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Haney Strategy

AI Search Power-Up

Found on Google. Cited by AI.

I score your site against a seven-part standard, ship the fixes myself, then re-score ninety days later so you can see what actually moved. One fixed price, one fixed window.

$12,000 all-in· audit, build, and the ninety-day true-up
Book an Introductory Call

Search scorecard

Composite · baseline to true-up

Sample true-up · illustrative

An illustrative sample. Your true-up is scored on the same seven dimensions as your baseline, with movement documented in both directions.

The part most people have not named yet

Answer Engine Optimization

The work that decides whether an AI engine can find you, quote you, and name you when a buyer asks it a question you should be the answer to. Search engines rank links. Answer engines pick one answer, and most buyers never scroll past it.

What changed

The answer replaced the list.

For twenty years, getting found meant ranking on a page of links. That page is being replaced by a single answer, and the companies inside that answer are the ones whose sites were built to be read by a machine, not just by a person.

68%
of US Google searches now end without a clickSparkToro, Similarweb panel data, June 2026
58%
fewer clicks for the top result when an AI Overview appearsAhrefs, 300,000-keyword study, February 2026
+120%
more organic clicks per impression for brands cited in Google's AI OverviewsSeer Interactive, 5.47M queries, April 2026

None of this makes the old work obsolete. It makes it half the job.

The standard

Seven dimensions. One score. Same scorecard, every time.

Every agency sells an audit. Almost none of them will tell you what they are grading against, which is why two audits of the same site come back with two different stories. This is the bar. It does not move between companies, and it does not move between months.

A grade describes a website, never a business. Some of the best companies in a market score poorly here, which is exactly why the gap is worth closing.

  1. Technical foundation

    Fast, crawlable, and cleanly indexed. Nothing structural stands between you and being found.

  2. Entity clarity

    Who you are, what you sell, and where you sell it, machine-readable and consistent everywhere you appear. Every engine resolves you to one identity.

  3. Answer readiness

    Content structured so AI engines can lift it and cite it, with crawler access set deliberately instead of by accident. You are quotable.

  4. Content engine

    Fresh, specific answers to the questions your buyers actually ask, published on a cadence.

  5. Authority footprint

    The off-site record: trade press, directories, reviews, and earned links. Engines weigh what others say about you more heavily than what you say about yourself.

  6. Market presence

    Visibility in the geographies and verticals where you actually sell, so you show up where your next customer is standing.

  7. Measurement

    A recorded baseline, tracked rankings and citations, and a line to pipeline. The grade means something because it is measured the same way every time.

How the grades read

A
A citation source in your market. The asset compounds.
B
At standard. Findable, quotable, and measured.
C
Findable but forgettable. Real headroom, quick wins available.
D
Largely invisible in AI search. The punch list does its heaviest lifting here.
F
Structural problems first. The audit scopes the foundation work in writing before anything else starts.

How it runs

Score it. Fix it. Prove it moved.

About two months of work, then ninety days of included monitoring while the results land. Three motions, each with a fixed window, and everything you hold is written down.

  1. 10Ten business days

    The audit

    I work behind the login: analytics, Search Console, and platform admin. Seven dimensions scored, and a punch list ordered by what moves the number first.

  2. 45Forty-five days, fixed window

    The build

    I ship the punch list myself and confirm every fix as it lands. Ongoing motions, like content and authority, get stood up and left running.

  3. 90Ninety days monitored, then re-scored

    The true-up

    Rankings and citations are tracked while the work settles, because search takes that long to answer. Then the same scorecard, re-scored against day one.

Who does the work

The person who grades your site is the person who fixes it.

No hand-off between the audit and the build, and no bench between you and the work. The same seat runs all three motions and signs the re-score.

26

Years across sales, marketing, and technology, from SMB to Fortune 500.

Certification held in AI & Digital Transformation from MIT.

Jim is one of the most forward-thinking marketing leaders I've ever worked with, combining deep marketing expertise, strong technical skills, and sharp business acumen. He has a unique ability to see the bigger picture and align strategies to deliver results that truly make an impact.

Billy TurnerBilly TurnerSVP, Managed Services at Secur-Serv

One of the best aspects Jim brings is creative vision combined with his corporate past. This allows him to think out of the box, while always being obsessed with quality and company image.

Jesse HarwellJesse HarwellSEO Strategist, Marketing Gardens

Pricing

One price. Everything included.

$12,000

all-in · audit to true-up

The same price for every company, published before I ever see your site.

  • I score your site on all seven dimensions and hand you the graded report and punch list.
  • I ship every fix on that punch list myself, about two months of work.
  • I track the results for ninety days at no charge, then re-score you against day one.
Book an Introductory Call

After the true-up

Keeping the grade.

$199per month · cancel any time

Search health does not hold still. Engines change how they read a site, competitors publish, and a redesign can quietly strip something that was working. None of that is anyone dropping the ball. It is just the ground moving.

  • A live dashboard of where you stand
  • A monthly re-score of your grade
  • A short list of what has slipped, for your team to pick up
  • What has shipped and what is open, month over month

Available only after the engagement, because there is nothing to measure drift against without a baseline.

Questions

What owners ask before they start.

What is the AI Search Power-Up?
It is a fixed-price engagement that takes one company to a defined standard for how it gets found, in Google and in AI engines. I score the site across seven dimensions, deliver a graded report with the evidence and a prioritized punch list, ship the fixes myself over forty-five days, then re-score against your original baseline ninety days later. $12,000 covers all of it.
What does AEO mean?
Answer Engine Optimization. It is the work that decides whether ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers can find you, quote you, and cite you when someone asks a question you should be the answer to. Traditional SEO decides where you rank on a page of links. AEO decides whether you show up at all when there is no page of links.
How is this different from an SEO audit?
Two ways. An audit tells you what is wrong and hands you a document. This scores you against a written standard, then I ship the fixes and re-score to show what moved. And most audits were built for a world where the answer was a list of blue links. Half of this standard is about being quotable by an AI engine, which is where a growing share of your buyers now start.
Why ninety days before the re-score?
Because that is when the truth shows up. I could re-score the day the fixes ship and it would tell you the items shipped, which you already know. Search takes sixty to ninety days to move. The true-up measures results, not activity, so it waits until there is something real to measure.
What if the grade doesn't move?
Then the true-up says so, plainly. It is scored on the same standard as your baseline, with movement documented in both directions, so a flat dimension is visible instead of buried in a report nobody reads. What you hold either way is real: the fixes shipped and confirmed, the graded record, and ninety days of tracking that shows exactly which dimensions responded and which have not yet. I would rather hand you an honest flat number than a flattering one, because a scorecard is only worth something if you can trust it when it disappoints.
What if the audit finds something big?
Structural rebuilds are rare, and when one is needed I flag it in the audit and scope it separately, in writing, before any work starts. That is what keeps the $12,000 flat and honest instead of a number that moves once I am inside.
What happens after the true-up?
Nothing, if you want. The work is done and it is yours. Most companies keep the monthly grade running at $199 a month, because search health does not hold still: engines change, competitors publish, and a site update can quietly break something that was working. None of that is a failure on anyone's part. It is the environment moving. You get a dashboard, a monthly re-score, and a short list of what has slipped, month to month.
Do I need to have marketing people for this to work?
For the Power-Up itself, no. I do the work. The monthly is different: it hands over a short list each month, so it pairs naturally with whoever looks after your site. If you would rather that work stayed on my side, the Fractional CMTO seat carries it, and we can sort out which fits on a call.
Related thinking

How I think about this work.

Where this leads

The standard is the floor, not the ceiling.

Getting found is one part of a growth engine. When what the audit turns up is really a marketing and technology question rather than a search question, the Fractional CMTO seat is the same work at a bigger scope, with me in your leadership meetings every week.

Book an Introductory Call

Working on how your team shows up rather than how the market finds you? Start with the Power-Ups built for sales teams. See all Power-Ups