Question 1

What does AI visibility cost with FutureProofs?

Accepted Answer

Nothing on top of your website plan, because AI visibility comes inside every one of them alongside the SEO. No GEO retainer, no add on, no second invoice. Starter is from £189 a month, Business from £249 a month and Market Leader from £329 a month.

All 3 get the same launch setup, the same monthly AI visibility check and the same plain English report. Plans run on a 12 month minimum, then roll monthly at the same price, with nothing to pay up front.

What changes between the plans is how much ground you cover. Starter is up to 6 services across 6 towns, about 56 pages, which suits a sole trader working close to home.

Business is up to 9 services across 10 towns, about 117 pages, and Market Leader up to 12 services across 14 towns, about 202 pages.

If the research turns up a question worth answering outside your allowance, an extra service is £20 a month and an extra town is £15 a month, agreed before anything is built.

If you already have a website somewhere else, you move it onto a plan and the work starts with the same research. We don't take on AI visibility for a site we aren't looking after, because most of the work lives on the pages.

Question 2

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

Accepted Answer

Honestly, it varies more than Google rankings do, because assistants change their answers from week to week and from one person to the next. We give you a straight view from the research before you sign, not a date designed to win the work.

The launch setup works from day 1. With llms.txt, schema and crawler access in place, the assistants can read the site as soon as it is live. Whether they then use it depends on what else they find about you.

Assistants that search the web as they answer, like Perplexity, ChatGPT search and Google's AI Mode, can pick up a good page once Google and Bing have indexed it, which is why the page comes first.

Mentions and reviews take longer, because they mean other people writing about you. Expect the first few months to be groundwork, and the months after to be where the check tells you whether it is working.

What speeds it up is having the pages in the first place. Most businesses we take on have no page that answers the question their customers ask, so there is plenty to fix early.

Whatever the pace, the monthly check records it from month 1, so you see what the assistants say about you rather than taking our word for it.

Question 3

What is GEO and why does my business need it?

Accepted Answer

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation. In plain words, it is the work of getting ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews to name your business when someone asks who to use, rather than naming the firm down the road.

People ask assistants in full sentences. Who's a good electrician in Sudbury who can come this week? Where's a decent Sunday lunch near Bury St Edmunds? The assistant answers with a handful of names, and for plenty of people that short list is the whole search.

For a local business that short list can matter more than a ranking, because if you aren't on it you aren't in the conversation. The assistant chooses from what it can find and trust, and most small business websites give it very little.

So the work is making you findable and trustworthy in the places it looks: pages that answer the question, facts that match everywhere, mentions on other sites, reviews that name the job and the town. We've written up how to get cited by ChatGPT in more detail.

It also helps your Google rankings, because almost everything an assistant wants is something Google rewards too. That is why it comes in the same plan as the SEO, and why we treat the 2 as 1 job.

Question 4

How is GEO different from SEO?

Accepted Answer

They overlap more than most agencies admit, and on a plan you get both, so the difference matters less than it sounds. SEO is about where your pages rank in Google's results. GEO is about whether an assistant names you in its answer.

The foundations are shared: a fast, well built site, a page for every service in every town, schema, internal links and a Google Business Profile that is looked after. Do those properly and most of the work for both is done.

GEO adds a few things on top. llms.txt for the assistants to read, robots rules that let the AI crawlers in, pages that open with a plain answer, Bing Places kept as carefully as Google, and mentions on the sites assistants cite.

The measurement differs too. SEO is tracked in rankings. AI visibility is tracked by asking the assistants your customers' questions every month and recording whether you were named, and both go in the same report.

Question 5

Which questions do you check, and how do you choose them?

Accepted Answer

The same way we choose keywords, research first. We start from the searches your customers make in Google and turn them into the questions they would ask an assistant, in their own words, with the town in them.

A search for roofer Thetford becomes "who's a good roofer in Thetford", or "who can fix a leaking flat roof near Thetford this week". Those are the questions we put to the assistants each month.

We weight them the way we weight keywords, by how close the person is to picking up the phone. "Who's the best dog groomer near Newmarket" is worth tracking. "How do I groom a spaniel at home" is not, for most groomers.

Each question is tied to a page on your site that should answer it. If that page is weak, or missing, the check shows it, and fixing it becomes the next month's work.

The list is reviewed every month. When a different question turns up, a service you've added or a town you've started covering, it goes on the list and the page gets built to answer it.

Question 6

Can I do AI search optimisation myself?

Accepted Answer

Some of it, yes, and we'll tell you which parts. Matching your hours on Google, Bing Places and Apple Business Connect is an afternoon's job. Asking happy customers to mention the job and the town in their review costs nothing.

If you want help doing more of it yourself, an AI Setup Session is a good place to start. It is a half day at £495, in person in Bury St Edmunds or online, with or without a website plan.

What is hard to do yourself is the structure. A page for every service in every town, each opening with a plain answer, with schema, llms.txt and crawler rules set up properly and kept that way.

The checking is the other part owners rarely keep up. Asking 5 assistants the same questions every month and writing down the answers is tedious, and it's the only way to know if anything is working.

In a quiet market with time on your hands, the session may be all you need, and we'll say so. If 6 other firms in Cambridge are chasing the same customers, the plan is the realistic route.

Either way the research is free. Most owners have never seen what ChatGPT says about them until it is on a sheet in front of them.

Question 7

Does AI visibility work for an online shop?

Accepted Answer

Yes, and for a shop it is part of the plan. Every online shop we build is a Shopify store on a monthly plan from £495 a month, in your name from day 1, with the AI visibility setup built in from the start.

Shoppers ask assistants things like which waterproof coat is best for a whippet. Product pages with clear facts, price and stock in the schema, and buying guides that answer the question properly, are what an assistant can quote.

Where a shop has a local side, click and collect, fitting, a showroom in Bury St Edmunds, the local work applies just as it does for a service business, with a page for the question in each town that matters.

After launch the Shopify SEO carries on every month inside the same plan, and the AI visibility check asks the assistants the product questions your buyers ask, with the answers in the same report as your rankings.

There is no separate ecommerce GEO retainer to pay for, because it is already in the price.

Question 8

What happens when the assistants change how they answer?

Accepted Answer

They will, often. ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode all change how they choose and present answers, sometimes from one week to the next, and nobody outside those companies knows exactly how they weigh things.

That is the reason we don't chase tricks. Anything sold as a shortcut into the answers tends to work until the next change and then stop, and some of it does real harm to your Google rankings on the way.

What holds up through every change is what a sensible person would trust: a clear page that answers the question, the same facts everywhere, real reviews and other reputable sites mentioning you.

Those are the signals the assistants are built to look for, because their whole job is giving an answer people can rely on. They are also what Google rewards, so the work pays twice.

Because we check every month, a change shows up quickly. If an assistant stops naming you for a question it used to, the report says so, and says what we think changed.

Then we fix what we can see is missing and check again the following month. That is slower than a promise and a lot more useful.

Question 9

Can you guarantee my business will get recommended by ChatGPT?

Accepted Answer

No, and be wary of anyone who says they can. Nobody outside OpenAI controls what ChatGPT says, and the same is true of Google, Microsoft and the rest. There is no form to fill in and no fee that buys a place in the answer.

Assistants give different answers to different people, on different days, worded slightly differently each time. Anyone promising you the top spot in ChatGPT is promising a position that doesn't exist.

What we do control is everything the assistants draw on: the pages, the schema and llms.txt, the facts on every listing, the mentions on other sites, the reviews. We do all of it properly and keep it that way.

What we guarantee is the work and the visibility of it. Every month we ask the assistants your customers' questions and show you, in plain English, whether you were named, what was said and who was named instead.

When you are missing from an answer, the report says why we think that is and what we are doing about it, whether that is a page, a listing or a mention.

We check, every month, and fix what is missing. That is the honest version of the promise, and it is the one we can keep.

Question 10

Which AI assistants do you check?

Accepted Answer

The ones your customers actually use: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews, which sit inside ordinary Google searches. The list moves when people's habits move, and the report always says which assistants were asked.

They don't all read the web the same way, which is why the work is spread across several places. ChatGPT's search leans on Bing, so Bing Places and Bing indexing matter as much as Google. Copilot runs on Bing too.

Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode draw on Google's own index and your Google Business Profile, so the SEO work feeds them directly. Gemini leans on Google search as well.

Perplexity searches the web live and shows its sources, which makes it a useful early sign of which sites the assistants are reading about you.

Each month the same questions go to each assistant, so the report compares like with like and you can see which ones name you and which ones don't yet.

Question 11

What is in the monthly AI visibility report?

Accepted Answer

It is part of the same monthly report as your rankings, written in plain English, so AI visibility and SEO sit side by side instead of in 2 documents from 2 suppliers.

For each question we track, it shows which assistants named you, what they said about you, who they named instead and, where they show them, which sources they leaned on. It also lists what we did that month: pages improved, listings corrected, mentions and reviews gained.

Alongside that there is a short written view of what changed and why, what is working, what is not and what we are changing, and the plan for next month. If an assistant stopped naming you, it says so. If a question isn't worth chasing, it says that too.

Sam D'Arcy's review of us mentions the work "including ranking in AI search, not just Google", and the report is where you see it. You can check what the assistants say about you without taking our word for it.

Question 12

How do I get started with AI visibility through FutureProofs?

Accepted Answer

Fill in the Start a Project form on this page with where you trade and what you sell, and we will come back with the questions your customers are asking and what the assistants say about you today. To talk first, write to hello@futureproofs.co.uk or ring 01284 277261. We are on King's Road in Bury St Edmunds and answer 7 days a week, 7am to 11pm. The research is free, and you see all of it before you decide on a plan or sign anything.

AI visibility in Suffolk for the moment a customer asks ChatGPT who to use

GEO gets you named in the answer, not listed under it

llms.txt, schema and open doors for AI crawlers from launch day

Included in every plan from £189 a month, nothing else to buy

A page for every service in every town is what assistants quote

Same name, address and hours on Google, Bing Places and Apple

1 AI visibility check a month, in the same report as your rankings

What the included AI visibility work actually does, month to month, when a customer asks an assistant

AI visibility and SEO in Suffolk with the website included, from £189 a month

Starter

Business

Market Leader

How many pages does your website need?

Why it is included

Technical groundwork, done at launch

What you see each month

Every review we have is 5 stars. Here is why.

New & featured web design & marketing work

Luxury watch servicing site with service by area pages across Dubai

A considered digital identity for an elite personal security consultancy

A Suffolk gardener reimagined as a high end estate specialist

Launching a coffee and wine bar at the heart of historic Bury St Edmunds

A bold digital hub for a £40m applied intelligence investment fund

A holiday cabin site with local guides that answer guests' questions

A Webflow rebuild that put a Suffolk village butchery on the map online

A full brand and lead engine that filled a startup plumber's diary for 2 years

From a motocross trackside stall to a Norwich city centre restaurant brand

A brand and content engine that powered a Newmarket clinic to tenfold growth

A nationwide ecommerce send in service for high end sneaker and bag care

A Webflow rebuild and SEO partnership for Cambridge's leading fireplace specialist

Website, SEO and Google Ads for a UKAS accredited construction testing firm

A boldly animated Webflow site that filled chairs in a new Peterborough shop

Natural pool builder with published guide prices and location pages

Reverse engineering site with an engineer made quote form

Peterborough food hall site with a page for each counter

Car body repair rebrand with photo quotes and town pages

2 Webflow sites for a dog and cat groomer in Needham Market and Stowmarket

An independent Stowmarket garage with a page for every repair it does

A scalable fintech site built to stand alongside the global giants

A boutique site for an award winning Sunbury dog and cat groomer

Pet shop website with range guides and 14 town pages

A family builder's site with service pages and 15 town pages across 3 counties

A Wix to Shopify move for a Suffolk reef aquarium accessories maker

Ready to start your web design project?

What owners ask about AI search before they start.

What does AI visibility cost with FutureProofs?

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

What is GEO and why does my business need it?

How is GEO different from SEO?

Which questions do you check, and how do you choose them?

Can I do AI search optimisation myself?

Does AI visibility work for an online shop?

What happens when the assistants change how they answer?

Can you guarantee my business will get recommended by ChatGPT?

Which AI assistants do you check?

What is in the monthly AI visibility report?

How do I get started with AI visibility through FutureProofs?

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