From a quiet site to 10 booked calls in 3 weeks.
Thirteen articles answering the questions business owners ask before an exit turned a near-invisible site into a booked-call engine - and made ChatGPT name Modern Wealth first.
The results
How visits became calls
Modern Wealth advises business owners on the biggest financial decision of their lives - selling the company or handing it down. The expertise was real; the site just wasn't showing up where owners now ask their questions. In three weeks we published 13 citation-ready articles built around those exact questions. Google responded within the week, ChatGPT began citing Modern Wealth ahead of the national directories, and - for the first time - exploration calls started booking straight off the site.
The challenge
- A strong advisory practice with almost no organic search footprint.
- Zero calls booked from the website in the prior month.
- Invisible in AI answers for the high-intent exit-planning questions owners were already asking.
How we did it
- 01
Interviewed for the real questions
We mapped what business owners actually ask before an exit - the true tax rate on a sale, ESOP vs a third-party buyer, what to do when the business won't sell - and built every article around one of those questions.
- 02
Published 13 citation-ready articles in three weeks
A steady 2-3 articles a week, each written to be quotable by AI assistants, not just rankable on Google - so the whole library compounded as it grew.
- 03
Engineered for answer engines, not just search
Answer-first structure, first-party expertise, schema and internal-link clustering, so each new article strengthened the others and the site became the source engines reach for.
Key AEO tactics applied
- Answer-first article structure on real buyer questions
- Original, first-party expertise an engine can't find elsewhere
- Internal-link clustering + a related-articles strip on every page
- Citation-ready formatting and schema
- A consistent 2-3 article per week publishing cadence
Why it worked
We wrote the answers business owners were already typing into Google and ChatGPT. Google ranked them on page one within weeks, ChatGPT cited them ahead of the national directories - and the exploration calls followed. Three weeks in, search is already responding.
Every article, three weeks or younger
New pages usually take 2-6 months to rank. These were already averaging positions 8-14 - page one to early page two - within weeks. Search Console lags ~3 days, so the two newest show no data yet.
| Article | Published | Clicks | Impressions | Avg position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pro-Rata Rule That Ruins a Backdoor Roth for Owners | Aug 7 | 5 | 729 | 8.9 |
| How Much Salary Should an S-Corp Owner Pay Themselves? | Aug 14 | 5 | 168 | 10.5 |
| The Real Tax Rate on a Business Sale Isn't 20% | Jul 28 | 4 | 315 | 8.3 |
| Should You Sell the Family Business or Hand It Down? | Jul 31 | 3 | 614 | 13.6 |
| ESOP or a Third-Party Sale for Your Exit? | Aug 3 | 2 | 164 | 13.2 |
| SEP IRA vs Solo 401(k): Which Shelters More for One Owner? | Aug 5 | 2 | 94 | 7.7 |
| Don't Bet Your Retirement on Selling the Business | Jul 30 | 1 | 376 | 9.8 |
| Does Your Life Insurance Cover Your Personal Guarantees? | Aug 3 | 1 | 193 | 8.7 |
| How Long Selling a Business Really Takes, Start to Close | Aug 12 | 0 | 268 | 10.6 |
| The 5-Step Money Order for Growth-Stage Founders | Aug 5 | 0 | 31 | 9.3 |
| Buyers Pay Less When a Company Can't Run Without You | Aug 10 | 0 | 26 | 7.5 |
| Is Your Business Big Enough for Private Equity to Care? | Aug 17 | - | - | too new |
| When Your Business Won't Sell and You Still Need to Retire | Aug 18 | - | - | too new |
Want results like Modern Wealth?
We run the audit, the content, the publishing, and the monitoring end-to-end - so your brand becomes the one AI cites.