for the parts that carry commercial risk: positioning, pricing narrative, segment priorities or any claim that has to be defensible. I also work on the other half of the AI shift — making sure your business is the source ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity cite when a buyer asks who the credible options are, because a growing share of shortlists are now formed inside an assistant rather than on a search results page.

Question 7

Why should I use you as my marketing consultant rather than an agency?

Accepted Answer

An agency sells you delivery. I sell you judgement. Before anyone writes an ad or a blog post, someone has to decide which segments you are targeting, what your proposition is, which channels deserve budget and what a qualified enquiry is actually worth. That is the work that decides whether the delivery pays for itself. I do that work first, in writing, then either brief your existing agency properly or build the plan in-house — and because I have no media to sell you, there is no incentive for me to recommend spend you do not need.

Question 8

What makes you different from other Fractional CMOs and marketing consultants?

Accepted Answer

Three things. First, a client-side operating background rather than a pure agency one: I have run marketing inside an industrial B2B manufacturer, dealing with technical buyers, distributor networks, long sales cycles and a board that wants commercial numbers rather than impressions. Second, formal grounding — Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (MCIM) and an MSc in Digital Marketing Management, so recommendations are based on tested frameworks rather than whatever is trending on LinkedIn. Third, I work across B2B, retail and SaaS, which means the retail pricing and merchandising discipline informs the B2B work and the SaaS retention thinking informs both.

Question 9

How much does a marketing consultant cost compared with hiring a Marketing Director?

Accepted Answer

A full-time Marketing Director in the UK typically costs £70,000-£110,000 plus employer's NI, pension, recruitment fees, holiday and the risk of a bad hire — realistically £100,000+ a year all-in before they have spent a penny on marketing. Consultancy and Fractional CMO retainers give you the same seniority for one or two days a week, at a fraction of that cost, with no notice period and no recruitment risk. For most SMEs turning over £1m-£20m that is the difference between having senior marketing judgement and having none.

Question 10

Do you work with B2B, retail and SaaS businesses?

Accepted Answer

Yes — all three, and the differences matter. B2B work centres on pipeline: proposition clarity, technical content, sales and marketing alignment, cost per qualified enquiry. Retail and ecommerce work centres on unit economics: contribution margin after ad spend, repeat purchase rate, lifetime value and the seasonality of demand. SaaS work centres on efficient acquisition and retention: activation, trial-to-paid conversion, churn and payback period. The strategic method is the same; the metrics I hold the plan to are different.

Question 11

How quickly will I see results from working with a marketing consultancy?

Accepted Answer

You get clarity in the first two to three weeks: a written diagnosis of where marketing is losing money, what to stop and a prioritised plan. Quick operational wins — tracking that actually works, tightened paid search, fixed conversion paths, a CRM that reports honestly — typically land inside 30 to 60 days. Compounding channels such as SEO and content usually show meaningful movement in three to six months, and that is exactly why the plan sequences fast wins first: they fund the patience the slower channels require.

Question 12

Will you replace my team or agency?

Accepted Answer

No. The aim is to make what you already have work harder. In most engagements your team and your agencies keep delivering; what changes is that they receive clear priorities, a proper brief and a measurement framework, and someone senior holds the whole thing to commercial outcomes. Where a supplier genuinely is not performing, I will tell you plainly and help you replace them — but replacement is a conclusion, not a starting assumption.

Question 13

How do you measure success, and how am I kept accountable to it?

Accepted Answer

Every engagement is tied to commercial metrics agreed up front: qualified enquiries, cost per qualified enquiry by channel, pipeline value, conversion rate and, where the data allows, revenue and contribution. You get a monthly review pack you can put in front of a board, showing what was done, what it produced and where the next pound of budget should go. If a channel is not paying for itself, you will hear it from me before you have to ask.

Question 14

What does the first conversation involve, and is there any commitment?

Accepted Answer

It is a one-hour call, free, with no pitch deck. We cover your growth target, how you sell today, what marketing is currently producing and where the obvious gaps are. You leave with an honest view on whether consultancy, a Fractional CMO retainer, a defined project or nothing at all is the right next step. There is no obligation, and I will say so directly if I do not think I am the right partner for your situation.

Be the business AI recommends when your buyer asks

Answer engines summarise your market. Most SMEs are not in the summary.

What changes for your business

What the work involves

AI visibility baseline

Entity and credibility signals

Question-led content architecture

Structured data and crawlability

Off-site presence and measurement

Realistic expectations

How this works in practice

How answer engines actually choose their sources

Structuring content so it can be quoted

Entity clarity and the off-site half of the job

Measurement, and what to stop measuring

The AI Marketing Playbook for SMEs

Marketing thinking in short form

Where to go next

Frequently asked questions

Find out how AI describes your business today