The AI playbook for freelancers and small businesses
The play that gets AI to say your name.
When customers ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for a recommendation, the answer names three businesses. This playbook holds the five plays that make yours one of them. No agency, no ad budget, with the website you already have.
One-time · lifetime access · 30-day money back
Play 01 · How an AI answer is built
The situation
Google shows a list. AI calls three names.
A results page has ten spots on page one and many more after that. Whoever searches can find you. An AI assistant answers the question directly, names two or three providers and stops. Everyone else is not in the game for this customer.
Whether you make the lineup is not decided by your Google position. It is decided by whether the machine can answer four questions about you:
- What do you offer?
- in one sentence, within the first 100 words of your homepage
- For whom?
- which problem, which situation
- Where?
- address as text, districts, service area
- Why trust you?
- people, qualifications, reviews, mentions
3%
of AI citations come from the brand's own website. The rest comes from directories, portals and press.
Two studies, 26 Aug 2026
60%
of pages cited in Google's AI answers rank in the organic top 10. Whoever ranks gets cited.
Study, 18 Aug 2026
31 Aug
2026: the EU designated ChatGPT a very large online search engine. A search channel, not a toy.
European Commission
The playbook
Five plays, in the order you need them.
No video course, no theory PDF. A working document that starts with taking stock and ends with a monthly routine. Plus two tools in the member area.
- Play 01
Audit
30-minute rubric, 45-minute test run
Write twelve customer questions, ask three assistants, compute your baseline across four dimensions. The same scale as in the case study.
- Play 02
Content
The biggest lever
The structure for articles and service pages that get cited: one pillar article, two clusters, a point of view of your own, numbers in the first third.
- Play 03
Tech
Hygiene, no coding
Let crawlers in, check the index, make your business machine-readable. With ready-made blocks and a generator that fills in your data.
- Play 04
Roadmap
Twelve months, honestly
Four weeks of foundation, then two hours a month. Honest timelines, the third-party sources you need to be in, and a list of what to skip.
- Play 05
Templates and tools
Download and online
Audit sheet, article skeleton and checklist as PDFs. Plus a score tracker for your progress and the schema generator.
A game from practice
Three articles. Nothing else.
A beauty studio in Hamburg published three articles following play 2: one pillar and two deep dives. No ads, no technical rebuild, no agency. 24 hours later its visibility score had almost doubled.
The score measures, across four dimensions, how visible a business is in the answers of common AI assistants. One case is no guarantee. It shows how fast focused content can work once the basics are in place.
Before
18
out of 100 · practically invisible
24 hours later
35
out of 100 · visible, up 17 points
Lineup
Who the playbook is for, and who it is not for.
Good fit
- Freelancers and small businesses with their own website: trades, studios, practices, law firms, consultants, agencies
- Customers search and compare locally or regionally before they get in touch
- Willing to invest a few hours over four weeks and write three articles yourself
Not a fit
- No website of your own, or marketplace-only sales: the levers are missing
- Anyone expecting fast, guaranteed new customers: visibility is a building block, not a sales machine
- Corporations and larger marketing teams: the playbook is built for small structures
Pricing
Run it yourself, or run the first play with us.
The playbook if you want to do it yourself. Audit & Sprint if you want us to measure your baseline and plan the first play with you.
Playbook
€49.99one-time
For anyone who takes a few hours and does it themselves.
- Lifetime access to all five plays in the member area
- Score tracker and schema generator
- Audit sheet, article skeleton and checklist as PDFs
- Future updates at no extra cost
- 30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked
Audit & SprintWe run the first play with you
€525one-time
For businesses that do not want to measure the baseline themselves and want backup for the first play.
- Everything in the playbook
- We write your twelve customer questions and run the audit: written report with your baseline across four dimensions
- Working session, 90 minutes: choose the topic field, plan the pillar article and two clusters
- Editing of your first three articles before publication
- Tech check: crawlers, index, schema blocks, done or briefed to your agency
- Follow-up measurement after eight weeks by email
Free cancellation until the working session.
Either way: we do not promise a placement. What we promise is the work that, according to Google's own guidance and our measurements, makes the difference.
Questions
What people ask us before they buy.
- Do I need technical knowledge?
- No. The playbook is written for business owners, not developers. Where tech is needed there are ready-made blocks, a generator that fills in your data, and instructions for what to tell your web agency or site builder.
- How fast will I see results?
- First AI mentions after two to three months, measurable growth after three to six. The case study shows the baseline can jump within days after three good articles. Whether and when assistants actually recommend you also depends on competition and region. We do not promise a placement.
- Isn't this just SEO with a new name?
- Honest answer: it is modern SEO, and we do not pretend otherwise. Google's own guidance says optimizing for AI search is optimizing for search. The difference is the goal: instead of a click in a long list, you work toward being one of three names in the answer.
- What is the difference between Playbook and Audit & Sprint?
- The playbook is the manual; you do the work. Audit & Sprint is the same manual plus our work at the start: we measure your baseline, plan the first play with you, edit your first three articles and do the tech check. After eight weeks we measure again.
- How long do I have access?
- For good. You pay once and get a member area with all content, tools and templates, including future updates. No subscription.
- What if it does nothing for me?
- You have a 30-day money-back guarantee. If the playbook does not help you, send us an email and you get the full amount back, no questions asked.