AEO Checklist for Recruitment Marketing Directors

Key Facts

• Agree whether the priority is employer enquiries, candidate attraction or another defined outcome.
• Record a baseline before assessing improvement; unmeasured visibility is not a zero baseline.
• Separate delivery milestones from outcomes such as AI mentions, relevant visits and client enquiries.
• Keep the tracked questions and measurement method consistent enough to compare periods.
• Assign owners for website changes, specialist input, content approval and monthly review.

1. Define the commercial objective

Start with the outcome you want the programme to support. For a recruitment business, that might be more employer enquiries for a particular division, stronger visibility in a new geography or clearer positioning around a specialist service.

Write the objective in terms the leadership team will recognise. For example: “Improve our visibility among finance leaders looking for senior accountancy recruitment support in the North West.” This is an illustrative objective, not a results promise.

Confirm which audiences are secondary. Candidate traffic can be useful, but it should not be used to demonstrate progress against an employer acquisition objective without a clear connection. For the background on why AI search now shapes recruitment shortlists, see our guide to AEO for recruitment agencies.

2. Agree the services and markets in scope

List the priority recruitment services, sectors, seniority levels and locations. Include the language your clients use to describe their hiring problems.

Speak to the people closest to sales and delivery. Common questions from prospects, reasons for winning or losing work and recurring objections can help shape the research.

Agree what is outside the initial scope. A multi-division business may need to prioritise the services with the clearest commercial opportunity and strongest supporting evidence.

3. Check the website and existing evidence

Gather the material already available before commissioning new content. Useful inputs include service pages, sector pages, case studies, placement examples, testimonials, consultant expertise and relevant market data.

Check what can be used publicly. A successful confidential search may support an anonymised case study if the detail can be shared accurately and with the necessary permission.

Ask the delivery team to review access, indexing, page structure and relevant technical issues. Google’s guidance on generative AI search confirms that special schema markup is not required for its AI features; technical work should address real site needs.

Keep a record of existing SEO recommendations and planned website changes. This helps coordinate the work and avoid commissioning the same task twice.

4. Establish the visibility baseline

Agree a set of buyer questions that reflects the commercial brief. Include questions that do not name your agency so you can assess discovery, as well as relevant questions about your brand and services.

Record which platforms are checked, the question wording, dates, target markets and measurement approach. Review which firms appear and which sources are cited.

If there is no previous tracking, the baseline is unknown until measured. Do not mark the starting point as zero simply because this is the first report.

DomiSearch establishes the programme baseline during onboarding and tracks agreed questions across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews.

5. Agree what the reporting measures

Decide which measures answer the questions your leadership team will ask. Keep delivery, visibility and commercial outcomes distinguishable so the report shows both what has been done and what has changed.

A mention and a citation are different. An answer can name your agency while linking to a third-party source, so the report should explain both. Our guide to measuring AEO covers these metrics in more depth.

Visibility figures describe the monitored sample, not every AI conversation. Add context when questions, platforms or measurement methods change so the team can interpret comparisons fairly.

6. Assign delivery and approval responsibilities

Confirm who can access the website, implement technical changes, supply specialist input and approve content. Include your existing developer or SEO provider where their work overlaps.

Agree a practical review process. Identify one person who consolidates feedback and the subject specialists needed for different services or markets.

The content plan should show how each piece relates to a buyer need and existing coverage. Record whether it is new content or an update, and avoid producing near-duplicate pages just to meet a volume target.

DomiSearch’s standard 90-day programme includes 36 new or refreshed content pieces alongside agreed website improvements. The priorities and mix are confirmed after the audit, with client approval before publication.

7. Set expectations for the first 90 days

Use the initial programme as a delivery and review period. Agree the order of work around the audit findings, dependencies and available approvals.

Early activity should establish the baseline and priorities. The next work should address agreed website foundations and publish approved content, while monitoring continues. Reviews should assess what has changed and what needs attention next.

Do not turn this sequence into a promise that a particular recommendation will appear in month two or that enquiries will reach a set level by month three.

The leadership team should understand which commitments the provider controls, such as agreed deliverables, and which outcomes must be measured over time.

8. Prepare a useful monthly review

Ask the delivery team to explain the evidence and the next decisions. A useful monthly conversation should cover:

• What was completed and published, and what remains blocked.
• How visibility changed against the baseline and previous period.
• Which relevant questions show progress or continued gaps.
• What the competitor and source analysis suggests investigating next.
• Whether identifiable visits or enquiries provide additional commercial context.
• What the team will prioritise before the next review.

Avoid judging the programme from one screenshot or a total detached from the underlying questions. If results are flat, ask what will be checked or changed and how the next review will assess that decision.

9. Confirm the scope and commercial terms

Before committing, confirm what is included in the fee, the initial commitment, implementation responsibilities and any additional costs. Check whether external outreach, development or paid placements are included or separately agreed.

Confirm what the business retains when the engagement ends and when reporting or access to monitoring stops. Your team should know how to continue using the website assets it has commissioned. Our guide on how to choose an AEO agency as a recruitment business covers the comparison questions in more detail.

For DomiSearch, the process starts with a discovery call. If there is a fit, we prepare an audit and proposed roadmap, then explain the findings, scope, timings and investment on a separate walkthrough.

Discuss your brief with DomiSearch

If you are assessing AI search for your recruitment business, start with a discovery call. We will discuss your priorities and explain how the audit and roadmap process works.

Book a free discovery call with DomiSearch