"Optimize for AI search" is easy to say and hard to act on. So here's what the work actually looks like: a walk through the page-by-page brief at the center of our AI Visibility Audit.

The audit has one job: take the pages that already rank for your highest-intent keywords and check them against what AI systems actually cite. The output is a brief for each page, covering the critical gaps, what to add, and the expected impact, in priority order.

Step 1: Start With Pages That Already Rank

We don't start from scratch. In our experience, AI answers tend to cite pages that already have search visibility, so the fastest wins come from the pages you've already earned. We identify the keywords that bring you real customers and the pages that rank for them.

Step 2: See What AI Actually Cites

For each target query, we check Google AI Overviews and AI assistants like ChatGPT and Perplexity. We record whether an AI answer appears, which sources it cites, and which passages it pulls from those sources. That tells us exactly what "quotable" looks like for that query, in your market, today.

Step 3: Find the Gaps (the Brief)

Then we compare your ranking page to the pages being cited. To show what that produces, here's a simplified, illustrative example. The page and findings below are hypothetical, not from a specific client.

The page: a custom-home builder's "cost to build" page that ranks on page one for "how much does it cost to build a custom home." The situation: the AI Overview for that query cites two competitors and a national building guide, but not this page.

The brief lists what the cited pages have and this page doesn't, in priority order:

1. Critical: No direct answer. The page opens with the company's story and never states a price range. What to add: a two- to three-sentence answer at the top with a realistic cost range and what drives it. Expected impact: high. It gives the AI a passage it can quote.

2. Critical: No itemized numbers. Costs are described as "it depends on your project." What to add: a table breaking out typical cost components such as design, permits, site work, construction, and finishes. Expected impact: high. Itemized numbers are among the most frequently cited formats.

3. Important: No decision framework. Buyers comparing custom, semi-custom, and production builds get no guidance. What to add: a comparison that shows which option fits which budget, timeline, and priority. Expected impact: medium to high.

4. Important: No FAQ block or structured data. What to add: four to six questions buyers actually ask, answered directly and marked up with FAQ structured data. Expected impact: medium.

5. Technical: Key details are trapped in an image. The page's only cost information is inside an infographic. What to add: the same information as crawlable text. Expected impact: medium.

Notice what's not on the list: "write more content" or "add more keywords." The page already ranks. The brief is about making what's there quotable.

Step 4: Build It, Then Track It

A brief is only useful if it gets implemented. Our writers and engineers build it: new comparison and cost sections, FAQ blocks, structured data, and technical fixes. Same team, same retainer, no hand-off.

Then we track it. We monitor your target queries for citations in Google AI Overviews and AI answers, and watch your analytics for AI-referred traffic, reported alongside your SEO and paid numbers.

What to Expect

This isn't a year-long wait. A B2B research platform we work with had no presence in Google AI Overviews. After content, page, and technical work, they now appear for their target queries, within a few months.

Want a preview before committing to a full audit? Start with a free AI Visibility Check. Give us your three most important keywords, and within a week you'll get whether you appear in AI answers today (and who does), the top three gaps on your best-ranking page, and a 20-minute walkthrough with one of our founders. No commitment. Contact us to get started, or read more in our AI search FAQs.