Search & AI Visibility
Being found starts with being understood.
Search engines and AI assistants can only recommend a business they can reach, read and describe correctly. We work on that part — the structure, the wording, the business information and the technical foundations — for businesses in Johannesburg and across South Africa. What we do not do is claim to control the results.
This is search engine optimisation (SEO), local SEO and the newer answer engine optimisation (AEO) treated as one job: findable in Google, correct in local results, and quotable by the assistants people increasingly ask instead.
Tell us what you want to be found for, and we will tell you what is worth fixing first.
Five things have to happen before a customer chooses you. We work on the first three.
- CrawledReachable pages
- UnderstoodClear structure
- DescribedAccurate, consistent facts
- MatchedGoogle’s decision
- ChosenThe customer’s decision
The work
Four groups of work, scoped to what your business needs
No engagement includes all of this automatically. What applies depends on what already exists, what is broken and what the business is actually trying to be found for.
Technical search foundations
Whether a search engine can reach your pages and store them at all.
- Crawlability and indexability, including robots and sitemap rules
- Canonical URLs, so one page is not competing with itself
- Unique page titles and meta descriptions
- Semantic heading structure and crawlable internal links
- Structured data where the page genuinely supports it
- Mobile and performance fundamentals
Depends on the projectPlatform-level fixes on a site we did not build, redirect mapping after a URL change, and anything requiring access to hosting or DNS you still need to arrange.
On-page and content structure
Whether the page answers the question somebody actually typed.
- A page per service, rather than one page listing everything
- Headings that describe the content instead of decorating it
- The words customers use, not the words the industry uses
- Clear service, area and business information on the page
- Internal links that connect related pages sensibly
Depends on the projectHow much writing is involved. Website and Automation projects include a first draft of the agreed page copy; beyond that, copywriting is quoted separately.
Local search
For businesses customers look up by area, not just by name.
- Google Business Profile setup or clean-up
- Business name, address, phone and hours consistent everywhere
- Services and areas served described accurately
- The profile and the website agreeing with each other
- A sensible, honest approach to asking for reviews
Depends on the projectAvailable as the defined Google Business & Local Presence Setup package at R3,500 once-off, or folded into a website project. Directory clean-up across many third-party listings is quoted on what is found.
AI-assisted discovery
The same foundations, read by something that answers instead of listing.
- Direct answers to real questions, near the top of the page
- Facts stated plainly enough to be quoted without distortion
- Consistent business identity across the site and elsewhere
- Structured data that matches what the page visibly says
- A deliberate decision about which AI crawlers you allow
Depends on the projectWhich assistants matter to you, and whether you want to be available for training as well as retrieval. That is a business decision, and we will explain the trade-off rather than choose for you.
Search foundations are part of every website we build — see what that covers on website design and development. This page is about the work that goes further than the build, or that applies to a site somebody else made. The Vortex Trance Adventures case study shows the structural half of it on a live site.
A defined package
Google Business & Local Presence Setup
For service businesses that need their Google and local presence configured properly rather than left half-built — a half-configured profile is the most common local search problem we meet. One job, one fixed price, because the scope genuinely is fixed: the profile itself, the measurement around it, and the review-gathering tools most businesses never set up, done once and correctly.
Nothing ongoing is attached to it. There is no retainer, and no monthly fee follows. If you later want continuous search work — rankings watched, content built out month by month — that is a separate, deliberate choice: an Ongoing Growth & Support plan, never an automatic follow-on from this setup. If your details also need correcting across third-party directories, that is quoted separately on what we find, because the size of that job is not knowable in advance.
Google controls approvalGoogle may require the business owner to complete verification themselves, including video or document checks. We can guide the process, but Google controls final approval.
Google Business & Local Presence Setup
Once-offR3,500
- Google Business Profile created or claimed
- Correct primary and secondary categories
- Service areas, hours, contact details and business description configured
- Logo, cover image and selected business photos uploaded
- Website connected, with tracking added to the profile’s website link
- Google Search Console set up or confirmed
- Sitemap submitted and indexing checked
- Google Analytics confirmed as correctly connected
- Direct Google review link created
- Review QR code generated
- A ready-to-send WhatsApp review request
- First two to three Google Business Profile posts published
Prefer not to use WhatsApp? Send us the details instead.
The term everyone is now using
What AEO is, and what it is not
AEO stands for answer engine optimisation. It describes making a business easy to understand and quote for systems that answer a question directly — AI assistants, and the AI summaries now appearing above ordinary search results — rather than returning a list of links for a person to work through.
There is no separate switch for it. An assistant that cannot crawl your site, or finds three different phone numbers for you, has the same problem a search engine has: almost everything that makes a page quotable already made it a good page. What is genuinely new is smaller than the marketing suggests — answers get attributed to whoever stated something clearly, structured data is read against the visible page, and you can now decide which AI crawlers reach your site at all.
Anyone selling AEO as a distinct product with guaranteed AI citations is describing something they cannot deliver. No one can promise that an assistant will mention a business, and the systems change too often for anybody to claim a stable method.
Before you brief anyone
Foundations, not influence: what the work can do, and what nobody can promise
Nobody outside Google decides what Google ranks. What a provider can genuinely change is everything on your side of the line — and most small-business websites lose search opportunity for ordinary, fixable reasons rather than competitive ones: pages that never got a proper title, services described in language no customer types, a profile with an old address. Fixing those does not guarantee a position; it removes the reasons you were never a candidate. That line is the one to hold any provider to, including us.
What the work can genuinely do
- Make sure your pages can be crawled, indexed and understood
- Give each service a page that answers a real question
- Make your business information accurate and consistent
- Remove technical faults that were keeping pages out of results
- Improve how your listing reads once somebody does see it
- Make the important facts easy to quote correctly
- Set up measurement so changes can be judged on evidence
What we will not claim
- A first position, a number one, or any specific ranking
- A guaranteed increase in rankings, traffic, enquiries or revenue
- That an AI assistant will cite or recommend your business
- Inclusion in any particular assistant’s answers
- A timeframe in which results will appear
- Any influence over how Google weighs anything
- That search is the right investment before we have looked
Scope, price and measurement
How search work is scoped, and how you will know whether it worked
Search is rarely bought on its own. It is strongest attached to a build, because most of what needs fixing is decided while the pages are being made.
What moves the scope
- Whether the site is one we built or one we are inheriting
- How many services genuinely need their own page
- The condition of the existing content and metadata
- Whether a Google Business Profile exists, and what state it is in
- How many third-party listings carry wrong details
How it gets measured
- Search Console or equivalent, connected and actually read
- Indexation: which pages are in the index, and which are not
- Which queries the site appears for, and how that set changes
- Analytics on what visitors do once they arrive
- Enquiries and calls, as the only number that pays anyone
- A baseline recorded before work starts, so change is visible
Depends on the projectMonitoring and reporting are agreed when the work is scoped; ongoing monitoring is a separate arrangement from a one-off piece of work.
Search foundations are included in every website project. The Google Business & Local Presence Setup is the one defined package on this page, at R3,500 once-off; broader or ongoing search work is quoted against what the site needs, or sits within one of the project packages. Every project receives a written scope and price before work begins.
If you would rather start smaller
A free second opinion on the website itself
The Website Review is a commercial and user-experience read of your site — clarity of the offer, navigation, mobile usability, credibility and enquiry friction — and it flags obvious search-foundation problems where it meets them. It is not a technical SEO audit: it does not report on crawling, indexation, query data or rankings. If the honest answer is that search is not your constraint, it will say that instead.
Free Website Review
Free, with no obligation, and normally back within two business days.
If there is no website yet for search work to improve
Website DesignIf people are arriving already and still not getting in touch
Website RedesignQuestions about search, SEO and AEO
Can you get us to the top of Google?
No, and neither can anyone else. Google decides what ranks and does not sell or disclose that decision. What we can do is remove the reasons your pages are not being considered properly, and make each one a clear answer to something people search for. Any provider promising a position is either guessing or misleading you.
What is AEO, in one sentence?
Answer engine optimisation is making your business easy for AI assistants and AI search summaries to understand and quote accurately — which in practice is mostly the same clear structure, accurate facts and consistent identity that good search work has always required.
How long before we see anything?
Technical fixes can be reflected within days to a few weeks, because they change whether a page is eligible at all. Anything involving new or restructured content is slower and less predictable. We will not give you a date, because the date would be invented.
Do we need ongoing SEO, or is a once-off enough?
A once-off pass fixes foundations, and foundations stay fixed until the site changes. Ongoing work only earns its cost where you are genuinely competing for demand, publishing regularly, or operating somewhere competitive. For many small businesses the honest answer is that the foundations plus a well-kept Google Business Profile is where the value stops.
Is search work included when you build a website?
Search foundations are, on every build — unique titles and descriptions, semantic structure, crawlable links, a sitemap, and structured data where it applies. The Google Business & Local Presence Setup is a separate defined package at R3,500 once-off. Broader or ongoing search work is quoted separately against what the site actually needs.
Do you do link building?
No. Bought links are against Google’s guidelines and put the site at risk for a benefit nobody can guarantee. We would rather spend the same money on pages that answer real questions and on business information that is correct everywhere it appears.
Next step
Start by finding out what is actually in the way
Send us the website address and what you would expect to be found for. We will look at the foundations you control — structure, wording and business information — and tell you whether search is the thing worth spending on first.
Not sure whether the problem is search at all? Compare the services.
Or email lance@wedevelop.co.za