What you are actually buying
Two different services are sold under this name. One is ordinary SEO work done faster. AI writes the drafts, an agency tidies them, and the fee buys volume: more pages and more posts. The other is work on your site so AI assistants can read it, describe your business correctly and use your pages when someone asks a question. That fee buys changes to the pages a customer reads before they call you.
Both get called AI SEO. A proposal that does not say which one it is selling cannot be judged.
We build websites for a living, so take our bias as read. We think the second matters more, because an AI answer is put together from pages that already exist, and those pages are yours. Work that improves them stays on your site when the retainer ends. Work that only adds to the pile can be repeated by anyone with the same tool.
What good looks like
A good retainer is dull to read. Each month it names the pages it changed, says what changed and why, and leaves you able to check. You open the page and see the difference.
A person checks the drafts. AI writing is fluent and confident, including when it is wrong. Unchecked, it will describe a service you do not offer, an accreditation nobody holds, or an area you do not cover. In a trade where a wrong claim carries liability, that is a real risk.
The facts need to be plain enough to quote. 'We repair and replace flat roofs for homeowners and quote after a visit' can be used by an assistant. 'Quality work at fair prices' cannot. The first gives an assistant something true to repeat.
What to check on your own site first
Read your site as a stranger would. An assistant needs these before it can say anything true about you.
- The important words are text on the page. Words inside a picture or a PDF are not enough.
- Each service you want more of has its own page, and that page answers the questions people ask before they call.
- Your name, phone, address and opening hours are written the same way everywhere, including your Google profile and directories you never set up.
- The area you cover is written in words, not shown only on a map.
- Nothing contradicts itself, such as two closing times or a service you have stopped offering.
- The contact route works on a phone, and a test enquiry reaches an inbox someone reads.
The questions to ask before you pay
Send these by email and ask for answers in writing. The replies tell you more than the proposal's design does.
- Which pages will you change, and will I see each change before it goes live?
- Who checks the drafts, and what are they checking for?
- What will you measure, and will you show me the pages behind the number?
- Can I still edit the site myself while you work on it?
- What happens to the pages if I stop paying?
- What is not included?
The mistakes that cost enquiries
The first is buying volume. A retainer that promises a set number of pages invites pages written to reach the number. A page that answers nothing a customer asked does not get used in an answer, and it makes the pages that do harder to find.
The second is treating one file or one setting as the work. You will be offered llms.txt, a file that lists your key pages for AI systems. Google has said it does not use it, and no major provider has committed to it. Schema markup helps machines read your facts, but it will not answer a question your page has not answered. If either is the headline of a proposal, ask what it changes for a customer.
The third is a visibility score. Tools sample questions and report whether you were mentioned. A sample cannot cover the questions people ask. The answers move with the person, the place and the wording, and the number changes for reasons unrelated to your site. Treat a score as a prompt to look at the pages behind it.
The fourth is worse than the other three: letting AI write about your trade with nobody checking. It produces plausible detail about method, guarantee and availability, and some of that becomes a promise you are held to.
How to tell whether it is working
Start with the report Google already gives you. Search Console shows how often your pages appeared in AI features in Google Search, broken down by page, country and date. Clicks are not part of it. That is still useful: it shows which pages are being picked up and which are being ignored.
Then count enquiries: the calls, forms and messages that turned into real work. Ask each new customer how they found you, and record it. Your numbers may be small, so read the direction and do not judge on a single month.
Do your own spot check, the same way each time. Ask an assistant the question a customer would ask, and put your town in it. Note whether you appear and whether the facts are right. Repeat it later with the same question. That is a check, and it beats a dashboard.
What you cannot buy is a guarantee. Each answer is built fresh for the person asking, so results depend on your business, your area and the competition, and on whether your pages are worth quoting.
The next step
Do the checks yourself first. Fix the facts on your own pages, make the contact route work, and ask every new customer how they found you. None of that costs anything, and it shows you where the gap is.
Pay for help when the gap is pages you do not have and will not write, and when someone has to keep at it. That is the work we do. We build small business websites to be found, keep them growing with new pages that answer what your customers search for, and make sure every enquiry reaches you. You change anything on the site yourself. The growth team is a team of AI specialists, each with one job, working on your site. Iris, our AI search specialist, checks how AI assistants describe your business and what your pages need so they answer well. Every draft is checked before you see it, and nothing goes live until you approve it.