Before you hire anyone
How to choose an AI SEO agency: the six measurements we report to every client
Lists of the top AI SEO agencies are easy to find and hard to check. A top AI SEO agency should be able to show you six measurements for your own business. These are the six we report to every client, and you can check each one in your own tools.
Six measurements tell a real AI SEO agency from an SEO company that added the word AI to an old page. They are citations per AI platform, share of answers against named competitors, and presence in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Then come the changes installed on the website, the third-party placements earned, and the inquiries that result.
Ask for all six before you sign with anyone. We run the first three on our own site every week as well, across 26 buyer and research questions on six AI platforms. One warning: an agency that uses AI to write your articles is selling a different service.
1. Citations, counted per platform
This is how often your pages are cited as a source when an AI system answers your buyers’ questions. It covers Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Ask for a dated baseline, taken before any work starts, with the question list and the platform behind each count. An agency that cannot produce one cannot show you what changed.
What a real answer looks like: a table dated to the day, one row per question, one column per platform, with the cited page named in each cell. From a client record: a paint protection film specialist was cited 14 times on 6 pages on July 1, 2026, and 55 times on 20 pages on October 7, 2026.
2. Share of answers against named competitors
Take the AI generated answers to one buyer question in your market. How many name your business, and how many name each competitor? Ask for the competitor set, the question list and the platforms. A share only means something against the businesses the AI recommends today.
What a real answer looks like: the count for you and for every competitor, split by platform and dated. You see who the AI names today, how often, and how far behind or ahead you are. Then you watch the gap close, month by month.
3. Presence in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google’s AI results are a separate contest from the ten organic listings. A page can rank on page one and never appear in the AI Overview above it. Ask which of your money pages appear in the AI Overview for their own searches. Ask which competitor pages hold those slots.
What a real answer looks like: a list of your money pages with, for each, whether the AI Overview for its own search includes it and who holds the slot if not. Checked on October 5, 2026: the Google AI Overview for the search this page targets cited seven sources, four of them agency service pages and three of them list articles. That is the slot to earn, and the first thing to ask about.
4. What changes on your website
Expect one organization record across the site, and structured data that matches the visible text. Expect answer blocks the AI engines can lift, a FAQ layer on every money page, and internal links with exact anchors. Ask for the list of changes installed on a client site, not the list of recommendations. The two look alike and cost the same, but only one moves a ranking.
What a real answer looks like: a change log with the page, the element, the text before and after, and the date each change was verified on the live site. From our own records: 116 internal link changes installed across 77 pages of one client site in a single pass, August 2026, each with its exact anchor and placement.
5. The third-party authority they will build
AI assistants build their recommendations mostly from other sites: lists, review platforms, digital PR and press coverage, community threads and video. Your own website is only part of it. Ask which placements the agency will earn for you, on which sites, and how each is chosen.
What a real answer looks like: the named sites the plan targets, each chosen because the AI already cites it for your buyer questions, with its citation count beside it. Measured on September 16, 2026 across 26 questions: Google’s own documentation appeared in 21.7 percent of answers and YouTube in 16.7 percent. That was ahead of every SEO publication, with a review directory at 9.7 percent and Reddit at 8 percent. A plan with no off-site work loses the recommendation questions, however good the site becomes.
6. Inquiries, and the sessions AI sends
This covers the visitors who arrive from an AI platform, the prospects who say an AI assistant sent them, and the inquiries that follow. Ask whether the agency reports the sessions from each AI platform. Ask whether it asks every new inquiry how they found you. An AI search visibility score that never reaches an inquiry count is a vanity metric.
What a real answer looks like: monthly sessions from each AI platform, taken from the analytics referral report. An inquiry form that asks every prospect which AI assistant sent them, by name. And the qualified inquiries that came through each. Both are running on this site now; ask to see them on any site the agency claims to have moved.
A 30-minute strategy call with Phil. Bring the site; leave with the six measurements to expect from anyone you hire.