AI Search Services
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AI Search goes beyond SEO in 4K
AI Search optimisation is the practice of improving content visibility in LLMs, and AI overviews (AIOs).
The search landscape has shifted. Pause and you’ll get left behind, battling the crushing weight of AIOs, ads and more. Our AI Search services deploy tried-and-tested tactics to maintain your visibility and improve the odds of your content being cited or quoted by the likes of Reddit, ChatGPT, Gemini, AI overviews, and AI mode, not just ranked as a link.
Dark Horse shines the beacon into the AI chasm, as we navigate the landscape of zero-click searches and LLMO – that’s large language model optimisation, no laughing matter – for you.
SEO has evolved
AI SEO is changing the game. There’s nothing scarier than an untrackable user journey. Inaccurate attribution. Zero clicks. Missed insights. It’s enough to give Arnie night terrors.
Data from the 2025 McKinsey AI Discovery Survey shows that 50% of web users already use AI-powered search, which puts 20-50% of traditional search traffic at risk. And those numbers are only set to grow. Anything could happen in the next half hour.
Don’t let the vacuum that’s the AI funnel haunt your dreams. Deploy our AI Search services alongside traditional SEO to gain first-mover advantage. Cement your website’s visibility in Google’s search generative experience (SGE), including AI overviews and large language models (LLMs), while retaining your ‘blue link’ rankings with a hybrid strategy. Send the nightmares to your competition.
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Come out of the shadows
Dominating in SERPs is no longer enough. If your site is there but nowhere to be seen in AI Search, you’ve only got half of the pie. Signs your brand is invisible to AI Search include:
- Your competitors get all the glory in AI answers – you don’t get a look in
- Your rankings are steady, but organic traffic is falling
- AI answers keep describing your brand all wrong
- You show up when someone asks for you by name, but not when they ask what you do
- AI says there’s ‘limited information available’ about your brand, or just gets you plain confused with another company
Our AI SEO services
AI visibility audit and baseline
Our AI Search experts forensically audit where you appear today, analysing the platforms, the prompts, and what your competitors are up to. We’re always watching.
Prompt and query mapping
We dive into the data behind the questions your customers are asking AI, and map these out by page and search intent to form the backbone of our AI SEO strategy.
Entity and brand knowledge
We deploy tried-and-tested tactics to make sure AI understands who you are, what you sell, where you operate, and everything else the data tells us people want to know. You’ll be surprised.
Content built to be cited
We structure your content so AI can extract and attribute it. It’s all part of the ol’ generative engine optimisation service.
Technical AI SEO
If AI models can’t read your site, nothing else matters. From bot access to rendering and structured data, our Technical AI SEO services leave no stone unturned.
Off-site authority and AI citation building
AI Search works hand in hand with Digital PR, to make sure the sources AI reads about you – news, reviews, listicles, Reddit, YouTube – reflect who you are.
How we measure the impact of AI Search optimisation
Tracking traditional metrics like impressions and click-through-rate (CTR) won’t cut the mustard in the AI era. The metrics that matter most for measuring the success of AI SEO services include:
- AI answer inclusion rate: this measures your brand’s overall AI visibility, tracking how often your website’s content appears in AI overviews
- Citation share: the citation share of voice shows how often your brand is cited by AI compared to your competitors
- Attribution frequency: tracks how many times your brand or a URL from your website is explicitly credited by AI
- Branded search uplift: an increase in direct traffic to your site or a surge in branded search volume means users trust the AI when it mentions you, and they’ve then searched for you directly. Back of the net
- Sentiment and accuracy: incorrect recommendations are worse than no recommendations at all. We graft the behind-the-scenes to make sure AI knows how to describe you properly
- Prompt coverage: we take a fine-tooth comb and examine how many of your priority buyer questions you’re visible for in AI, and via which platforms
- Referral traffic and leads from AI sources: the commercial one. Ties everything above to revenue
Our AI Search optimisation methodology
AI Search visibility services form part of a hybrid strategy, built on the foundation of robust traditional SEO. AI SEO is strategic, focusing on clarity and authority to demonstrate the core of your brand’s expertise.
1. Entity-first content strategy
Cut out the guff. Entity SEO is an AI Search tactic that prioritises answering queries directly, using a conversational tone. An entity-first content strategy places importance on ‘entities’ (people, places, brands, relationships), natural language and semantic relevance, not just keywords. Content clustering is a big slice of the pie, honing in on your core subjects to signal topical authority to AI models.
2. Technical GEO & structured data
A strong backbone is non-negotiable to compete with the big guys. Technical GEO makes sure your website data is well-structured, machine-readable, and riding on a strong technical foundation. We tunnel into the depths of your website with a forensic, 100-point technical SEO audit. This looks at site speed, structured data, canonicalisation, mobile-friendliness for AI crawlers, schema validation, and truckloads more to optimise your crawl budget.
3. Authority & credibility signalling
E-E-A-T your competition. Dedicated AI Search optimisation services establish the Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness necessary to rank highly in SERPs and get cited in generative AI results. Show your authority and signal your credibility to your customers, search engines, and AI with:
- Quotes positioned from proper experts in your field
- Authorship signals – show who’s written your content and what their credentials are
- Verifiable facts and statistics from cited sources
- Digital PR to build external trust signals
4. Content clarity & extraction optimisation
AI Search SEO services favour clarity over creativity. It’s all about structuring your website content so it’s easy for users to understand, and with extraction optimisation in mind, so the AI can lift it verbatim. Put the payoff on top with answer-first writing, use the questions users are searching for as subheadings, and create scannable lists and tables filled with facts you can defend to the hilt. Invert the pyramid.
The first step to retirement: a free audit
Meet your AI Search team
Your AI Search team
Alex Park – Head of AI Search
Keeps clients visible, whatever Google/the AI overlords decide to do next.
Henry Smith – Head of SEO
Cements AI Search and SEO together.
Izzy Till – Deputy Head of SEO
Always testing, learning, and one step ahead of AI.
Javier Castaneda – Senior Technical SEO Executive
Makes sure your site is ready for AI Search in ways you’ve never even imagined.
Kate Glynn – Senior Content Manager
Used the em dash before ChatGPT – when it was still just a twinkle in OpenAI’s eye.
Andrew Mitchell – Head of Digital PR
Digital PR expert. Makes sure AI knows who you are.
Why choose Dark Horse as your AI Search agency?
AI Search might be the new kid on the block, but our experts have decades’ of traditional SEO experience between them, spent learning, adapting, and guarding their hard-earned results. Come under Dark Horse protection for:
- Manchester AI SEO experts – We’re based in Manchester, which just so happens to be the UK’s leading AI hub outside of the Big Smoke.
- Forensic audits – We’re meticulous in our approach, identifying exactly why AI models are ignoring you, before deploying our AI Search visibility services to get you back in the squad.
- Personality – Integrity runs through our veins. Some AI stuff is a load of guff, and we’ll straight up tell you when that’s the case. We’re an honest bunch, so we’ll let you know when we’ve secured results too.
Your questions answered. Without hallucinations.
What are the benefits of AI Search optimisation?
AI Search optimisation is all about enhancing your website’s visibility in AI models like LLMs and AI overviews. The key benefits of our AI Search services include:
- Future-proofed strategy: shore up your SEO strategy and lay the foundations to boldly go where few have gone before. Lead the way in the AI-first search landscape of the future
- Establish brand authority: cement your brand as a trusted, authoritative source for inclusion in AI citations with content that’s actually helpful to users
- Drive targeted traffic: target qualified traffic by capturing top-of-the-funnel, long-tail, conversational search queries
- Crush your competition: gain a competitive advantage by investing in AI SEO services now. Dark Horse is always one step ahead. We’ll show you the way
Can you guarantee that I’ll appear in ChatGPT or AI overviews?
No, and you should treat anyone who says otherwise with rightful suspicion. AI answers are probabilistic, vary by user, and change with every model update. Two people asking the exact same question can get very different answers. However, what our AI Search experts can do is improve the signals from your site that systems like ChatGPT and AI overviews use to decide who to trust and cite, then track how your AI visibility is moving.
How do AI models choose who to recommend?
AI models source their answers to queries from multiple places, rather than picking the top-ranking page. What they look for from brands is:
- Decent rankings
- Consistent visibility across the web in trusted sources, including reviews, industry listicles, news, Reddit, and YouTube
- Factual and well-structured content
- Ability to easily identify a brand as a single, credible entity
How do AI overviews choose which sources to cite?
AI overviews dominate SERPs; our AI Search service helps you dominate AIOs. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. There are multiple factors influencing which sources AI overviews choose to cite, including:
- E-E-A-T: AI prioritises sources that demonstrate experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T), often by linking back to the author’s credentials
- Factual consistency: AI overviews crawl a range of sources featuring verifiable data to check factual accuracy and consistency. If your content falls short, it won’t make the cut
- Clarity: clarity is king. AI overviews favour content that clearly and directly answers a query with a well-structured response. Use a declarative structure with schema markup and optimised headings to reduce the AI’s processing work. AI needs a helping hand, and we’re here to serve
- Recency: AI loves fresh, timely content and stuff that’s recently been updated or optimised. We analyse the landscape to identify the new content you need, and look at what you’ve already got that we can upgrade
- Ranking: page 1 keyword rankings are still important for AI Search, but sometimes you’ll see results outside the top 10 creeping into the overview if they’re credible and authoritative. Everybody loves an underdog
Why don't AI overviews just cite the top-ranking result?
AI overviews serve anywhere from 3 to 20 results to synthesise an answer to individual search queries. At first glance, they might seem no different to the featured snippet – you’ve asked a question, you’ve got an answer. But look closer and you’ll see the AI overview has created its own cohesive answer, drawing on multiple sources.
The AI overview values:
- Credibility scoring: it’s programmed to find the most credible, comprehensive, definitive answer, which often means looking beyond the first link
- Topical authority: AI overviews dig further than domain authority, scouring the web for sources demonstrating topical relevance and authority, even if they feel niche and unexpected
- Clarity over rank: ranking is still a factor for AI overview visibility, but clarity stomps all over rank. Content that’s clear, well-structured and gets to the blimming point fast is more likely to find its way into AIOs
Is AI Search replacing SEO?
No. Absolutely not. AI Search is built on the foundation of solid SEO. AI overviews and LLMs still rely on the technical structure, quality and authority signals established by classic SEO. If your site isn’t technically sound or doesn’t display strong E-E-A-T, the AI won’t touch it with a bargepole. Develop a unified, hybrid strategy that combines SEO and GEO, and the AI is more likely to open up the [Castlefield] locks and let you through.
How long does it take to see results from AI Search?
Our AI Search services are designed to be foundational, part of a long-term strategy that also needs to encompass SEO. Cars, working, website optimisation strategies; we’re living in a hybrid world. Initial technical SEO fixes like implementing schema markup can be crawled quickly by AI overviews and LLMs. But achieving high citation share and entity authority will require 6 to 12 months of consistent strategy and content publication to build the level of trust AI models demand.
How much do your AI Search services cost?
Our AI Search optimisation services are billed on a monthly basis. Exact costs will vary based on the scale of work we determine you need, following our initial audit. Contact our sales team to get the ball rolling.
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Speak to our AI Search experts
Call us or fill in the form to book an audit to find out how our AI Search services can boost your visibility. Send us a signal. We’re ready to serve.