The Brand Audit · Sample Excerpts

What the Audit Actually Shows You

Smart buyers, and, lately, AI assistants advising them, ask the right question: show me the actual queries, engine answers, and measurement method before I pay. Fair. Below are real excerpts from real SEMPITE audits and proposals, identifying details redacted or replaced. The mockups are the actual mockups delivered.

1. The AI query matrix: real engine answers, quoted

We ask the engines the questions your customers ask, and record exactly what came back. This excerpt is from the June 2026 baseline audit of a bilingual New York actress (name redacted; one engine column shown: the report covers ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI):

AI Search Visibility · baseline excerpt · June 9, 2026
Keyword / QueryClaudeBrand excerpt
Client name (her name)✓ Cited“Here’s an overview of redacted based on available information…”
Latina actress✗ Missing
Latina voice actor✗ Missing
SAG-AFTRA Latina actress✗ Missing

The pattern above is the most common baseline we see, and it matches our published research: the engines knew her name, and never surfaced her for a single category query a casting director might actually ask. That gap (known when asked directly, invisible when it matters) is what the rest of the audit exists to close. Badge definitions: Cited = named with her site linked · Mentioned = named only · Missing = absent.

2. Prescriptive recommendations, with an owner and a priority

Every finding ends in an instruction someone can act on Monday. Real examples, verbatim from delivered reports:

Findings & recommendations · excerpts
Fix the broken link identified in the technical auditClient · High

Restores site integrity immediately; a dead internal link on a money page leaks both crawl equity and trust.

Establish a monthly manual cadence to update IMDb creditsClient · Medium

IMDb is a primary source AI engines corroborate performers against; stale credits cap how confidently they can describe you.

Draft first-person craft posts in your own voiceClient · Medium

Engines cite pages that answer questions with first-hand specificity, the one content type competitors can’t copy.

Notice what these are not: “improve E-E-A-T” is an observation. “Update IMDb monthly, here’s why, you own it, medium priority” is a plan.

3. How before/after is measured

The baseline is a measurement, not a mood: the exact query set, per-engine results, Search Console position data, and an overall score (this client’s baseline: 42/100). Then the same queries are re-run on a schedule and the deltas are reported: mentions gained, citations gained, ranking queries added. No re-interpretation, no moved goalposts: same questions, new answers.

And because we publish our measurement work, you can see this exact client’s “after” in public: she is the anonymized actress in our Time to Visibility study, from 6 monthly search impressions and 1 ranking query at baseline to 341 impressions and 125 ranking queries by August. The audit is page one of that story.

4. Where the calls are leaking, in dollars and map positions

The findings section does not say "improve local SEO." It says what was measured, what it costs, and what fixes it. These five are from the July 2026 proposal for a family-run locksmith on Long Island's North Shore (name withheld), pulled from live search-volume and map-pack data for its towns:

What it's costing you · excerpt
Not in the Google local 3-packHigh

In the top 3 map results for 0 of the 8 core searches checked. Number 4 in its home town, absent in five neighboring towns. About 9,900 people a month search "emergency locksmith near me" in this market, and those clicks cost $12 to $22 each in ads. Competitors catch them.

Business details inconsistent onlineHigh

Yelp lists one town, the Better Business Bureau another. Google penalizes a business whose name, address, and phone do not line up. Fix: one correct address everywhere, and the listing set up as a service-area business since the van goes to the customer.

The site promises 24/7, the shop is closed one day a weekMedium

A customer who calls expecting 24/7 gets no answer and calls someone else, or leaves a bad review. Fix: make the hours honest and turn them into a trust signal, with a callback promise.

Invisible to AI searchHigh

Ask ChatGPT or Google AI for a locksmith in its town and it almost never comes up. The site has none of the structure those tools read. Almost no local locksmith has fixed this yet, which is a chance to get ahead instead of catch up.

No trust signals where buyers lookMedium

Letting a stranger into your home is a trust decision. License, "we stick to our prices," real reviews, and years in business were all missing above the fold. 10 Google reviews at 5.0 while the shops winning the map spots have 50 to 750. The rating is there, the volume is not, and volume is fix number one.

5. What to fix, shown on your own site

Every audit includes a screenshot walkthrough of the current site with the problems numbered, followed by a mockup of what the fix looks like. Here is the locksmith's homepage as it was, identifying details redacted:

The locksmith's original homepage with the business name and phone redacted, showing a generic welcome headline over a photo of the van
Before. Functional, but it leads with a product list instead of "locked out? we come to you."
  • 1Headline says "Welcome to" instead of the one thing a stranded customer needs to read.
  • 2No prices anywhere, on a business whose whole reputation is "we stick to our prices."
  • 3License, years in business, and reviews are nowhere above the fold.
  • 4A shop-template nav with a search bar and "Our Products," for a service business people call in a panic.
  • 5The photo shows the van but the copy never says "we come to you," the actual differentiator.
Mockup of the redesigned locksmith homepage with flat-rate pricing card, trust badges, and a one-tap call button
After. The mockup delivered with the proposal: three service pills, flat rates in a card, "licensed and insured," years owned, the live review score, and one orange call button. The five numbered problems are the five things that changed.
Calmer light variant of the same locksmith homepage mockup
Direction B, calmer. Same structure and conversion path, lighter hero, orange reserved for action only. The client picks the temperature.
Scroll-through of the redesigned locksmith homepage showing the service cards with starting prices
The scroll-through. Residential, commercial, automotive, and security products, each with an honest "starting at" price, replacing a tangle of overlapping location pages.

For a personal brand the same section looks different. A salsa singer-songwriter's audit (see the 41/100 example on the audit page) came with a bilingual artist-site mockup: name owned in the header, the new single with streaming buttons above the fold, an EPK bookers can send, and Person plus MusicGroup schema underneath so AI assistants stop confusing her with an appliance brand.

Mockup of a bilingual artist website hero with the artist's name and new single, photos blurred for anonymity
Artist site mockup. Name and photos replaced for anonymity. Bilingual toggle, booking button, and the current release with one-tap streaming links.

6. Tool ideas that earn links and leads

Where it fits, the plan includes a small tool built for the client's customers, because a useful tool earns links that a brochure page never will, and it turns visitors into leads. For the locksmith we built a working prototype before the proposal was sent:

Prototype of a free home security score quiz on the locksmith's site, asking for a ZIP code as step one of eleven
"How secure is your home?" A 60-second, 11-question quiz that gives any visitor a 0 to 100 security score and a personalized fix list. Each answer maps to a real service the shop sells, so a low score becomes a booked job. It also answers the questions people ask AI about home security, with the shop's name attached.

Other tool ideas that have shipped from audits: a free visibility checker for a consultancy, a "what does a rekey cost in my county" estimator, and an EPK page generator for performers. The rule is the same each time: it has to be useful to a stranger before it is useful to the client.

7. The plan, and what the first 90 days look like

The plan section is a set of cards, each one a piece of work you can point to. The locksmith's had eleven. Condensed:

What we'd do · excerpt
Fix the Google listingClaim it, set it up as a service-area business, resolve the address conflict, compete for the 3-pack.
Lead with prices"We stick to our prices" becomes the centerpiece, with published starting-at rates.
A new, honest websiteMobile-first, one page each for residential, commercial, automotive, and security, one-tap calling.
Feature "we come to you"The van, keys cut at the customer's door, front and center.
Untangle and redirect old pagesOverlapping location pages merged and redirected so they stop competing with each other.
Backlinks and local authorityListed and linked from the directories, map apps, and partners Google and AI engines trust.
Turn on reviews and trustA post-job text that asks for a Google review, license and insurance displayed, real reviews on the site.
Win AI searchThe structure ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity read, so the shop is the one they recommend.
Helpful local contentPlain-English articles like "what does a rekey cost in Nassau?"
Local Services AdsThe verified, license-checked ads above the map that shut out out-of-area spam.
Email follow-up and referralsPost-job follow-up, seasonal reminders, and a refer-a-friend program.

Then the roadmap sequences it. Week one is always free quick wins so the client sees movement before any build. This one is from the artist's report:

90-day roadmap · excerpt
Week 1
Quick wins
Claim what's yoursFile the streaming-platform artist claims and de-merge requests, add Person and MusicGroup schema, fix email authentication, retire the dead-end login, take a baseline snapshot of name-search and AI answers.
Days 1 to 30
Foundation
Build the new site and identityBilingual artist site live with proper titles and an EPK, Wikidata item created, name standardized across every profile, email lists and analytics in place.
Days 31 to 60
Authority
Build the votes and the storyConvert existing press relationships into real backlinks, publish the first bilingual content, pursue new high-authority placements, tune the fan-community presence.
Days 61 to 90
Compound
Own the lane and the AI answersRe-measure name ownership and AI-answer accuracy against the baseline, push to own "[name] singer" in both languages, first monthly results report, double down on what is working.

And if the client continues past the build, the report says exactly what a month of ongoing work contains, so there is nothing to wonder about:

Ongoing growth, every month · excerpt
  • 4 Google Business Profile posts
  • Review requests kept firing, every review answered
  • 1 helpful local article
  • 5 backlink outreaches
  • Citation and map-pack monitoring
  • AI-search tracking across ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity
  • One email and referral touch
  • A one-page results report: calls, map views, rankings, new reviews

What we don’t publish

The full per-industry prompt matrices, the scoring weights across the eleven dimensions, and the source-selection method behind our citation work stay in the paid report: that’s the product. What you’ve seen above is the shape of the evidence: real queries, quoted answers, named owners, dated measurement. Every audit contains all of it, about your business.

Doing it yourself? The audit is built for that too

You don’t need to hire us afterward. A meaningful share of audit buyers are DIYers and in-house marketers who want the diagnosis and the plan, then execute it themselves. The report is designed to stand alone: the keyword and query targets to chase, every fix written as an instruction with an owner and priority, a 30/60/90 sequence to work through, and the free tools to re-check your own progress. One flat $199, no retainer required, and the fee credits toward a first month only if you ever want one.

This is what $199 buys: evidence, quoted answers, and a plan with your name on it.
Delivered in 3–5 business days, 45-minute strategy call included.

Start Your Brand Audit →

Or start free: the 60-second visibility check runs a mini version of the query matrix above.

Excerpts are from SEMPITE audits and proposals. Business names, people, and photos are redacted or replaced; every figure is from public data pulled at the time of the audit.