Will being specific lose us work outside our niche?

It loses enquiries you were unlikely to win and were expensive to qualify. Buyers who need something adjacent still ask, and now they arrive knowing what you are.

What if we genuinely do many things?

Then each one needs its own page answering its own question. A single page describing everything answers nothing extractably, whether the reader is a person or a model.

How do we prove results without naming clients?

Describe the situation, the constraint, what you did and what changed, with numbers where permitted and the sector named. Specific and anonymous beats vague and attributable.

For services firms

AEO for consultancies and services firms

Services firms describe themselves in language designed to keep every option open. That is precisely the language a model cannot use.

The short answer

For a consultancy or services firm, answer engine optimisation is mostly an exercise in becoming specific: naming the sector, the problem, the engagement shape and the price band. Firms that describe themselves broadly to avoid ruling anything out end up matching no question at all.

What ranked on 23 September 2026: Service firm pages in the scraped results read almost identically to one another: end-to-end, tailored, partner-led. Interchangeable descriptions are the reason a model reaches for a directory instead.

What is different when the product is people

There is no spec sheet, no feature list and no review platform with structured comparisons. The specifics have to come from you.

Engagement shape is the missing fact: project, retainer, day rate, fixed scope, and what a minimum commitment looks like
Sector and size are the filters buyers apply first, and generalist positioning matches nothing in particular
Named people are your credibility, and a firm whose team is anonymous has removed its own strongest signal
Case detail is the proof, and most of it is behind confidentiality, so the usable version is the shape of a problem and the shape of a result
Directories and professional bodies carry structured versions of firms like yours, and they get cited when the firm's own site says nothing checkable

Things that sound right and are not

ClaimWe work with clients of all sizes across all sectors.
It matches no question. Every buyer query includes a sector, a size or a problem, and a firm that names none of them cannot be the answer to any of them.
ClaimPricing depends on scope.
True everywhere and still no reason to publish nothing. A day rate, a minimum engagement or a typical range answers the question buyers most often ask an assistant about services.
ClaimOur work is confidential, so we cannot show proof.
The specifics may be confidential; the shape rarely is. An anonymised description of a problem, an approach and an outcome is publishable and is quotable.

Where to start

01Name the two sectors and the company size you are actually best at, and put that sentence on the homepage.
02Publish the engagement shapes you offer and the minimum commitment for each.
03Give a price anchor: a day rate, a starting project figure, or a band with what moves it.
04Put named people with real backgrounds on the site.
05Write one anonymised problem-and-outcome page per sector, with figures where you are allowed to use them.

Questions

Will being specific lose us work outside our niche?: It loses enquiries you were unlikely to win and were expensive to qualify. Buyers who need something adjacent still ask, and now they arrive knowing what you are.
What if we genuinely do many things?: Then each one needs its own page answering its own question. A single page describing everything answers nothing extractably, whether the reader is a person or a model.
How do we prove results without naming clients?: Describe the situation, the constraint, what you did and what changed, with numbers where permitted and the sector named. Specific and anonymous beats vague and attributable.

Doing this yourself and want a second opinion on what the assistants say about you? Tell me what you are seeing, or read the AEO Playbook for the whole framework.