Questions SMBs ask before they buy

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini a question your business should answer. If your brand doesn't appear, or a competitor does, that's your signal. Every SignalAEO customer — plumbers, HVAC companies, dentists, auto repair shops, roofers — started exactly this way. The first citation is guaranteed within 14 days.

One thing: the keyword or phrase you want your brand to be the answer for. That's it. No website access. No content rewrites. No schema edits. SignalAEO is a hands-off ranking service — our 10,000-device farm and ops team handle the signal layer behind the scenes while you keep running your business. You name it; we rank it.

The median time to first citation is 14 days. Most customers see measurable movement by day 30. Some go faster. A few take up to 45 days, especially in crowded categories or when starting from very far behind. We measure this in real ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini answers, not projections. If you don't see progress by day 45, we'll tell you what's blocking it.

None. You do not touch code, content, or schema at any point. SignalAEO is fully hands-off — our ops team handles every piece of execution behind the scenes while our 10,000-device farm runs the signal layer. You will never be asked to log into your website, edit a page, or approve a content brief. This is deliberately the opposite of every other product in the category.

We measure ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Those three represent the vast majority of AI search traffic. We also monitor Claude, depending on your industry. Our device fleet runs real consumer accounts on real devices in real cities — not simulations or API scraping. We show you exactly what someone in your market sees when they ask each platform.

No. SignalAEO does not require website access, content changes, schema edits, or any on-page work from you. The signal layer that AI engines rank on lives off your website — it is real-account session activity across our 10,000-device farm. Our ops team runs that signal layer on your behalf. Your site stays exactly as it is. You keep running your business.

Yes — emphatically. Every one of our 12 named case studies is a local service business. Plumbers in Austin and Phoenix. HVAC contractors in Denver and Seattle. A Michelin-listed restaurant in Nashville. A roofing company in Dallas. A dental practice in Scottsdale. A CPA group in Chicago. Local service businesses are exactly who AEO is built for: you already have the trust signals (reviews, ratings, local tenure) — they just aren't reaching AI yet. We close that gap.

We'll tell you upfront if we haven't served your category. The core methodology — identifying what signals make an AI cite a local business, then strengthening those signals — works across most SMB service categories. If your buyers use AI to find service providers (and most do), the approach applies. The only categories where we'd pump the brakes are those where buyers rely almost entirely on personal referrals or contractor networks — and we'll say so before you pay anything.

A device farm is 10,000+ real consumer phones and laptops, signed into real accounts, on residential ISPs, distributed across the cities your customers live in. It matters because AI engines rank citations based on real-account session signals — not on what you publish or what an API says. The device farm is the signal layer ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini rank on. No competitor has this infrastructure, which is why SignalAEO is the only hands-off ranking service in the market. It is the moat.

SEO optimizes pages for Google's link graph. SignalAEO ranks your brand in AI answers by running the signal layer AI engines actually rank on — real-account session activity across a 10,000-device farm. Different ranking systems. Different signals. Different product shape. You can rank #1 on Google and still not show up in ChatGPT, because the two engines rank on entirely different inputs. SignalAEO is the only service built for the AI side of that equation.

The 10,000-device farm is the mechanism. AI engines personalize every answer based on real-account session signals — what actual people on actual devices on residential ISPs are asking, reading, and engaging with across geographies. Our fleet generates that signal at scale, tuned to your keyword. The AI model sees the pattern, the pattern says your brand is the answer, and your brand is what gets cited. We are the only service in the market producing real-account signal at this scale. It is a category of one.

No. We're not gaming rankings, stuffing keywords, or manipulating model weights. We observe what signals correlate with citations in the real world — on real devices, real accounts, real models — and recommend that you strengthen those signals through legitimate content and metadata. It's the inverse of black-hat: transparency, measurement, and no secret sauce.

The data is real. We're pulling actual ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini answers from real devices and logging them. Every citation, every appearance, every competitor mention is a thing we saw on a real device. We don't infer; we observe. You can see the raw answer in the dashboard whenever you want. Most customers run spot checks in the first two weeks — they ask the same question on their phone and compare it to our dashboard. They match.

OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity release new models periodically. When they do, answers can shift. Our ops team runs the signal layer continuously, which means we adapt to model updates on your behalf — no work required from you. The underlying mechanism (real-account session signal across a 10,000-device farm on residential ISPs) is durable across model versions because AI engines will continue to personalize answers based on real user behavior. If a model change moves your ranking, we move it back.

This is exactly where SignalAEO shines. Most AEO tools report national or regional averages that tell you nothing about what a customer in your specific market sees. Our device farm runs real queries from devices in specific metros — Austin, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Portland, and more. When we track Reliant Plumbing in Austin, we measure from Austin devices. When we track Desert Sky Plumbing in Phoenix, we measure from Phoenix. Single-city local businesses get more value from location-accurate measurement, not less.

Currently US-only. Our device farm is US-based — physical devices on residential US internet connections, organized by American metro areas. We don't yet have the infrastructure to run accurate local measurements in other countries. If international coverage is important to you, let us know — it's on the roadmap and your input helps us prioritize which markets come next.

Median time to first citation is 14 days. We have cases where it happened in 3–5 days (existing brand strength, the signal layer just needed to be pointed at the right keyword). A few cases take up to 45 days in highly competitive verticals starting from scratch. Because SignalAEO is hands-off, you don't control the timeline — you don't need to ship anything, approve anything, or write anything. The ops team and device farm are the only levers, and both are ours.

A result is your brand appearing in an AI answer where it wasn't before, or moving higher in the list when it was already there. We measure share of voice: how many times your brand gets cited relative to competitors across a given set of buyer questions. A real example: Tom Dwyer Automotive in Portland went from zero citations to being mentioned in the majority of relevant local queries within 14 days — a 275% citation growth that showed up directly as new service bookings. We count that as a result because it moved a business metric, not just a dashboard number.

AEO works best in industries where buyers use AI to research before calling or booking: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, dental, auto repair, accounting, real estate, restaurants, home services broadly. It works less well in categories where buyers rely almost entirely on personal referrals or contractor networks before any online research. We'll be honest about this upfront. Our 12 named case studies span 8 local service industries — if yours is close to any of them, the methodology applies.

No. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini train and update on their own schedule — we can't control that. What we can do: measurably improve your signals so you're a stronger candidate for citation. What we do guarantee: a first citation within 14 days, or we keep working until you get one. Across 12 customers — plumbers, HVAC contractors, dentists, roofers, auto shops, and more — 100% hit their first citation within that window. The average growth was 340%. Guaranteed? Not the exact number. But the direction and the timeline, yes.

Share of voice is the percentage of AI answers (in a specific buyer-question set) that mention your brand. Example: We sample 50 questions your buyers ask. ChatGPT answers all 50. Your brand appears in 37 of them. That's 74% share of voice. You can read the raw answers in the dashboard and count them yourself.

Yes. Our results page covers 12 named customers across 8 industries: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, dental, auto repair, real estate, accounting, and restaurant. Every case study shows the growth percentage, the specific AI platform where they rank first, and the timeline. Visit the results page and filter by industry to see the closest match to your business. If your category isn't listed, ask us — we'll tell you what we've seen in adjacent verticals.

Not directly, and that's not the goal. SignalAEO operates off your website entirely — we're running a 10,000-device farm to generate the real-account signals AI engines rank on. That signal layer sits beside your Google presence, not inside it. You're buying an AI ranking outcome, not a Google one. If you also need Google SEO work, an agency or SEO tool is the right shape for that job; many customers run both.

Yes — 14 days, no credit card required. You get full access to the dashboard, a baseline measurement, and one round of recommendations. If you don't see value by day 7, cancel. If you do, convert to a monthly plan. Month-to-month, no lock-in.

Yes. Month-to-month pricing means no lock-in, no long-term contract, no penalty. If you sign up for March and want to cancel on April 15, you cancel on April 15. You won't be charged for May. We built this because founders and marketers hate feeling trapped.

No. Our pricing is per month, period. We don't charge for onboarding, integration, or setup. You pay $X per month. If the service is valuable, you keep paying. If not, you stop. No tiers with "contact us" catches.

No self-serve annual discount on Signal Growth or Authority — they're month-to-month, cancel anytime. Signal Scale is annual by nature because of the dedicated strategist involvement; pricing is a conversation. If you'd commit to annual on Growth or Authority and want to discuss, contact us — we'll look at it case by case.

We price per brand or location. If you're a local service firm with 3 locations, you can track each separately and pay per location. Volume discounts apply at 5+ locations — ask us.

Yes. You can change tiers on your next billing date. If you sign up for a starter tier and realize you need more data or support, upgrade. If you need to trim budget, downgrade. Changes take effect at the next cycle.

No. We collect data about AI answers, not about your customers. When we run a device on the device farm, we're asking ChatGPT a question and logging its response. We're not collecting customer lists, email addresses, payment info, or behavioral data. Your customer data stays yours.

All account data, dashboards, and measurement logs are stored in US-based AWS infrastructure, encrypted at rest and in transit. We do not store raw device credentials or sensitive business data on the device farm itself — only enough to run the measurement.

Yes. Our terms and privacy policy align with GDPR, CCPA, and UKGDPR. If you process EU or California customer data, we follow the required data processing agreements. If you have specific compliance needs (HIPAA, SOC 2, etc.), let us know and we'll review.

Only you and team members you invite. We never log in as a customer. Our support team can view high-level account metadata to help with billing or technical issues, but cannot see your measurement data or recommendations unless you share them. You own your account.

Your measurement history and dashboard stay in the account for 90 days post-cancellation. After that, we delete it. If you want to export your data before canceling, let us know and we'll generate a CSV. If you re-subscribe within 12 months, we can restore your historical data.

No. We don't send customer names, business data, or strategic information to OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic. We're a customer of theirs (we run queries on their models to measure your citations), but we don't share any proprietary information back. Your competitive strategy stays private.