How to Brief an AI SEO or GEO Agency: A Copyable UK Buyer’s Brief
How to Brief an AI SEO or GEO Agency: A Copyable UK Buyer’s Brief
“Improve our AI visibility” is a reasonable ambition and a poor brief. It does not tell an agency which work matters, which questions customers ask, what evidence exists or who is allowed to change the website. A one-page buyer’s brief makes proposals easier to compare and the eventual handover easier to check.
The template below is designed to be copied. You do not need to submit a form or commit to a particular supplier to use it.
Copyable AI SEO and GEO agency brief
1. Business and commercial priority
Business: Website: Main UK market or service areas: Work, products or enquiries we want to win: What a valuable enquiry or sale looks like: What is out of scope:
2. Customer and buying situation
Priority customer: What they are trying to decide: Important constraints such as location, product fit, budget or eligibility: What they commonly misunderstand:
3. Five real buying questions
Write questions a customer could genuinely ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity or Google Search. Do not force the company name into an unbranded discovery question.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
4. Priority pages
List the pages that should answer those questions:
5. Available proof
Approved case studies: Named staff expertise: Client, partner or industry sources: Accreditations or public records: Customer reviews we are permitted to use: Claims that must not be made:
6. Platforms and test conditions
Platforms to observe: Country, sign-in state and product mode: Existing baseline date: Questions to repeat: How answers and visible sources will be retained:
Ask the agency to label Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and the Gemini app separately. They are not interchangeable reporting columns.
7. Implementation responsibilities
For each action, name the owner:
| Action | Agency | Client | Existing developer | Approval owner | | — | — | — | — | — | | Technical crawl and indexing checks | | | | | | Service or product page changes | | | | | | Structured data | | | | | | Case studies and evidence | | | | | | Business listings and external profiles | | | | | | Analytics and referral reporting | | | | | | Publication and rollback | | | | |
8. Deliverables
Ask suppliers to state what you will actually receive. Possible deliverables may include:
Do not assume every project needs every item. Ask the agency to explain what it would leave out and why.
9. Access, approvals and safeguards
Systems the agency may inspect: Systems the agency may change: Named approvers: Claims requiring legal, client or compliance approval: Personal or confidential data that must not be used: Rollback and change-record requirements:
10. Fees and working arrangements
Ask each agency to separate:
Byte explains its own AI SEO costs and working arrangements publicly. The purpose of this section is not to force identical pricing models. It is to stop unlike scopes being compared as though they were the same service.
11. Success measures
Keep observations and commercial outcomes separate:
Access and discovery: priority pages crawlable and indexed where appropriate. Answer observations: named, cited or recommended for the recorded questions. Accuracy: important facts represented correctly. Website behaviour: relevant referral visits and useful next steps. Commercial outcome: qualified enquiries, sales or another agreed business measure.
Set a baseline and reporting interval. Do not ask an agency to guarantee an independent platform’s answer.
A short filled-in example
The following business is fictional and the details are illustrative.
Business: Northfield Commercial Heat Pumps Ltd Priority: Win enquiries from owners of small UK warehouses planning to replace an ageing heating system. Customer: A facilities or operations director who needs to establish site suitability, service coverage, likely process and evidence of comparable work. Five questions:
- Which commercial heat-pump installers serve Nottinghamshire?
- Can a heat pump suit a small warehouse with intermittent occupancy?
- What information does an installer need before a site survey?
- How should I compare commercial heat-pump proposals?
- Does Northfield Commercial Heat Pumps work outside Nottingham?
Priority pages: Commercial heat pumps, warehouse applications, service areas, survey process and two approved project pages. Available proof: MCS certification where applicable, named engineer biographies, approved project details and manufacturer directory entries. Platforms: Gemini app, ChatGPT search and Google AI Mode, each recorded separately. Implementation: The agency proposes and implements content in staging; the client’s technical director approves engineering claims; the existing developer releases template changes. Success: Accurate answers for five recorded questions, relevant referral visits and qualified survey enquiries, reported separately.
The example is specific enough for an agency to inspect the website and propose work. It does not invent a target number of recommendations or ask a model to repeat the company’s sales language.
Replace a weak requirement with a checkable one
Weak requirement:
Improve our AI visibility.
Checkable replacement:
Establish a dated baseline for five agreed buying questions across the Gemini app, ChatGPT search and Google AI Mode. Identify the pages and evidence relevant to each question, implement the approved priority changes, and provide a handover record showing what changed, what can be checked immediately and what needs later observation. Report mentions, citations, recommendations, referral visits and qualified enquiries separately.
The replacement does not guarantee success. It makes the work and handover inspectable.
How to compare proposals
The strongest proposal is not automatically the one promising the most pages or platforms. Compare whether each supplier:
Google’s guidance on deciding whether you need an SEO recommends checking previous work, asking for a technical and search audit and understanding the proposed changes. The same buying discipline applies when an agency uses newer AI SEO or GEO terminology.
Google also states in its guidance for generative AI features that established SEO practices remain relevant to AI Overviews and AI Mode. A proposal should explain what is genuinely additional, not rebrand every ordinary SEO task as a new product.
Our guide to choosing an AI SEO or GEO agency provides the fuller selection questions. This brief is the document you can send after using that guide.
FAQs
How long should an AI SEO agency brief be?
One or two pages is usually enough for the initial comparison if the questions, pages, evidence and responsibilities are specific. Supporting analytics, technical information or brand guidance can be shared separately under appropriate access controls.
Should I ask every agency to test the same platforms?
Ask them to cover the platforms relevant to your customers and explain the choice. Keep each surface separate in the baseline. A broad platform list is not useful if nobody can maintain the tests or act on the findings.
Should an agency implement its recommendations?
The brief should make implementation ownership explicit. Some agencies deliver audits; others write and implement changes. Either can be valid, but the proposal should identify who turns recommendations into live, tested work.
What evidence should I give an agency?
Share only evidence you are permitted to use: approved case studies, public directories, accreditations, named expertise and accurate product or service information. Do not hand over confidential client material merely because it might make a stronger page.
Can an AI SEO agency guarantee recommendations?
No. An agency can improve technical access, clarity, evidence and measurement, but independent AI products decide what they retrieve, cite and recommend. Treat guarantees as a reason to ask harder questions.
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Gareth Allen is the founder and Managing Director of Byte Digital, with more than 26 years’ experience across digital marketing, design and web development. He helps businesses use paid media, websites and conversion-focused strategy to generate more qualified leads and sales. His work spans Google Ads, social advertising, campaign planning, tracking and website optimisation. With a background in design and front-end development, Gareth combines commercial marketing expertise with a practical understanding of how websites perform — from user experience and page speed to conversion tracking and landing-page improvements.