The situation
The client is a four-month-old advisory domain. Our brief: find out whether AI search already sees the brand and plan how to earn more.
What AI search showed
For the query "Virtual CFO & Compliance Services UAE", client screenshots showed:
- Google's AI Overview named the firm as a provider and linked to the site.
- Google's AI Mode listed the site as the first source.
- AI Mode's brand answer also drew on a Gulf News article, a third-party source.
Third-party tools gave a mixed picture:
| Tool | Result | How we read it |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | 3 mentions, all in Google AI Mode | A useful baseline. Track monthly |
| Perplexity visibility tool | Visibility 18/100, credibility 56, sentiment 72 | Understood correctly, rarely surfaced |
| AI-readiness estimator | 83/100 | Low weight, since it estimates from site signals |
The honest caveats
We told the client two things before any of this was shown as a "ranking":
- The test queries mirrored the site's own page titles. Search Console showed no real users searching those exact phrases. The citations prove Google understands and trusts the pages, not that buyers find them yet.
- The captures were taken from India. Results in the UAE can differ.
What we did
- Entity fix: Organization and Person schema with the legal name, founders, markets and profile links, and one consistent brand name. The author on every page had been a generic account.
- Answer-first pages: open each service page with a 40 to 60 word plain answer, a "what is included" list and four to six FAQs with schema.
- Defined the firm's own term ("Virtual Finance Office") on the site so AI systems attach it correctly.
- Cleaned llms.txt, which listed placeholder and draft pages.
- Third-party proof: target two or three trade-press mentions, because AI answers lean on outside sources.
- Original data: publish one data piece a year. Numbers and named frameworks are what answer engines quote.
- Monthly tracking: ten buyer questions checked across Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, replacing one-off screenshots.
Results so far
Early but real: the site is eligible for AI citations, which many larger sites are not, and it has three confirmed AI Mode mentions. We do not yet have ChatGPT search results for this client, so we make no claim about them.
Lessons
- Show AI citations with the query, the date, the location and the caveat.
- A citation for a query that copies your title is a signal of trust, not of demand.
- Entity clarity and third-party mentions matter as much as page content.
Client details are anonymised. Figures come from the client's Google Search Console exports, site audits and our own checks, as dated above.