What You Are Actually Paying For
Audit proposals from SEO agencies tend to be vague. “Comprehensive analysis”, “detailed report”, “actionable recommendations” — these phrases appear in every proposal but tell you nothing about what you will actually receive, how the work is done, or what happens after the PDF lands in your inbox. This page explains exactly what our search visibility audits include, how the three tiers differ, what each deliverable means in practical terms, and what your options are once the audit is complete.
We publish this level of detail for a simple reason: informed clients make better decisions. If you are comparing audit proposals, this page gives you a framework for evaluating what is — and is not — included in each option you are considering. If you decide to work with us, you will know exactly what to expect before you commit a penny.
Three Tiers, One Framework
Every audit we deliver follows the same five-stage framework — technical foundation, on-page quality, off-page authority, analytics validation and AI visibility assessment. The tiers differ in depth, scope and the strategic overlays we add on top of the core assessment. All three tiers include a findings walkthrough call and a prioritised action plan. The cost guide covers UK pricing for each tier.
Tier 1: Technical and Content Audit
The foundation tier. This covers the first four stages of our framework: a full technical crawl and analysis, on-page content assessment, off-page authority review and analytics validation. You receive a prioritised report with every finding categorised as critical, high-impact, strategic or monitoring — along with specific instructions for resolving each issue. This tier is right for businesses that need a thorough health check of their organic search performance and a clear roadmap for improvement.
Deliverables include the full audit report (typically 30–60 pages depending on site complexity), an executive summary for stakeholders who need the headlines without the technical detail, a prioritised action plan spreadsheet with estimated effort and impact for each recommendation, and the walkthrough call where we discuss findings and answer questions.
Tier 2: Search Visibility Audit
The complete package. This adds the full AI visibility assessment to everything in Tier 1 — AI crawler access audit, entity and brand recognition testing across five platforms, content citability assessment, structured data evaluation, competitive AI citation analysis, and the AI Brand Narrative Scorecard. This tier is right for businesses that want to understand their total findability across both traditional search and AI platforms, or those who already suspect they have AI visibility gaps.
In addition to all Tier 1 deliverables, you receive the AI Brand Narrative Scorecard (explained below), a competitive citation matrix showing where competitors are cited and you are not, and platform-specific recommendations for improving AI visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. The citation matrix alone is worth the tier upgrade for businesses in competitive markets — it reveals patterns that no organic ranking tool can surface, such as competitors dominating Perplexity citations for high-intent queries while your organic rankings outperform theirs on Google.
Tier 3: Strategic Visibility Assessment
The premium tier. This adds the Revenue Exposure Model and competitive deep-dive to everything in Tier 2. The Revenue Exposure Model quantifies the commercial impact of your visibility gaps — translating “you are not cited in AI answers for these queries” into “this represents approximately £X in at-risk or missed revenue based on query volume, conversion rates and your average deal value.” The competitive deep-dive goes beyond citation presence to analyse competitor content strategies, entity architectures and structured data implementations to identify specifically what they are doing that you are not.
This tier is right for businesses that need to build an internal business case for investment in search visibility, or those operating in competitive markets where understanding exactly how competitors achieve their visibility is strategically valuable. All Tier 2 deliverables are included, plus the Revenue Exposure Model, competitive strategy analysis, and a 90-day implementation roadmap with resource estimates and milestone targets. The 90-day roadmap breaks the full recommendation set into three monthly phases, each with specific deliverables and expected outcomes — giving your team or agency a clear execution plan rather than an undifferentiated list of tasks.
The AI Brand Narrative Scorecard
The AI Brand Narrative Scorecard is a deliverable we developed because existing audit frameworks had no way to assess how AI platforms describe your brand — not just whether they mention you, but what they say.
The scorecard tests your brand across five AI platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot) with a structured query set covering brand recognition, expertise attribution, competitive positioning, reputation signals and factual accuracy. Each dimension is scored on a scale from absent (the platform has no knowledge of your brand) through inaccurate (it knows you exist but misrepresents your expertise or positioning) to aligned (the AI-generated description matches your intended positioning).
The scorecard reveals gaps that no traditional SEO metric captures. A business might have a Domain Rating of 60 and rank on page one for ten competitive keywords — but if ChatGPT describes them as “a web design agency” when they have repositioned as an AI consultancy, the brand narrative is misaligned and every AI-referred prospect arrives with the wrong expectations. The scorecard identifies these misalignments and maps them to specific remediation actions: updating structured data, strengthening on-site entity signals, building corroborating mentions on authoritative external sources, or creating content that explicitly reinforces the correct positioning.
The Revenue Exposure Model
The Revenue Exposure Model answers the question every decision-maker asks: “What is this actually costing us?”
We build the model from your specific data. For each high-value query where you lack AI visibility, we estimate query volume across AI platforms (using available data and calibrated estimates), apply a citation click-through rate based on published research and our own cross-client data, factor in your website’s conversion rate and average deal value, and calculate the revenue exposure — the potential revenue you are not capturing because you are not being cited.
The model is explicitly presented as an estimate, not a guarantee. We show the assumptions, the data sources and the confidence ranges. But even a conservative estimate is valuable because it translates an abstract problem (“we are not visible in AI answers”) into a concrete commercial figure that finance teams and board members can evaluate against the cost of remediation. A £1,200 audit that identifies £50,000 in at-risk revenue from AI visibility gaps presents a clear return-on-investment case.
Timeline and Process
The audit process follows a consistent structure regardless of tier.
Discovery call (30 minutes, free). We discuss your business, goals, current SEO status and specific concerns. This call determines which tier is appropriate and allows us to scope the engagement accurately. There is no obligation — if a different approach would serve you better, we will say so.
Scoping and proposal (1–2 business days). Based on the discovery call, we provide a clear proposal with the selected tier, timeline, investment and exactly what you will receive. No ambiguity.
Data gathering (days 1–3). We request access to Google Search Console, Google Analytics and any existing SEO tool accounts. We run our technical crawls, pull backlink data, and begin the AI platform testing. If access is delayed, the timeline shifts accordingly — we are transparent about dependencies.
Analysis and reporting (days 4–10). This is where the bulk of the work happens. Technical crawl analysis, content assessment, authority evaluation, AI visibility testing, competitive analysis (where applicable), and the synthesis of findings into prioritised recommendations. Tier 3 engagements include the Revenue Exposure Model build during this phase.
Walkthrough call (day 11–15). We present the findings, walk through the prioritised recommendations, answer questions and discuss implementation options. This is a working session, not a one-way presentation — we expect questions and adjust priorities based on your operational context and resource constraints. If stakeholders beyond the primary contact should attend, we welcome that. The call is typically 60–90 minutes depending on audit complexity.
Total timeline from kickoff to walkthrough: 10–15 business days for Tiers 1 and 2, 15–20 business days for Tier 3. Expedited timelines are available for urgent situations at a premium.
What the Audit Report Looks Like
We believe audit reports should be useful, not impressive-looking. You will not receive a 200-page document padded with tool screenshots and boilerplate explanations of what a title tag is. What you will receive is a focused document — typically 30–60 pages for Tier 1 and 50–80 pages for Tiers 2 and 3 — where every page contains findings, analysis or recommendations specific to your site.
The report opens with an executive summary: the three to five most commercially significant findings, the overall health assessment, and the single most impactful action you could take immediately. This section is written for decision-makers who need the headlines in two minutes.
The body follows the five-phase framework, with each finding documented consistently: what the issue is, why it matters for your specific business (not a generic explanation), how to fix it with specific implementation steps, and the estimated impact — high, medium or low. Screenshots and data visualisations are included where they clarify the finding, not as padding.
The action plan is delivered separately as a spreadsheet — sortable by priority, category, estimated effort and assigned phase. This becomes the implementation tracking tool. Clients tell us this spreadsheet is the single most used deliverable from the entire audit, which is exactly the point — a report that gathers dust is a failed audit, regardless of how thorough the analysis was.
After the Audit: Implementation Paths
An audit without implementation is a shelfware report. We have seen too many businesses invest in thorough audits from other agencies only for the report to sit in a shared drive untouched because the recommendations were unclear, the team lacked capacity, or nobody owned the follow-through. We address this directly by offering three clear paths forward once the audit is delivered — and by writing every recommendation with enough specificity to be actionable regardless of which path you choose.
Self-implementation. Every recommendation in the audit includes enough technical detail for a competent developer or SEO to action it independently. If you have an in-house team or an existing agency, the audit serves as their roadmap. We are available for ad hoc questions during implementation at our standard consultancy rate.
Guided implementation. We work alongside your team in an advisory capacity — reviewing their work, answering technical questions, and ensuring the recommendations are implemented correctly. This is a retainer arrangement, typically one to two days per month, that provides expert oversight without requiring you to hand over full execution. Particularly effective when your team is technically capable but lacks specialist SEO or AI visibility experience to confidently prioritise and quality-check the work.
Full implementation. We implement everything ourselves. Technical fixes, content restructuring, schema markup, entity authority building, AI optimisation — all executed in-house. Unlike agencies that audit and then hand over to a junior team, the same senior consultant who conducted the audit leads the implementation. This ensures strategic continuity and eliminates the translation loss that occurs when strategy and execution are separated.
The right path depends on your internal resources, budget and timeline. We discuss the options during the walkthrough call and provide a clear recommendation based on your situation. There is no pressure to choose implementation with us — the audit stands on its own as a valuable deliverable regardless of who implements it.
Ready to start? Get in touch for a free discovery call, or try our free search visibility score tool for a quick baseline before committing to a full engagement.
