Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is what we do at Digital Hothouse, and it’s more important than ever. But as AI changes the way people discover, search and engage with content online, we’re evolving too.
We now blend traditional, proven SEO strategies with AI-ready optimisation to ensure your business is visible wherever people are searching, not just Google.
SEO Today: What’s Still Relevant, What’s Changing
The fundamentals of SEO haven’t gone anywhere; content quality, technical health, structured data, and relevance are still crucial. But how search engines display results is changing, and how people interact with those results is evolving too.
Today, Google’s AI Overviews, AI Mode and tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity are answering questions without users even clicking. That’s why we optimise your site not just for keywords, but for entities, context and visibility across all search surfaces.
Our SEO services now include strategies that help your content appear in AI search answers and smart summaries, while continuing to focus on ROI.
Search is evolving, and AI platforms like ChatGPT, Google SGE, and Perplexity are changing how people discover content. Our AI Optimisation service ensures your website is structured, formatted, and cited in a way that makes it easy for AI to find, understand, and feature your content. From semantic markup to entity-based optimisation and digital PR strategies that boost brand mentions, we help you stay visible in both traditional and AI-powered search results.
It all starts with an SEO Audit. This is our chance to learn more about your business, your industry, and your customers and ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes when it comes to organic performance. As part of our SEO audits, we now include AI-readiness checks, evaluating whether your site is optimised for AI crawling, structured data, and presence in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Sometimes your budget won’t stretch to a monthly contract for SEO, however, with our SEO consultancy services, you can still get the best advice when it comes to maximising your organic performance and when the dollars start rolling in, we can talk some more. Our consulting now includes guidance on AI prompt optimisation, content distribution across platforms like Reddit and YouTube (which feed AI models), and how to measure success beyond traditional rankings.
If you’re a local business, Local SEO is an essential part of your overall digital marketing strategy. The transformation from digital to physical and getting people in through the shop door is a key component when it comes to growing your business on and offline. For local businesses, it’s now vital to ensure your presence across local platforms, directories, and social content that might be cited in AI-generated answers. We help optimise not just your GMB profile, but your entire local digital footprint.
It’s incredible how powerful link outreach is for SEO. Despite some of the negative press over the years, when done right, it is an essential tactic in any SEO strategy and something we have a lot of experience in, working with leading multinational brands. Today, brand mentions across trusted third-party sites (Reddit, TikTok, LinkedIn) can be just as valuable as backlinks. These mentions help train AI models and increase your chances of being surfaced in AI answers.
WordPress is the most popular Content Management System in the world and we have been working with clients on WordPress for more than a decade – we even use it for our own site! We are experienced in optimising WordPress sites, maximising your organic potential and driving more traffic to your WordPress site.
Every Content Management System is different when it comes to SEO and Shopify has quickly become one of the biggest CMS platforms in the world. We specialise in SEO for Shopify and have a number of clients who are reaping the rewards of the work we have carried out to optimise their sites.
SEO + AI: What Comes Next
SEO isn’t going anywhere, but it’s evolving. The brands that will win in this new era of AI-driven search are the ones that:
- Combine technical SEO with entity optimisation
- Publish high-quality, human-first content
- Optimise for visibility in AI tools, apps, voice and visual search
- Focus on being found, not just ranking
Coined by Rand Fishkin, it’s what we like to call Search Everywhere Optimisation, and it means ensuring your brand is visible wherever users are asking questions, not just in Google.
65%
of searches now end without a click
49%
of Marketers cite SEO providing the best ROl
44%
Businesses using SEO
800m
weekly users of ChatGPT, up from 400m just 2 months prior
What is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search engine optimisation is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility when people search for products and/or services related to your business in search engines such as Google or Bing. SEO covers many bases including technical SEO, the content on your website and the way external websites link to your website.
Improving your overall visibility involves a combination of all these elements coming together to deliver an outstanding user experience on your website where people can find the information, they are looking for quickly and the information you provide answers their search query without them having to look elsewhere for further information.
Will SEO help to grow my business online?
Absolutely, and it’s more important than ever. While traditional SEO helps get you found on Google, we now also optimise for visibility in tools like Google SGE, ChatGPT and Perplexity. This means more ways for people to discover your business across platforms, devices, and formats.
Why is SEO so important?
A recent study found that on average, 53% of website traffic comes from organic search. That’s over half of your traffic coming from people searching on Google (or other search engines). If you are not ranking for the keywords that are the most relevant to your business, you are potentially missing out on hundreds or even thousands of prospective customers.
According to research from Backlinko, the number one ranking website in the search results in Google has an average click through rate (CTR) of 27.6%. This means the #1 organic result is 10x more likely to receive a click compared to a website ranking in #10. When done right, SEO has the power to unlock your CTR potential, pushing more keywords into the top three and driving more prospective customers to your website.
As search fragments across platforms, having a technically sound, content-rich website gives AI models and search engines the context they need to reference your business accurately, increasing your visibility across the entire digital ecosystem.
What about my competitors that are also doing SEO?
The reality is that all your competitors are likely to be doing some form of SEO. That means, if you’re either not doing SEO, or you’re not doing it well, you are going to keep falling further behind.
The job of a good SEO agency is to ensure that the work being carried out on your website is better than the work being done by your competitors. This means keeping a close eye on what they are doing and ensuring you stay one step ahead.
SEO is a competitive business. It’s important that you work continuously to improve the way customers find information on your website as well as delivering the content that best meets their needs.
How many number one ranking keywords can I expect when I do SEO?
Sadly, SEO doesn’t work like that. Whilst we would love to promise that you will rank in the number one position for all the keywords we are targeting, we would be setting ourselves up to fail. That’s because your competitors are also carrying out SEO on their sites and sometimes they do things that work really well.
Whilst we will also be doing lots of great work, the nature of organic search results is that rankings fluctuate. Whilst you might be ranking in the first position one day, someone might publish a new piece of content that Google likes the look of the next, knocking you off the top spot.
All of our work with our clients is towards consistency. We don’t promise number one rankings but we do work towards consistently ranking on the first page. Then consistently in the top 5 of the first page. Then consistently in the top 3 and finally consistently in first place.. Our results speak for themselves as you can see from the results above and the case studies below.
What keywords should I target?
Ranking for the right keywords is the key to success with SEO. Keyword search volume is important but it is also important that you are targeting keywords that are relevant to your business as these are the ones that will lead to conversions.
Keyword research helps us to identify the best keywords for your business and then allows us to create high quality content that targets those keywords, enabling you to rank higher in the search results.
Identifying the search terms that your potential customers are searching for is a key component of our work and part of our SEO Auditing process.
How quickly can I expect to see results from SEO?
SEO is a long-term game and you shouldn’t expect to see immediate results in terms of rankings. If you have an SEO agency that promises you quick results, think twice about working with them as it’s too good to be true. We always tell our clients and prospects that it can take anywhere from three months to a year to deliver the results we would like from SEO. There are times when we are pleasantly surprised when it takes less time to achieve outstanding results but we always find it is better to under promise and over deliver.
The truth is, the speed at which you can expect to achieve results from SEO depends on so many factors that it is impossible for any agency to predict how quickly you can expect results. Factors including the competitiveness of your industry, your existing content, the length of time that your website has been around, how many links point to your site, how the site is built technically and the content you have on your site already are all crucial components and impact on how quickly you can expect results.
Our case study below shows how quickly we achieved results for one client, this was an exceptional win for the client and something we continue to build on with the client.
What if my competitors are already doing AI stuff?
If your competitors are investing in AI-aware SEO, you need to match or beat that investment. We stay one step ahead by actively testing what works, attending global events like BrightonSEO and SMX, and ensuring our clients are visible in traditional SERPs and new AI environments alike.
Is AI replacing SEO?
No. AI is enhancing SEO, not replacing it. We now use AI to support content ideation, research and formatting, but all our strategies still start and end with real people making smart decisions based on data and experience.
