Insights · Updated 6 May 2026

Plain-English answers on AI search, brand and web.

Generative Engine Optimisation, brand strategy, web that converts — written for owner-operated UK founder-led businesses by someone who's actually run one.

TL;DR. AI search (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews) is replacing 25–40% of the clicks founder-led businesses used to get from Google organic. This hub explains what's changing, what to do about it, and how to get cited by the engines that now answer your customers' questions before they ever reach a search results page.

Where to start, depending on what you're after.

Filter

  • Case study

    Case study: 9 to 174 Google clicks in a month for Petite Ink Academy

    In the month before its relaunch, Petite Ink Academy got 9 Google clicks. In the first full month after: 174 clicks, 5,731 impressions, and organic search became the second-biggest channel. AI tools noticed too: visibility score up from 23 to 30 with a best week of 41, mentioned in roughly 9 in 10 tracked AI answers, and the first 20 visitors arriving directly from ChatGPT. The work behind it was unglamorous: a clear rebuild, two articles answering real questions, 18 rewritten meta descriptions, service schema and enquiry tracking. One client, one month, real numbers, shared with permission.

  • Web

    How much does a website cost in the UK in 2026? (£500 to £30k, honestly)

    UK independent business websites typically cost £600–£10,000 in 2026. £9–£50/mo for DIY (Wix, Squarespace). £500–£3,000 for a freelancer. £600–£1,500 for a sole-operator agency. £3,000–£10,000 for a regional agency. £10,000–£30,000+ for a London agency. £30,000+ for enterprise builds. Hidden ongoing costs add another £100–£1,500/month for hosting, maintenance and SEO/GEO.

  • SEO

    Impressions but no clicks in Search Console? The 4 real causes

    Rising impressions with flat clicks almost always comes down to one of four things: AI engines reading your pages to build their answers (each read is an impression with no possible click), rankings sitting at positions 8–30 where almost nobody clicks, pages ranking for queries with the wrong intent, or titles that don't earn the click you're owed. Only one of those is a problem you can fix this week. Two of them are actually good news.

  • AI search

    How to get your business recommended by ChatGPT

    You can't submit your business to ChatGPT and you can't pay for placement. AI assistants recommend businesses they can verify across the open web: your site, Bing's index, directories, reviews and third-party mentions. The playbook is six steps: baseline what AI currently says about you, get into Bing's index, make your site machine-readable, make your facts consistent everywhere, build genuine third-party evidence, and publish content that answers the questions your customers ask AI. It compounds over months, not days.

  • AI search

    Best UK GEO, AEO & AI search agencies in 2026

    UK GEO agency pricing splits into four bands. £99–£500/mo for monitoring or audit-led productised offers. £500–£1,500/mo for done-for-you SME work (the most underserved band, where Sort The Clicks sits). £1,500–£3,500/mo for premium productised retainers. £4,000–£10,000+/mo for enterprise custom-quote work. Most UK GEO agencies don't publish prices; this guide names the ones who do, and uses sourced industry comparables for the ones who don't.

  • AI search

    What is GEO? A 2026 explainer for UK founder-led businesses

    GEO is where SEO was around 2008 — most UK founder-led businesses haven't started, and the ones that do over the next twelve months will have a structural advantage that's hard to displace. Here's what GEO actually is, why now, and what the work concretely looks like.

  • AI search

    SEO vs GEO: where UK founder-led businesses should invest in 2026

    SEO and GEO share roughly 70% of their tactics. The remaining 30% is where founder-led businesses are about to lose — or win — a meaningful chunk of their traffic. Here's a query-by-query breakdown of where each one wins, and how to invest if you only have time for one.

  • AI search

    How ChatGPT decides which businesses to recommend

    When someone asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, it doesn't rank pages — it assembles a picture of each candidate business from Bing's index, location databases, review platforms, shopping feeds and its training data, then recommends the businesses it can verify. Incomplete or inconsistent businesses don't get named. Here's where the data actually comes from, and the five things a UK founder-led business should do about it.

  • AI search

    7 reasons ChatGPT and Perplexity aren't citing you

    AI engines cite source material that's clear, structured, definitive and answer-shaped. Most independent business sites are none of those things. Here are the seven specific reasons your business isn't being cited yet — each with the concrete fix and how long it takes.

  • AI search

    Does AI search generate leads for founder-led businesses?

    Yes, AI search generates leads. The volume is smaller than peak SEO. The conversion rate is meaningfully higher. The leads arrive warmer because they've already read about you. Here's the data, the caveats, and a calibration guide for what to expect over the first six months.

  • SEO

    Google's May 2026 core update: what it means for small businesses

    Google's May 2026 core update ran from 21 May to 2 June. The data so far says it reinforces the March 2026 pattern: visibility is moving away from directories, aggregators and comparison sites, and toward the businesses that actually do the work. If you're an owner-operated business with your own site, this is the most favourable ranking environment in years — but only if your site reads as genuinely first-party.

Frequently asked questions

What is GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)?

GEO is the practice of structuring your website and brand so that AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews cite your business when users ask questions. It overlaps roughly 70% with traditional SEO (fast site, clear content, schema, authority signals) but adds AI-specific tactics: llms.txt, FAQ schema, definitive language, and structured Q&A blocks. See our full GEO explainer.

Is AI search actually generating leads for founder-led businesses yet?

Short answer: yes, but volume is still smaller than Google organic — and the leads are warmer. Users who arrive from ChatGPT or Perplexity have already read a recommendation and made a shortlist. Conversion rates we see across UK founder-led business clients sit in the 10–25% range, vs 1–3% for cold Google traffic. Read our honest breakdown.

How is GEO different from SEO?

SEO optimises for ranking on a list. GEO optimises for being the answer. SEO still wins for transactional and navigational queries; GEO is taking over informational and recommendation queries (the 'best X for Y' patterns). For most UK founder-led businesses the right ratio is 70% shared work, 20% SEO-specific, 10% GEO-specific. See SEO vs GEO.

Why isn't ChatGPT citing my business?

Usually one of seven reasons: no llms.txt, missing or broken schema, content that doesn't answer questions definitively, no external mentions or directory listings, JavaScript-rendered content AI crawlers can't read, weak topical authority, or simply being too new to be in the training data. Full list and fixes here.

How often is this site updated?

New articles publish roughly every 2–4 weeks. Older articles are reviewed and updated whenever the underlying landscape shifts — which, in AI search, is often. Each article shows its publish date and last-updated date at the top. If something here is out of date, tell us.

Ready to sort
your clicks?

Let's have a proper conversation about your business. No obligation, no hard sell — just an honest chat about what would actually help.

Book a call WhatsApp us

Available for new projects · Summer 2026 · Replies usually within an hour

We work with a small number of clients at a time. If the timing isn't right, we'll be honest about it on the call.