Key Facts
- The strategy should reflect your recruitment services, specialist markets and ideal clients.
- A dated baseline and repeated measurement are more useful than a single impressive screenshot.
- Confirm who will implement website changes, create content and manage approvals.
- Distinguish brand mentions, source citations, relevant website visits and client enquiries.
- Avoid guaranteed recommendations and fixed results timelines.
Start with the clients you want to win
Before comparing agencies, decide what you need the work to achieve. A recruitment business can attract employers, candidates and other recruiters, but those audiences do not all contribute to the same commercial goal.
If your priority is winning new client briefs, the strategy should focus on the people choosing a recruitment partner. That includes the sectors, seniority levels, hiring challenges and locations where you can deliver.
An agency should ask about these details. A broad promise to increase AI visibility tells you little unless you know which buyers and questions the work will target. Our guide to AEO for recruitment agencies explains what the work involves before you start comparing providers.
Look for an understanding of your recruitment business
A useful partner should understand the difference between your service lines and the decisions your clients face. Retained executive search, contract recruitment and high-volume permanent hiring need different explanations and evidence.
For example, a firm handling confidential leadership appointments might need content about discretion, market mapping and stakeholder involvement. A specialist contract recruiter could need clearer coverage of mobilisation, available skills and geographic reach.
These are illustrative examples. Ask the agency to explain how it will learn about your business and turn that understanding into priorities.
Relevant sector experience is useful, but ask what a case study actually demonstrates. A result from another industry may show a sound measurement process without proving what your recruitment business will achieve.
Ask how the agency researches AI visibility
A credible assessment should show where your agency appears for relevant buyer questions, which competitors are visible and which sources are cited. You should be able to understand how those findings lead to the recommended work.
Ask which platforms are covered, when the checks were run and how the questions were selected. The research should reflect the markets and buyers you serve.
A live search can help illustrate a point. It is only one observation, so it should sit alongside recorded examples and a repeatable monitoring approach.
The agency should distinguish observation from inference. A competitor appearing alongside a particular source gives a useful lead to investigate; it does not establish that one source caused the recommendation.
Check what will actually be implemented
A research report is useful only if you know what happens next. Ask whether the proposal includes implementation, recommendations for your team, or a combination of both. Our explainer on what an AEO agency does lists the six deliverables to expect.
For a recruitment website, the work might involve clearer service and sector pages, stronger placement evidence, practical hiring content, improved internal linking and relevant technical fixes.
Confirm which pages are included, how new content and updates are counted, who needs website access and what requires a developer. Agree the approval process before delivery starts.
Be wary of a universal schema checklist presented as the solution. Google’s guidance on generative AI search says established SEO practices remain relevant and no special schema markup is required for its AI features. Technical recommendations should fit the site and content.
Understand the measurement before reviewing the results
Ask the agency to explain its metrics in plain English and show a sample report. You need to know what is being counted and which questions, platforms and dates the figures cover.
A brand mention means your agency is named in an answer. A citation is a source referenced by the answer. Your firm might be mentioned while the answer cites a third-party page, so the two measures are not interchangeable. Our guide to measuring AEO explains each metric.
Visibility and share-of-voice figures should be reported with a clear method and a consistent tracked set. They should not be presented as your share of all AI searches.
Reports should also explain what changed on the website, what content was delivered and what the agency plans to do next. Where measurement is available, review relevant visits and enquiries alongside visibility.
If you have never tracked AI visibility, your starting position is unknown until it is measured. It should not be labelled zero simply because there was no previous report.
Compare proposals using the same questions
| Question | What the answer should explain |
|---|---|
| Who and what will you target? | The ideal clients, services, markets and buyer questions included. |
| What research supports the plan? | Dated examples, a visibility baseline and analysis of competitors and cited sources. |
| What will you deliver? | The website changes, content, implementation responsibilities and approval process. |
| How will you measure progress? | The platforms, tracking frequency, metric definitions and reporting cadence. |
| What does the fee cover? | The agreed scope, commitment, dependencies and any additional costs. |
| What evidence can you show? | Relevant work or results with the starting point, period and limitations explained. |
| What happens when we stop? | Ownership of content and website work, access arrangements and the end of monitoring. |
Compare the scope behind the price. A strategy-only engagement and a managed programme that includes implementation are different purchases.
Content volume also needs context. Ask whether the total includes updates, service pages or articles, and how topics will be prioritised. More pages are useful only when they address a real gap. If you want a starting list of providers, see the best AI search agencies for UK recruitment firms and our wider roundup of the best AEO agencies in the UK.
Red flags to watch for
- A guaranteed recommendation, fixed position in AI answers or promised number of enquiries.
- A content calendar with no clear link to your ideal clients, services or existing website.
- Claims that one file, markup type or article format will secure AI visibility.
- Reports that omit the questions, platforms or measurement period behind the totals.
- Vague promises about implementation or third-party coverage that are absent from the contract.
An agency should be able to explain what it knows, how it reached its conclusions and what remains uncertain. Clear reasoning is more useful than certainty it cannot substantiate.
Set expectations around delivery and learning
Agree what will be delivered and when, then decide how you will review progress. A defined programme gives you a delivery period and a point to assess the evidence.
It does not create a guaranteed date for recommendations. Your starting position, competition, website condition and the pace of approvals all affect the work that can be completed and evaluated.
Look for a provider that commits to the agreed delivery, records its actions and uses the findings to refine priorities. Ask how it will respond if visibility stays flat, and how it will check whether the tracked questions still reflect your commercial goals. Our AEO checklist for recruitment marketing directors covers how to set the brief and reporting before you commit.
How DomiSearch approaches the first conversation
DomiSearch starts with a free discovery call to understand your agency, ideal clients, target markets and priorities.
If there is a fit, we prepare an AI visibility audit and proposed 90-day roadmap. A separate walkthrough covers the findings, recommended work, timings and investment.
Our standard managed programme combines agreed website improvements, 36 new or refreshed content pieces, daily tracking and monthly reporting. The proposal sets out how that work applies to your business.
Discuss your agency with DomiSearch
Bring your questions to a discovery call. We will learn about your business and explain how we assess the opportunity before proposing the work.
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