AI & Organic Visibility Audit
May 11, 2026
Search Influence is proud to be a women-owned and women-led business.
What’s Inside
The AI Search Opportunity
AI Is Becoming a Primary Student Discovery Channel
AI-driven experiences now shape how prospective students research, compare, and choose universities and programs.
- AI-powered search experiences increasingly summarize, compare, and recommend universities and academic programs directly
- AI systems rely on structured, authoritative content to understand programs, outcomes, and differentiation
- With most (67%) of learners starting with an initial consideration set of three schools or fewer, appearing early in AI-driven results is critical to making the shortlist
Source: AI Search in Higher Education: How Prospects Search in 2025
RESEARCH STUDY BY UPCEA & SEARCH INFLUENCE
How You Can Influence AI Search Visibility
Institutions and programs that appear more often and more consistently are more likely to be surfaced and cited in AI-generated answers.
AI systems rely on signals you control through SEO, GEO, and AEO to determine which universities and academic programs prospective students see and compare during early research and decision-making.
Core AI Search Signals
We focus on three core signal types to build patterns and directly influence how programs are interpreted, retrieved, and recommended in AI-driven search:
Help AI recognize your brand, products, thought leaders, and concepts using structured data, and clear language.
Optimize for meaning-rich content that reflects how real people search: answer questions, connect topics, and add context.
Build trust through mentions and references from authoritative sources like local and national media, “best of” lists, and industry sites.
Scope of Work
Goal & Approach
Evaluate how well Mays Business School's Flex Online programs are positioned to appear in AI-generated search results and rank for high-intent queries. This is a critical first step toward increasing enrollment and building the visibility foundation that sets Mays apart as the gold standard in online graduate business education.
Audit technical, content, authority, and AI visibility factors to identify barriers to discoverability and prioritize opportunities that drive qualified traffic and enrollment.
Identify high-intent keyword and topic opportunities and map them to priority pages to improve rankings, AI visibility, and enrollment.
Onboarding & Goal Setting
Onboarding
Our team will take time to get to know your business and what makes you different to inform our strategies as well as lay the foundation for a productive partnership.
Before we begin the audit, we will have a meeting to introduce your account manager and SEO strategist and discuss:
Expectations for our engagement to establish a fruitful partnership to drive the results you expect from your investment
Priority programs
Existing SEO efforts so that our recommendations can consider what you’ve already implemented
Challenges you’ve encountered
Timeline
AI & Organic Search Engine Optimization Audit
Our AI & Organic Search Engine Optimization Audit evaluates how your brand is interpreted, surfaced, and referenced across traditional search engines and AI-driven search experiences.
Search Influence will fully review, analyze and provide specific, written recommendations on key AI and organic SEO factors including the following items:
Following the audit, Search Influence will provide a prioritized set of actionable, written recommendations tailored to your goals and resources. These recommendations identify near-term opportunities and longer-term initiatives to improve AI search visibility, strengthen organic performance, and reinforce your brand’s authority.
Audit Consultation & Next Step Guidance
Turning Insights Into Action
The audit is designed to be practical and actionable, not a document that sits in an inbox or on a to-do list.
Following delivery, we’ll meet with you and your team to review the findings, answer questions, and align on priorities. Additional follow-up time is included to provide clarification and guidance as your team evaluates and begins applying the recommendations.
The audit is structured to support implementation whether changes are handled internally or with outside resources. Our goal is to equip your team with the insight, context, and direction needed to turn analysis into meaningful progress.
Your AI & Organic SEO Audit will answer 3 key questions:
- Content & Relevance: How should content be structured, written, and connected to better reach and engage users across organic and AI search?
- Authority: How can entity clarity, trust signals, and citations be strengthened to improve visibility and credibility in search results?
- Technical: How can site structure, accessibility, and technical foundations be improved to support visibility across search engines and AI-driven search experiences?
Entity & Keyword Strategy
Establish a clear entity- and topic-driven strategy for priority pages, including the homepage, to improve visibility across organic and AI-driven search.
Research to identify priority entities, topics, and supporting keywords
Grouping keywords by topic to reflect how users search and how AI systems interpret content
Mapping entities, topics, and keywords to target URLs, including recommendations for new pages where gaps exist
Alignment of content focus to reinforce relevance, authority, and topical coverage
Analysis informed by professional SEO tools and your Google Search Console data
Search Influence: Proven Leader in AI-Driven Search Strategy
Nationally recognized AI SEO expert. Leads strategy, speaks at top conferences, and turns trends into measurable results. Teacher of SMX’s Masterclass on GEO.
We shifted from keyword-based SEO to semantic optimization in 2012, well ahead of the curve. This early adoption has helped clients future-proof content and stay ahead of every major search update since.
We track presence in AI-generated results like Google AI Overviews (including citations and mentions) and segment AI traffic. You can see your traffic, visibility, and the engagement of your AI visitors. This shows what’s working beyond traditional rankings.
Our internal tool turns AI SEO insights into clear content recommendations, pinpointing where to add and strengthen entity-related content to improve semantic relevance.
Budget
Investment
| Campaign | Initial Analysis, Strategy & Setup (One Time) |
|---|---|
| AI and Organic SEO Audit & Consultation | $14,000 |
| Topic & Keyword StrategyIncluding AI & Organic Ranking Visibility Report | $2,650 |
| Total | $16,650 |
Search Influence Payment Terms & Billing Practices
This summary covers billing practices for services beyond what is included in this proposal, should you choose to expand your services in the future.
All payments for Search Influence services shall be made by a credit or debit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover).
Client will provide a credit card authorization that allows Search Influence to efficiently charge invoiced amounts as timed below.
- One-time and setup charges will occur upon contract signing.
- Monthly charges for SEO will be billed either upon the 1st of the month following the onboarding meeting, or the following month, depending on the arrangement made at the time of contract signing.
- Monthly charges for digital advertising fees will occur on or near the date of campaign launch, and then on the 1st of the month thereafter.
Most campaigns launch mid-month. For the first calendar month of your ad campaigns, the budgeted ad spend and management fee will be prorated, with a minimum $1,000 management fee in order allocate appropriate hours to manage and optimize the campaign in that time period.
If applicable: Search Influence's standard practice is to set up your credit card to pay directly with third-party technology providers (such as Google, Meta, CallRail) to pay directly for advertising spend and services. Each 3rd party service has their own billing practices.
Thank You!
New Orleans, Louisiana
(504) 208-3900
www.searchinfluence.com/blog
Search Influence Qualifications & Case Studies
AI & Organic SEO Case Study
Challenge: Maine College of Art and Design needed to compete for online enrollments against major universities in the Northeast.
Goal: Achieve 30 new enrollments for the new Fall 2026 online graduate certificate programs (Arts Education, Expressive Arts Therapy, Arts Leadership)
Search Influence executed a holistic SEO campaign optimized for AI-driven search and organic search.
Visibility & Authority: Structure content using best practices to ensure discoverability and citation by AI systems and search engines.
Conversion Focus: Optimize program pages for user experience, clear messaging, video integration, and intuitive conversion paths.
Results & Campaign Impact
Exceeding Goal of 30 for Fall 2026
Earned 719 keyword rankings compared to 18 at baseline
While increasing engagement time by 11%
AI & Organic SEO Case Study
Challenge: Ultimate Medical Academy wanted to increase enrollment by improving visibility in search. They had an existing SEO agency but the client sought stronger results, expertise, and communication with a fresh partnership.
Goal: Increase organic visibility for priority programs, all of which are highly competitive online.
Search Influence guided and executed a scalable SEO strategy optimized for AI-driven search and organic search.
Structure & Content Optimization: Structured program content and blogs to be more readable by AI while implementing optimized meta data and internal linking at scale. Implemented schema markup across key pages.
Team Support: Enabled internal teams to include SEO best practices in their work, including PR and content teams.
Results & Campaign Impact
Site ranks for 1,100+ keywords
Significant increase in AI Overview Visibility
AI & Organic SEO Case Study
When LSU Online partnered with us to lead their comprehensive SEO strategy, our goal was to move beyond standard optimizations and build a sustainable engine for organic growth. While our work spanned everything from technical site architecture to backend metadata, some of our most effective wins came from highly targeted, high-impact topical plays.
Challenge: High-intent program pages are struggling to rank due to a lack of supporting topical authority and cross-channel relevance signals. We want a strategy that establishes 'best remote careers' as a core competency for LSU Online.
Goal: Establish niche dominance through a multi-channel content loop that signals authority to search engines and funnels qualified traffic directly into specific degree programs.
We published a well optimized blog post about best careers for remote work, then, published a derivative LinkedIn article, YouTube video, and a LinkedIn carousel post that summarize the points in the blog to support co-occurrence.
Why Content Repurposing Helps
- Builds Topical Authority: Additional content on highly cited websites builds your brand’s credibility for the topic.
- Establishes co-occurrence: Co-occurrence trains AI tools to associate your brand with a specific niche, topic, or entity through frequent, consistent mentions.
- Supports Program Pages: All placements eventually drive traffic and relevance for the program pages we want to be cited and ranked, so users learn about and choose your programs.
- This tightly knit topical authority strategy worked. Later in the same month the content was published, after these pieces were published, the blog post began being cited by AI and has persisted.
- LSU Online is cited in AI Overviews and ChatGPT for the prompt "best careers for remote work"
- This is driven by the combination of strong, optimized blog content written with AI best practices and multiple off-site references that provide citations.
Search Influence Overview
Higher Ed Experience
SEO, Paid Search, Meta Advertising
SEO
SEO Audit & SEO
SEO
Google Paid Search
SEO, Digital Advertising, Email
SEO, Digital Advertising, Email
SEO & UX Audit supporting Website Redesign
Google Ads and LinkedIn Audits
We published a higher education SEO research study, AI Search research study, and established the first industry benchmark for cost per inquiry and cost per enrolled student.
As an UPCEA Platinum partner, we collaborated on three research studies to provide resources to the higher ed industry and inform our clients’ strategies.
Specialized SEO Expertise & Speaking Experience
Specialized SEO Expertise
Search Influence was founded in 2006 as a search engine optimization company, and SEO remains a core product.
Clients see improved results thanks to innovations and testing of SEO tactics.
Our team tests and identifies new tactics to get our clients found via AI driven search, and we’ve shared these findings that major conferences.
Our purpose “to optimize potential” includes sharing our knowledge with the broader industry to make everyone better. We’ve been invited back to conferences year after year thanks to our rich presentations.
We published a higher education SEO research study, AI Search research study, and established the first industry benchmark for cost per inquiry and cost per enrolled student.
As an UPCEA Platinum partner, we collaborated on three research studies to provide resources to the higher ed industry and inform our clients’ strategies.
Speaking Experience
About Search Influence
Search Influence is a women-owned, ROI-focused digital marketing agency that helps drive prospects into and through the marketing funnel with analytics-backed search engine optimization and paid digital advertising.
Founded in 2006, Search Influence’s core purpose is to optimize potential. The agency collaborates with well-regarded brands and institutions both nationally and locally in New Orleans. Clients include Tulane University School of Professional Advancement, Tufts University College, Associated Hearing Professionals, New Orleans & Company, and Audubon Nature Institute.
Search Influence is a Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC)-certified woman-owned business and has a dedicated team of 30 in-house employees. Our experts, systems, and technologies for optimizing digital marketing have us ranked among the top local search companies in the United States. Search Influence received US Agency Awards recognition across 2023, 2024, and 2025.
As industry thought leaders, our team frequently speaks at conferences including UPCEA, AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education, SMX Masterclass, Pubcon, and more.
Our online programs exceeded enrollment targets by 65% in less than a year.
Heather HollandAssociate Dean of Online Learning
Maine College of Art & Design
Thank You,
Again!
New Orleans, Louisiana
(504) 208-3900
www.searchinfluence.com/blog