AI Visibility Audit
An AI visibility audit takes the questions your customers ask in your industry, puts them to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and records in a written report which brands get mentioned, which sites are cited and where you stand. If you are not mentioned, I separate the reason: is your site closed to AI crawlers, is your content not written in a citable form, or does your brand not appear in enough distinct places?
This needs measuring separately because Analytics will not show it. If a customer picks one of three brands in an answer and never sees you, no visit lands on your site, and no report shows the loss.
What I do in the audit
- We build the question list together. Questions your customer would really ask, without your brand name in them: “what’s the best X”, “how do you choose Y”, “who do you go to for Z”. Usually 20-40 questions. Questions built only around your brand name tell you whether the AI knows you, not whether you are found in your category; those are two different things.
- I ask the questions repeatedly across tools. The same question in different phrasings and on different tools. For every answer I record the platform, date and language.
- For each answer I note three things separately: were you mentioned, were you recommended, was your site cited as a source. Being mentioned and being cited are not the same.
- I separate the cause. Technical access (robots.txt, crawler permissions), content format and how your brand appears on outside sources are checked one by one.
What the report contains
Not a slide deck, a usable document: a table showing who is mentioned in which question, your current status, a list of technical blockers and a prioritised action list. Each item states what to do and why. You do not have to hire me to implement it; your own team can, or you can hand it to someone else.
Who this suits, and who it doesn’t
It suits businesses where customers research before deciding: consulting, healthcare, education, B2B, travel, legal, software. In these fields people ask AI, and the answer influences the buying decision.
The return is low for impulsive purchases and for purely local businesses that win customers through foot traffic and signage. If that is you, I would not recommend the audit; put the budget into ads.
If you want to try it yourself
If an audit does not fit your budget, you can do the basic measurement yourself: write 15-20 questions without your brand name, ask each one two or three times in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, and log “question, tool, date, was I mentioned, was my site cited” in a table. Answers vary from run to run and from person to person, so one answer is not evidence; look for a pattern that repeats on the same question. The method and the limits of tracking tools are in how to measure AI visibility. To check whether your site is open to AI crawlers, the free AI Visibility Checker does that; it does not measure whether your brand is mentioned in answers, only technical readiness. If you would like to go through the findings together, the Visibility Session is a paid, two-hour one-to-one session.
What I did on my own site
The site you are reading has a structure open to AI crawlers, an llms.txt file, linked person and organisation schema, and structured Q&A markup. You can see live examples of most of what the audit covers here. None of this guarantees rankings or mentions; it is simply what can be done.
For the technical side, see preparing your site for AI search. If you want ongoing tracking after the audit, take a look at AI brand tracking.
How do we start?
Write to me through the contact page with your industry and the questions you care about. The first conversation is paid; I send the scope and timeline in writing, and we start if it suits you.
Frequently Asked Questions
AI answers change every time. Is this measurement reliable?
A single answer is not reliable. That is why I repeat the same question in different phrasings and on different tools, then look at the pattern. A competitor appearing in eight of ten answers is evidence; one answer is not. The report gives this as a ratio.
Do you guarantee I’ll show up in ChatGPT after the audit?
No, and be wary of anyone who does. Nobody can guarantee which source a model will choose. I measure the factors that affect your odds and make them fixable.
I already do SEO. Is this different?
Different but connected. SEO moves you up the search results; AI visibility targets being mentioned inside the answer. A solid SEO foundation helps but may not be enough on its own, because models read content differently.
How long does the audit take?
It depends on the number of questions and how broad your industry is. Once the question list is clear, I give the timeline in writing.
How do I work?
Work-hour packages
Tell me about your business and what you need on WhatsApp or by phone; we agree on a work block of somewhere between 5 and 40 hours and I start doing what is needed. What you get is not a calendar window — it is net working hours spent directly on your business. I can use 40 hours working three days straight, or deliberately spread it out and finish it over a year — whatever the work calls for. I do not spend my time estimating how long something will take, I spend it doing the work; every hour I spend leaves a lasting result in your business. We keep going for as long as you find it useful.
Why not monthly?
Is 40 hours a week?
On a fixed monthly fee both sides are watching the wrong thing: you watch a fixed cost, the other side watches how many more contracts like this they can line up. Working by the hour puts us both in front of the same thing — the real value of the work that got done. I know not having an upfront answer to "how much will this cost in total?" is the natural cost of this model. But instead of paying a fixed fee for months to a setup that is not producing results, you only pay for the qualified time spent on your work — and you see exactly where that time went, start to finish. That is why my clients keep coming back.