CPM, CPC and CPL cannot see the value of an AI citation. Here are three new performance metrics, cost per citation, citation share of voice and citation-influenced pipeline.
A single content brief can optimise for Google ranking, AI retrieval and AI citation at the same time. Here is the three-layer template, with the checklist for each layer.
Perplexity leans on primary and news sources; ChatGPT leans on Wikipedia and reference sites. Here is what the published data shows and two publishing playbooks that follow from it.
Most ChatGPT SEO advice treats every tactic as equal. This playbook ranks 12 tactics by the effect size each one showed in a published study or controlled test.
AI engines reason over entities, not keywords. This 7-step audit compares your content to a Wikidata or Google Knowledge Graph snapshot to find the entities you are missing.
We took 10 UK pages, applied one isolated change each, and measured citation rate after 4 weeks. Direct-answer block lifted +19pp; meta-description rewrites produced 0pp. Full ranked list with implementation time.
We mapped 50 UK AI marketing agencies on a 4-quadrant grid: strategy vs technical operations, creative vs analytical. 34 cluster in strategic-analytical; only 3 sit in the technical-creative white space.
We surveyed 100 self-described AI SEO experts on LinkedIn and scored each against 8 capabilities. The median respondent demonstrated 3.7 of 8. Top decile averaged 6.4; bottom decile 1.8. Full distribution.
We re-tested the Ziptie (2025) finding that 44.2% of LLM citations come from the first 30% of a page, against 100 UK commercial pages. The UK panel pushed the figure to 47.3%. Layout, not just content, governs citation.
We ran 30 family-law queries against ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, logging every cited domain. Here is the league table of UK family-law firms and what separates the cited from the invisible.