Case Study · Founder Audit
From Invisible to Citable: An Academic's AI Visibility Score, 3 to 62
AISearch Global's first client engagement: an AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) audit combined with a full website build for a UK academic researcher and published author who had no personal website. The objective was to take scattered, largely unattributed publications, lectures, and an academic profile and make them correctly attributable, structured, and citable by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews - for the first time, on a site the client would own.
AI Visibility Score
What this score measures: 3 and 62 are readings from AISearch Global's own AEO Score Calculator - a proprietary website-readiness rubric scored 0–100, not an external or industry-standard AI-visibility metric, and not directly comparable to a score from any other tool. The "before" reading assessed the client's online footprint at intake, described below - there was no personal website to score directly, since none existed yet. The "after" reading was run against the new personal site once it was live.
This was AISearch Global's first client engagement, scoped individually with additional services costed and discussed as the work progressed.
Online Footprint at Intake
There was no personal website at the start of this engagement - only a scattered digital footprint the client did not fully control.
| Issue | Detail |
|---|---|
| No owned site | Presence was limited to an institutional staff profile and scattered social media - no personal domain to control, structure, or optimise. |
| Attribution | Several published thought pieces existed online with no name attached to the author. |
| Structure | Publications, lectures, and interviews scattered across multiple unlinked third-party sources, with nothing pulling them together. |
| Schema | No structured data anywhere under the client's control - nothing for AI crawlers to read as an authoritative entity. |
| Discoverability | No single, owned destination to direct media enquiries, speaking invitations, or readers to. |
Work Completed - Audit Scope vs. Additional Implementation
Two different bodies of work, priced and scoped separately: this engagement combined AEO audit-type work (entity clarity, schema, attribution, content structure) with a full website build. The audit-type items below map to what today's standard $1,500 Founder Audit covers; the build is additional implementation, and a full website rebuild like this sits outside the standard audit scope entirely. It was scoped and costed as its own piece of work, not as part of the base audit product.
Audit deliverables - AEO fixes
- Person / author entity schema implemented.
- Orphaned thought pieces re-attributed to the correct author.
- FAQPage schema added for citation-style extraction.
- Content restructured into a citation-friendly format.
- Canonical consolidation of scattered publications into one authoritative source.
Additional implementation - outside standard audit scope
- A new personal website designed and hand-built from scratch, with HTTPS and baseline security configured as part of the build.
- Site built as a portfolio/archive - publications, university lectures, interviews, panel discussions, conference presentations.
- Academic metrics surfaced - citation counts, h-index, journal quartiles, percentile rankings - drawn from scholarly repositories.
- Bespoke visual design aligned to the client's most recent monograph.
- CMS deployment and handover guide, covered in full below.
Project at a Glance
The Brief
What the client actually needed.
The client is a researcher and practitioner based at a London university, with a growing body of peer-reviewed work across journals, book chapters, edited volumes, and commissioned research. In 2026, a monograph published by a major academic press added a significant public-profile milestone to their output.
Their existing online presence was limited to an institutional staff profile and scattered social media. They had no personal website, no structured publication list, and no way to direct media enquiries, speaking invitations, or readers to a single authoritative source.
The brief was clear: a professional website that felt appropriate for a senior researcher and published author - not a template, not a WordPress theme, not a digital CV. Something considered. Something they could own and update without a developer, built before the book's publication window.
Our Approach
Audited the client's full online footprint - Google Scholar, Academia.edu, institutional profile, social channels. Identified what content existed, what was missing, and where the gaps between platforms created inconsistency.
Designed a single-page application structure giving the impression of a full multi-section site without page reloads - appropriate for a browsing pattern rather than a navigating one. Mapped five primary sections and defined the content model for each.
Built a bespoke design system from the ground up: typeface pairing (an editorial serif with a geometric sans), a restrained monochromatic palette with a single considered accent, photo treatment, and a component library covering all site elements.
Hand-coded in HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript - no external frameworks, no build tooling, no dependencies that could break. Fully responsive from 320px to 1440px. All images locally referenced; no third-party assets except Google Fonts.
Structured and categorised 30+ publications spanning 2015–2026 into a filterable archive. Designed consistent metadata treatment across seven distinct output types. Built tab-based filtering with no external library.
Produced a tailored WordPress deployment guide calibrated to the client's technical comfort level and workflow - structured for independent use, with a quick-mode option and clearly marked stop points for managing the process in stages.
Deliverables
Typography pairing, colour palette, spacing scale, photo treatment, and full component library scoped to the site. Documented for extension.
Home, Professional Profile, Latest Book, Publications, and Contact - built as a single-page application with section-level navigation and smooth state management.
30+ publications structured across six category tabs: All, Latest Book, Extant Peer-Reviewed, In Press & Forthcoming, Research, and Miscellaneous. Year-tagged, consistently formatted, extensible.
Dedicated page section with professional photo, full descriptive copy, publisher and series details, and direct purchase links (AU and UK).
Full bio page with sidebar navigation, employment history, affiliations, research focus areas, and a compact publications summary for quick scanning.
Google Scholar citation count and h-index surfaced in the hero section via direct link - kept current without manual updates.
Tested and validated across breakpoints from 320px to 1440px. Navigation, typography, layout, and photo treatment each adapted for small screens.
A structured onboarding guide tailored to the client - step-by-step staging and deployment workflow with a quick-mode option and stop points for managing the process independently over time.
Technical spotlight - the publications archive: the most technically considered deliverable. The client had accumulated more than thirty scholarly outputs since 2015, spanning peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, edited collections, reference work entries, video contributions, commissioned research reports, and miscellaneous press. Each output type required different metadata treatment, so we designed a tab-based filter accommodating six categories with a consistent year-tagged list view that maintains typographic coherence across every item type - entirely hand-coded with no external dependencies, and structured so the client can add new publications directly without breaking the layout or filter logic.
The Website - Section by Section
Two-column hero with professional portrait (light-panel) and book feature (dark-panel). Live citation stats, primary and secondary CTAs, key affiliation strip. The opening screen serves as a complete first impression without scrolling.
Full academic bio structured with sidebar navigation, employment and education chronology, key affiliations, research focus areas, and a compact publications list. Designed for the reader who arrives from a speaking invitation or media enquiry.
Dedicated showcase for the 2026 monograph: professional photograph, full descriptive copy, publisher and series information, and direct links to purchase through major retailers. Designed for longevity - can be updated for future titles.
The full scholarly record - 30+ items across six categories, year-tagged, with metadata consistent across every output type. Tab filtering, a floating back-to-top button, and a featured book block that surfaces when the Latest Book filter is selected.
Primary email call-to-action (left panel) alongside a structured list of social and academic profiles - Google Scholar, Academia.edu, LinkedIn, Instagram, X/Twitter - with platform labels and contextual copy on response expectations.
Outcomes
A publisher-quality professional web presence live ahead of the 2026 monograph publication window - giving the book a credible home to direct readers, journalists, and institutions.
First-page search results for the client's name now populated with controlled, client-owned content rather than scattered institutional fragments.
A full publication record - thirty-plus items spanning eleven years - organised, categorised, and publicly accessible in a single location for the first time.
A site the client can maintain independently: adding publications, updating copy, and managing their deployment without ongoing developer involvement.
A CMS guide calibrated to the client's workflow - structured for confidence, not overwhelm - delivered as a self-contained document they can return to at any point.
On confidentiality: this case study is prepared for business development purposes only. The client's name, institutional affiliation, publication titles, and all other identifying details have been withheld at their request. A named reference and further project detail are available on enquiry.
Client Testimonial
AISearch Global's first client: this engagement predates the current $1,500 Founder Audit offer. It was AISearch Global's very first client engagement, sourced through a personal LinkedIn and academic connection rather than the public offer, and it combined AEO audit work with a full website build and handover - additional implementation well beyond what today's standard audit includes (see the breakdown above). The work itself ran over a handful of weeks; we then held the case study for roughly a month and a half so the AI Visibility Score result had time to settle before we reported it, rather than publishing a same-week number. The client - a UK academician and published author - asked that their identity stay private, so every detail that could identify them has been withheld here. AISearch Global takes client privacy seriously: every case study we publish is anonymised and client-approved before it goes live.
"The site was built as a portfolio and archive combining my publications across genres, university lectures, interviews, panel discussions, and conference presentations, drawing on scholarly repositories to surface my citation counts, h-index, journal quartiles, and percentile rankings - with a colour theme aligned to my recent monograph. The first draft was delivered in an exceptionally short timeframe. High quality work that accurately captured the brief."
- AISearch Global's First Client · United Kingdom
AI disclosure: AEO score figures are generated by AISearch Global's proprietary AEO Score Calculator.
Want to know what AI search finds - and doesn't find - on your own site?
The $1,500 Founder Audit covers the AEO fixes described above: checked website findings, 50 dated AI-search observations, and a prioritised DIY fix list you can action yourself. A full website rebuild like this one is separate, scoped work - not part of the standard audit.
See the Founder Audit