A UK trades job management and compliance platform began with a clear organic discovery gap. At programme start, it appeared in 5.8% of relevant AI answers, held 1.2% share of voice and sat about seventeenth in a 27-company category. After around one and a half months, visibility had reached 36.7% and share of voice 13.5%.
TL;DR
- AI visibility rose from 5.8% to 36.7%, a 6.3 times increase.
- Share of voice rose from 1.2% to 13.5%, an 11.8 times increase on the unrounded baseline.
- Category rank by visibility improved from about seventeenth to sixth.
- The platform now ranks second for share of voice, 1.7 percentage points behind the leader.
- Comparison pages, buyer guides, technical fixes and off-site organic sources drove the result.
| Metric | Value | Caption |
|---|---|---|
| AI visibility | 5.8% to 36.7% | |
| Share of voice | 1.2% to 13.5% | |
| Category rank | 17th to 6th |
What was the starting position?
The programme-start audit measured 5.8% visibility, 1.15% share of voice and a category rank around seventeenth. The company had a foothold in its specialist niche, but broad discovery belonged to better-documented rivals.
An audit of the platform's own site explained why growth was still available even from a reasonable starting point. There were zero comparison pages, zero alternative-to pages and zero category-level buying guides anywhere on the domain. The blog existed but never named a single competitor, which meant it never showed up for any of the comparison and alternative queries buyers actually type. There was no FAQ or product schema markup, no llms.txt file, and one product page was returning a server error instead of content. On top of that, an older brand domain the company had previously traded under was still live and had never been redirected, splitting years of accumulated authority across two separate web addresses instead of consolidating it on one.
Who else is answering these questions?
The wider category contained 27 companies. A neutral alphabetical selection includes BigChange, Checker, Commusoft, Fergus, Gas Certificate App, Gas Engineer Software, iCertifi, Jobber, Joblogic, Powered Now, QuickBooks, ServiceM8, simPRO, Tradify and Xero. The list does not identify which company this study covers.
What did we actually do?
The audit pointed at a content vacuum, not a quality problem, so the response was a straightforward content programme plus a set of technical fixes.
Filled the missing buying journeys. The programme covered head-to-head comparisons, rival alternatives, best-app guides for specific trades, compliance workflows, customer retention, quoting, invoicing and scheduling. Each format answered a real choice or task.
Fixed the schema and crawlability gaps. An llms.txt file went live, and Article and FAQPage structured data were added across the blog, so pages that previously had no machine-readable structure at all now render cleanly for an AI crawler.
Restyled the older content. Existing posts were brought in line with the new structural standard, rather than leaving a visibly two-tier blog where only the newest posts had comparison tables and FAQ blocks.
Built a wider organic source base. The owned blog remained the base. Medium thought pieces and LinkedIn posts added context. YouTube gave practical workflows a visual form. Editorial sources added independent support. Reddit and trade communities were used for direct answers where the topic already existed.
What actually moved, and by how much?
| Metric | Programme start | After around one and a half months |
|---|---|---|
| AI visibility | 5.8% | 36.7% |
| Share of voice | 1.2% | 13.5% |
| Category rank | about 17th | 6th |
The current comparison view places the company sixth by visibility and second by share of voice. The share-of-voice gap to the leader is 1.65 percentage points.
How should the numbers be read?
AI visibility measures how often the company appears. Share of voice measures how much of the whole tracked category discussion it holds. Category rank compares visibility across the named market set.
The programme-start audit set was later tightened into the stable daily monitoring set, so the figures reflect the live market at each stage. The current rank uses the completed comparison view. No agent-traffic lift is claimed because a comparable start and current web-log series was not available.
What is the practical lesson?
A strong product can remain absent from AI shortlists if its public content does not help a buyer compare, switch or complete a task. In this case, the biggest gains came from the owned blog and category pages. Medium, LinkedIn, YouTube, editorial and community content worked best when they reinforced the same product story.
If you want to see where your own category stands, the free AI search audit shows your current visibility, share of voice and competitive position.
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