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25th February, 2026 - Webinar replay

Traffic from AI to adviser/planner websites is up 118%, 7 things to help you take advantage of the opportunity

Phil Bray 

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to February’s webinar. It’s sunny outside. It’s not raining, spring’s on the way, lots to be positive about. So what are we talking about today? We’re talking about AI and how consumers, potential clients, of you and your business are using AI to find businesses like yours. We know that traffic to adviser planner websites up to the end of January is up 118% so we’re going to talk about seven things today that you can do to take advantage of that opportunity. When we dive into the agenda, we’re going to be talking about how AI makes recommendations, how the three ways that consumers are using AI to find people like you, and we’re going to get super practical and tactical with seven things that you can do, if you want, and an exclusive special offer if you want us to do a couple of them for you that you can start doing in your business immediately afterwards. The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed we’ve got no Dan today. Dan is helping one of our clients with a branding project to launch a beautiful new business. So Abi is both Abi and Dan today. So Abi, do Dan’s bit with the housekeeping.

Abi Robinson

Can see this getting confusing. Bear with me. I’m really excited for today’s session. I’m not going to drone on because we have got a ton to get through. But as usual, I can see plenty of names in the chat and in the attendee list that are familiar to us, so you will know that we would love your engagement as much as possible today, AI has to be the hottest topic of the year. It’s something that we’re all learning as we go. We’ve got our best practice, but we’d love to hear yours as well. Any challenges, any comments, anything that you’ve been picking up while you’ve been using it. We’d love to hear it. So get involved. Ask us questions. Tell us if we’re talking nonsense. Tell us if something doesn’t make sense, and we’ll happily explain it in a bit more detail, and we have had a few questions coming in advance, so when Phil needs a slurp of tea, I will be picking those up. But equally, if you want to put yours in the chat, we will pick those up at regular intervals as we’re going on, and sweep up any at the end that we haven’t had a chance for. I will answer the most F of FAQs that we always get, which is, “are you recording this session?” And yes, of course we are. It will be uploaded to the video library on our website, where you can find all past webinars with transcripts. But equally, everybody who registered will get a follow up email from me this afternoon with the recording, with anything we think that you will find valuable. And as Phil mentioned, a few more details about that exclusive offer. Now Phil, talk to us about AI.

Phil Bray 

Thanks Abi. Right, so let’s start by looking at the three ways consumers are using AI to find financial advisers, financial planners, mortgage brokers, businesses like yours, and first of these ways is the intersection of the digital and the analog world, and this is where they are researching an adviser or planner they’ve been recommended to. So we know, and you may or may not agree, but we know from the data that we see that referrals and recommendations from existing clients are the best type of new inquiry. They’ve got the highest conversion rate, the lowest cost of acquisition, but sat between becoming aware of an adviser because a friend or family members recommend them on and then the prospect taking action traditionally has been Google, and Google still sits there, but now we’ve also got AI joining Google there. So the first way consumers are using AI is to research and advise a planner they’ve been recommended to so “I’m 65 years old. I’ve got half million pounds in my pension. I want independent financial advice, and I’ve been recommended to XYZ financial planning. Are they a good fit for me?” And AI will provide an answer. That’s the first way. The second way is similar to number one, but where they’re comparing two or more options that they’ve been considering. So there might be a couple of people, a couple of planners they’ve been recommended to. There might be one planner they’ve been recommended to, and one they drive past on the way to work every day. So there, the prompt might be something along the lines of, “I’m 65 years old. I’ve got half a million pounds in my pension. I want an independent financial adviser who’s happy to meet face to face. I’m considering these two firms. Give me the pros and cons”. That’s the second way. And then the third is an alternative to the traditional Google search. So if a consumer, potential client, doesn’t seek a recommendation from somebody they know and trust, they’re probably going to head to Google and type in something pretty basic, “financial adviser near me”, “financial planner in Nottingham”, that sort of stuff. And what we’re seeing is that’s still happening, clearly and in huge numbers. What we’re seeing is some consumers, some potential clients, proactively going to AI instead of doing a traditional Google search, or doing a traditional Google search and getting an AI response that’s happening as well, or clicking the AI tab at the top. So those are the three ways that consumers, potential clients of your business, are using AI to find financial advisers and planners like you guys. So if that’s how they’re using it, what AI platforms are they using? So in the UK, ChatGPT is the dominant platform. Around 50% of all UK adults have reported using it. Gemini and Copilot next step down about 20% and then smaller tools, Perplexity, Claude, etc are used less frequently, and we could debate for hours the pros and cons of the different platforms, but ChatGPT right now seems to be the most popular. And in many ways, this is going back to the early 2000s you had, what do you have? Your Google search, you had your Yahoo, Ask Jeeves. Anybody remember Ask Jeeves? And then Google clearly became the front runner. And it will be interesting to see whether ChatGPT remains the dominant platform, while others catch up and overtake them. But anyway, right now, it appears that ChatGPT is that dominant platform in the UK, having said that, if you want to optimise for AI, we should be optimising AI generally, because the seven things we’re going to talk about shortly apply equally to all these platforms. So we should operate optimise AI generally, but when you’re doing your research to understand how well AI recommends your business, whether AI is recommending your business, then I’d focus on ChatGPT to start with. And there’s three ways that AI searches really differ from Google searches. I think it’s important that we understand this. We’ve got to understand the consumer’s behavior, the potential client’s behavior. So the first thing that’s different is that prompts are longer. So someone typing into Google Search averages three to five words. “Financial adviser near me”, “financial planner in Nottingham”. With AI it’s a conversation. I was sat doing this this morning, and you’re having a conversation with it, including me telling it off at one point. It wasn’t me. Wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do. So you’re having a conversation with AI. Average about 350 words. And that starts with a really context rich question, we tell AI more than we tell Google in traditional searches. And we’re going to give you some examples of prompts later on that consumers might use. So that’s the first difference, prompts are longer. The second difference is that there’s more personal details being given. We tell AI more than we tell Google, and most consumers are giving AI more information and understand that they need to give it more information to make its recommendations. So what did I do in that example? I just gave my age, I gave my assets. I didn’t give my job. I gave the goals and what I wanted to do. I might have given the location as well. And also you might start giving it constraints. “I want to meet an independent financial adviser”. There’s a constraint. “I want a chartered financial planner”. There’s a constraint. “I want a female financial planner”. There’s a constraint. And then the third thing is, because the conversation and follow up questions are answered instantly. So if AI recommends three firms, and then someone might then go back and say “right, which of these will meet face to face?” AI will then go away and refine its search. So those are three ways that consumers use AI differently to Google searches, and your aims are different too. Your aims are different too. With a Google search, your aim is to be visible and get the click. So if someone searches on Google “financial adviser near me”, there’s three ways you can be visible. One is in the adverts at the top most advisers planners don’t do that, which is fair enough, then you’ve got the business section literally says “businesses”. It’s been called in the past Google Maps, Google Pack, but it’s currently called businesses. And somewhere between 42 and 44% of people looking for a local service will click in that businesses section. And then you’ve got the 10 natural links, the 10 blue links. So your aim with Google search and SEO is to be visible and get the click. With AI, it’s different with an AI question or prompt. Your aim is to be recommended and get the inquiry. So with Google, your aim is to rank. With AI, your aim is to be recommended and hopefully that makes sense. And we know that this is happening. The adoption of AI vastly outstrips the pace of adoption of Google back in the 2000s we know, up to the end of January, traffic to adviser planner websites is up 118% and that’s only the clicks that come through. That number properly underestimates, or does underestimate, to be fair, the number of consumers using AI to find you, and that’s because the information given the recommendations might be enough for the prospect to get in touch. AI gives the telephone number and the person picks up the  phone right away. Might mean they switch to a traditional Google search where they’re recommended to a firm, and they go across to Google and type the name of the firm in, or it might be followed up by a click to your website. But I do think that number, that 118% that’s only measuring click through to a website, does underestimate the number of consumers using AI to find you. Abi, any questions before we go into how AI makes its recommendations?

Abi Robinson

None in the chat as of yet, but I have got a handful from before we got going. Do you want any of those?

Phil Bray 

Yeah, if there’s any relevant to what we’ve said.

Abi Robinson

Yeah, let’s have a look. So do I go for that big one?

Phil Bray

Go for the big one.

Abi Robinson

Okay, so Martin asked, “Is this just hype? Are real clients actually using AI to find advisers?”

Phil Bray

Are real clients, humans using AI? Absolutely. If we want proof, we can see that website traffic is up significantly. If we want further proof, we work with dozens, I think there’s about 70 firms that we have on track meetings with each month, we keep a marketing KPI dashboard, and in that dashboard we record leads coming in from AI. I did a meeting on Monday, and the adviser had recorded three leads from AI in January, and it’s definitely happening. The pace of change is quick, but it’s starting from a really low base. So that’s why people might not have noticed it just yet. I also think people might not have noticed it just yet, simply because they’re not recording new inquiries that come in the business. And maybe we can flip this round everybody on the webinar, just pop into the chat, a yes or a no. Whether you have had leads, any new inquiries from AI, just “yes”. If you’ve had inquiries from AI, “no”, if you haven’t, and what have we got? Oh, wow, thank you. Sally, “yes”. Adrian, “no”. Neil, “no”. Gavin, “yes”, I know you have Gavin. Fiona, “not yet”. That’s the attitude I like. Andrea, “no”. Ian, “don’t know”. Kind of makes the point I said earlier. Scott, “no”. Martin, “not yet”. Carolyn, “yes”. Taylor, “yes”. Jonathan, “for normal marketing”, I’ll come back to that. Robert, “no”. So it’s split, probably 50/50 there, 50/50 so it is happening. It’s not hype. And frankly, if it does turn out to be hype, those boosted market valuations based on the AI valuations of firms, might be something to have a conversation about. So, no, I really don’t think it is. Back to you Abi. Any more questions coming through?

Abi Robinson 

Yeah, the flood gates have opened, but a couple come through in the Q&A so anonymous attendee, I know Dan likes those you’ll be sad to have missed that. They ask, “if traffic is up 118% does this mean that demand for financial planning in general is up at the moment?”

Phil Bray 

That’s a really good question. I’m not entirely sure you can make that link to be honest. I would love that link to be made, but quick plug for VouchedFor tomorrow. I’m doing a VouchedFor webinar tomorrow, and they got some data really early on there, around the proportion of people who will take financial advice and won’t. It’s quite depressingly low the number of people who intend to take financial advice. So I would love to make that link and stand here, but I don’t. Back to you, Abi, do some more questions.

Abi Robinson

Very diplomatic. So both Danny and David have asked quite a similar question. So David has asked, “how can someone tell if a lead has come from AI, I presume, just by asking the prospect?” And Danny said the same “how do you know? Unless you explicitly ask?”

Phil Bray

Yeah, Danny, you’re spot on. You’ve got to explicitly ask and really early on, when the lead comes in, the covering of conversation, very simple, ask the prospect, “how did you hear about us?” And what we’ve got to remember here is the source. Really important to recall the source, but the source is where the lead first heard about your business. It’s not telephone, website, email, or their methods of communication. It’s where they first heard about you. So a referral from John Smith, a referral from my accountant, saw a social post, drive past your office every day, typed into Google, typed into AI, and yeah Danny you’re right, you’ve got to ask.

Abi Robinson

Thank you. So Rhys wants to know, “with the majority using Google, is there benefit in pushing rankings on Bing search engine, as this is what ChatGPT apparently uses when searching the web?”. Thanks, Rhys.

Phil Bray

So ChatGPT actually uses Bing. It will use Google. It will use its own proprietary systems for searching the web. It will also use information it’s been previously trained on. So sometimes it doesn’t actually go to the web. It will use the information it’s been previously trained on. There is a link between SEO and AIO. Will cover that one off in a bit, if that’s okay.

Abi Robinson 

Wonderful. Jessica wants to know, probably hard to say, but “which AI tool would be most likely to produce valuable leads ChatGPT, Copilot, etc, as each platform has a different audience?”

Phil Bray 

I think it’s too early to tell. And I think that’s a little bit like asking, is a lead from Bing going to be better than a lead from Google? The answer is, I don’t know. So I do know 95% of people use Google, so it’s probably a bit of a moot point. So the short answer is, I don’t know about that. It’s too early to tell the data sets are too small.

Abi Robinson

And Gavin. I think Phil’s answer is going to be no, but “the difference in the number of words used in the AI prompt versus Google search is enormous. Have people already learned that to get quality results, you need to use detailed prompts?”

Phil Bray

I hope so. That number of words was the entirety of the conversation, Gavin, as opposed to the initial prompt or the initial question, but the initial prompt, initial question, absolutely, is much bigger than people use in a traditional search. And I live in a bit of an AI bubble frankly, here’s a bit of a nerd about this, so I’m probably the wrong person to ask about whether people are getting better at prompting AI. I absolutely hope that they are.

Abi Robinson

Wonderful. Two more and the biggies have come at the end. So Jonathan wants to know “if a normal marketing plan takes 6 to 12 months to bear fruit, how much quicker would you expect a proper adopted AI strategy to deliver?”

Phil Bray

I think it’s partly based on the number of people who are using AI, and you could see results really quite quickly. But I do think your AI is part of a wider marketing strategy. You might see some results early on from different elements of that marketing strategy. I know people for example, who have leads off LinkedIn in the first month of posting. So I think the answer is the same. You start to get little wins, little anecdotes, little positivities. These little green shoots. But actually it takes time, 6 to 12 months for that to translate into data.

Abi Robinson

Wonderful. Thank you. And last one, same question from Joe and anonymous and really good question. You might cover this off later, but “if AI is influencing delivery, what is the single most important change advisers should prioritise this year?”

Phil Bray

Joe, can I give you seven? We’re gonna talk about in a bit, and what’s the biggest single change? You know what? I think that’s about attitude. And I think that’s about understanding that this change is coming, and being open to it, not having our head in the sand, understanding the opportunity, threats, and then doing something about it. Bit of a cop out answer that Joe, I’m sorry. You’re probably looking for one thing, but that’s the one thing. It’s about attitude. And then that, for me, flows through to the seven things we’re going to talk about.

Abi Robinson

What a segue that was. Some great questions there. Keep them coming.

Phil Bray

Thank you everybody for those questions. I really appreciate that. Keep them coming, as Abi says. So where are we going to go now? We’re going to talk about how AI makes its recommendations, and the AI tools basically follow a similar five step process. I think it’s important to understand this process. So first thing it does, it will interpret the prompt that the potential client, the consumer, has given to it. It will understand things like location, the objectives, the goals, the aspirations that somebody has, any constraints. “I want independent”. “I want chartered”. “I want to meet face to face”, and the intent. What does someone want to get out of it? Do they want a list of three? Do they want the best three? Etc. He then searches the web. And it will use various different tools to search the web. It will also sometimes rely on data that it has previously been trained upon. And if you’re a bit of an AI nerd, then when you run dummy prompts, and we’re going to give you some dummy prompts in a bit, when you run dummy prompts, get a cup of tea and watch it and watch what it does, watch where it goes. We all know we can click the sources and watch what it does, but just watch the logic going through. Look at where it goes, and it’s absolutely fascinating to see the different places on the web AI goes. One thing we need to remember is the AI doesn’t have a secret stash of information over here that humans can’t get access to. It’s going to all the same places that we can. It’s just doing it in a split second compared to how we can do it. So it will look for relevant firms on the web. It looks at directories, it will look at profiles on those directories, and it will gather supporting sources and information. It will then review those websites and look at regulatory status. It goes to the FCA register. I’ve seen it not recommend firms, because there’s warnings on the FCA register about that firm being cloned. That feels really unfair, because there’s a consumer warning on there, and it’s not the firm’s fault if they’ve been cloned. But it does look there. It looks at third party profiles. We’ll get to things like VouchedFor in a minute. And it looks at your online reviews VouchedFor, Google, etc. So it’s gathering that evidence, searching the web, step two, gathering evidence together. Then in step number four, filters for fit. So it compares what it sees on the web, and as part of its research with the initial prompt, the specialism if somebody wants  independence, location, there’s constraints, etc. So in step four, it’s comparing the information it’s gathered and with the initial request, and then it forms a recommendation based on, ideally, getting back to Gavin’s point about the prompt the question or the required output that somebody’s asked, “recommend three firms, and give me reasons”. “Recommend two firms and give me the pros and cons”. So the output will be based on what’s someone’s asset. So those are the five stages it goes through. And what we’ve got to remember here is that AI doesn’t rank pages like Google. It builds the case and makes recommendations. The other thing AI does, which is very different to Google, is it shows its workings. You can watch it, you can look at its sources. You can run dummy prompts. You can go and ask it questions. So for example, when we’re writing marketing strategies for the firms we work with. We’ll run them dummy prompts. If the firm that we’re working with, we’ve started working with is not in the first three we will go back to ChatGPT with another prompt, and that prompt is something along the lines of, “no need to apologise, but tell us in 100 words or less why you didn’t recommend XYZ financial planning?”, and it will tell us, and you can do something with that. So AI is tremendous in the fact it shows its workings, whereas clearly, Google’s algorithm never does that. So that’s a bit about how AI makes its recommendations. So we’ve done a lot of theory in the first 26 minutes. We’re going to move into some practical stuff now. Abi, any questions that we need to deal with now, before we dive into the practical stuff?

Abi Robinson

Let’s just take this one from Matt, I think. “Is there any data or resource currently that indicates how frequently searches are made on AI tools for certain types, themes of questions to help us target our media a bit like how we can currently look up Google searches. You know, with Google Trends?”

Phil Bray

No, not there isn’t that. Now, I remember years ago with Google Analytics, you were able to see the keywords that people had typed into Google that was absolute gold that got taken away, I’m guessing maybe 10 years ago, 12 years ago. So no it’s much, much harder. And I think we got to remember as well that people aren’t typing short searches in, they’re typing much longer points. Right so, let’s start getting practical with this stuff. How do we take advantage of this opportunity? First thing, there’s two areas that we need to focus on, or you need to focus on, producing source information and building expertise indicators. Producing source information and building expertise indicators. So turning those two into practical things, what would I be doing? And this goes back to Joe, your question, my number one thing is changing the attitude. Seven things that follow on are these. So the first thing I would be doing is adding really detailed FAQs to your website. AI likes that punchy Q&A format. It finds it easy to read. And what we need to do through FAQs is give AI the information it needs to answer the questions that humans have asked. The AI, the FAQs will also help humans as well as the AI who land on your website as well. And those FAQs should be extensive. I’m talking 50, 60, 70, 80 questions. Now we have had some pushback, sometimes from advisers, saying “that’s too many”. My pushback to them is, how do you know that AI only needs 20 questions to answer everything a human is going to ever ask about? So for me, we need to be giving AI all the information it might need to answer human questions and then display it on a website in a way that it looks good. And I’ll give you some examples in a bit, in a way that looks good and humans can easily find the information that they’re looking for. So FAQs really, really important, because we need to be answering the questions that humans or providing the evidence, information that humans might ask. Then what have we got? Second thing, location, pages, these are really important. Because we know consumers often, assuming it’s not a niche adviser they’re a dentist and they want an adviser that specialises in working with dentists, same with doctors, farmers, whatever it may be. So niche aside, we know that many consumers, perhaps even most, want to work with a local financial adviser or partner. Evidence of that, just go on to directories, Unbiased, VouchedFor, plenty of others, and very early on one of the questions being asked of the consumer is, “what’s your postcode?” So people want local. So therefore, if people want local, they’re going to ask AI for a local adviser, and it’s one of the constraints about where they live. So therefore, on your website, we need to showcase, or you need to showcase, the locations where you typically work with clients. I know with Zoom and teams now you can advise anybody, anywhere, but it’s where you typically work, because what we’re trying to do is match the information on your website with what humans are asking. AI. So what we should have, or what I would recommend you do, is identify, probably start with. Five locations where you might advise clients, and then create individual location pages on your website, which is probably to make this efficient, a copy of your home page or your “about us” page. You change the image, you change the alt tag on the image, you change the URL, you change the page title, you change the page description, you start putting some keywords in there about the location, the area that it is. And you start to showcase the fact that if you’re based in Nottingham, you would still advise clients in, I know the geography pretty well which is why I’ve picked it, Nottingham, Newark, Bingham, Derby, Leicester, etc. So adding location pages to websites is really, really important, so that those two, the location pages and the FAQs pages, are giving AI the information it needs to be able to filter your business in or out of the recommendation based on the constraints the consumer, the human has asked. So hopefully that makes sense. Now, location pages and FAQs are bloody big jobs. Yeah, they take time to do, and they are incredibly important. So you can go and do them yourself. You can absolutely go and do them yourself, but we have two services that would allow you to get these up pretty quickly. So what we’re doing is we’ve got a special offer for these today. So I’m just going to spend two minutes talking about this, and then we’ll go back to the other seven. So 2026 you’ve got a short window to get ahead with this. In the early 2000s you had a short window to rank really well on Google. Early adopters who took the opportunity tended to be pretty sticky, and I think the same will happen with AI. And when it comes to the FAQs and the location pages, you’ve got two options. You can find the time and the expertise to DIY and do it yourself, or you could let someone like us do the hard work for you. So we have two services, the AI FAQ service. We didn’t spend long thinking about the name, but it does rather pass the Ronseal test. So the AI FAQ service. What do we do here? We provide you with the recommended question list. You send us short notes, not looking for polished answers, not looking for perfect Shakespearian prose. We’re just looking for some short notes. We will then structure those notes into AI friendly FAQs, question and answer. We’ll then upload them and categorise them on your website. Abi, now is the point where you put a couple of examples of that into the chat function. So we’ll upload those answers and questions, categorise them so a human can go and select the type of category they’re interested in. And we charge £440 plus VAT as a one off investment. If you want us to do that for you, then the AI location page service, again, passes the Ronseal test, we would identify five strategic locations and get you to agree on those. We will then create the tailored pages on your website using the existing structure, and make changes to the page to ensure that they clearly demonstrate the presence in those local areas and the relevance. So for those five pages to one off investment, £475 plus VAT. It is not £475 per page, it’s £475 for four to five pages. Abi, please put an example of that into the chat as well, if you would. Now exclusive special offer on this webinar. If you want both of those £823.50 plus VAT, that includes a 10% discount for today’s webinar attendees and Yardstick clients. So if you come to the webinar today and you’re not a Yardstick client, you still get the discount. If you’re a Yardstick client watching the replay, you still get the discount, so one time fixed fee, it helps you get both your jobs off your to do list. We do have a deadline on the discount that’s this Friday at 5pm. You can order the pages, the FAQs and location pages, next week, next month, next year. Might miss the boat if you do it next year, but you can order them in the future. But if you want the discount that ends Friday 27th at 5pm and all you have to do if you want it email hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk, with the words in the subject line, FAQs, location or both. And we will do the rest. We’ll be in touch with next steps. So it’s a time limited discount, 10% off if you want that come to us before Friday. This Friday, 5pm and all you need to do hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk, FAQ is location or both in the subject line, and we will be in touch. Abi, any questions?

Abi Robinson

Yeah, so we’ve got one about the AI location page service anonymous says, “regarding location, what if you generally work from outside of the UK and everything you do is remote?”

Phil Bray

Good question. I think I need to know a bit more context about that. And if you work from outside the UK, then that might imply you work with expats. So we might look at your website and build pages that talk about the type of expats you work with. And equally, if you work with expats, they will live in certain locations. So you might want to create location pages there. I think I need to know a bit more context about that. Might be better to take that one offline and email me phil@theyardstickagency.co.uk

Abi Robinson

All good. I can answer Andy’s question in the chat as it’s just sending another link so you crack on.

Phil Bray 

Thank you, of course. Then number three, collecting reviews on Google and VouchedFor. I was once told that I bang on a lot about social proof, and that made me smile. That was a good thing, because I think I do bang on about social proof, but for bloody good reasons, and for years, social proof, online ratings reviews have been essential for impressing humans on their digital journey to your door. Now, though we’ve got another audience, the robots. Google and VouchedFor reviews are really great expertise indicators. They demonstrate, assuming they’re positive, they demonstrate your expertise. They demonstrate the value you add to your clients. And AI, we know, uses Google and VouchedFor reviews to build its recommendations. If you go and use one prompt, we’ll give you in a bit. Pop it into ChatGPT, look at the sources. VouchedFor, is generally one of the sources it goes to. From a Google perspective, it does look at those Google reviews as well. And Google reviews, of course, are linked to your search engine optimisation. The more Google reviews you have, the better score you have. And the more recent reviews you have, the more likely you are to be in the Google Business section, the more likely you are to rank highly on the Google search results page. So not only are online reviews great for humans, they’re great for AI as well. So for me, I would be prioritising this year the collection of reviews on both Google and VouchedFor really, really important to do both. If anybody wants me to talk about how you do that? Very, very happy to do it. If anybody wants to ask that question. If I’ve banged on about enough over the years, and everybody knows that’s cool as well. Number four, AI is crawling the web, and you can’t control where it goes when it’s replying to a human’s prompt. Nothing you can do to control where it goes, but you can control what it sees. You can control what it sees and what you want it to see wherever it goes is completed information, accurate information, and up to date information about your business. And what you’ll probably find if you take our advice on here and Google your firm name, and also the advisers and planners names that people that work for your business, and then click on every link on maybe the first five pages, you will find your name out on the internet where you didn’t know it existed. There will be directories that have been built that you have never signed up to that has got information about your business. Some of it might be accurate and up to date. Some of it might be missing. Some of it might be inaccurate and not up to date. And I’ll give you a really good example. Those of you who get your accreditations, your statement of professional standing, etc, through the PFS. The PFS has got a “find an adviser” directory. If you go and look for yourself on there, assuming you’re a PFS member, 90% of the time there’s missing information, and that’s because a lot of advisers don’t know it exists, or it’s just not on their radar to fill it in. So number four, Google yourself, Google your business name, click on all the links and go and make sure that information is up to date. And if it’s not up to date, go and fill it in, because we need to be giving this source information to AI. Abi, anything we need to deal with?

Abi Robinson

Yeah, let’s tackle we’ve had a few. So there’s a couple around Google and VouchedFor so anonymous wants to know, “are VouchedFor reviews only useful if your advisers have the public account or will AI look at the overall company score?”

Phil Bray

Both. But remember, if your advisers have verified accounts with VouchedFor, both the advisers profiles and the company profile is live and out there on the internet. So my understanding is, if anybody’s got a different understanding, then please tell me. But my understanding is, for your profile to be live and discoverable online, it needs to be a verified membership. So the answer there is probably you do need a verified membership. Remember, that’s adviser level with VouchedFor £50 a month plus VAT, and then that’s aggregated to the firm profile.

Abi Robinson 

Thank you, and then both, I think’s maybe the next word to come out of your mouth. But Sarah would like to know, “is it better to do Google reviews or VouchedFor?

Phil Bray

100% both. Yeah, it is not a binary thing. Google reviews boost your SEO, impress people when they search for your business online. VouchedFor reviews, impress humans when they search for the individual advisers name, they can be embedded on the website. We’ve got the AI reason, a bunch of other stuff as well, and what we’re doing here, and if you frame it in the right way, you can frame this as convenience for your clients, rather than asking for reviews on both platforms. So the email template we suggest advisers planners use when they’re requesting Google and VouchedFor reviews, it’s basically explaining why. Explain you collect reviews on two platforms. “Here are two links, go and click which is most convenient for you”, so the frame is convenience for the clients, not asking for not asking for both, but short answer to the question is both.

Abi Robinson

Thank you. And then Dani would like to know, “Does AI crawl, social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc?”

Phil Bray

Certainly goes to LinkedIn. Yeah, absolutely goes to LinkedIn. And the beauty of AI is we can go and answer this question ourselves. Go and type some prompts into AI. Go and look at the sources, see what it looks like. But yeah, it certainly goes to certainly goes to AI, so AI certainly goes to LinkedIn.

Abi Robinson 

And then Andy and Chris have been victims of AI hallucination. Andy’s experience was that he “asked ChatGPT for a prompt around his Google reviews and used the full company name, which is the same as Google, and it said there are no reviews. When pushed, it did say “yes, we do have reviews”. But why was this missed?” And Chris echoes that and said “that they’ve had issues where ChatGPT doesn’t seem to see Google reviews, but it definitely can with Trustpilot.”

Phil Bray

So I think you’re absolutely right. Remember here the link might be two steps. So you are more visible to AI the higher you rank on a Google search. One of the things that helps you rank more highly on a Google search, certainly for local search, are Google reviews and yeah, who hasn’t been a victim of AI hallucinations at some point? We all have. Am I okay to move on Abi?

Abi Robinson 

Of course, I’m conscious of time, so go ahead.

Phil Bray

Number five, so we talked about making sure that the directories that you are already mentioned on either a firm level or adviser level are fully completed. Number five, we need to think about other directories that you could be listed on. As we said earlier, directories are a major source of information for AI. They like the simple format. It’s easy to read. So what I would suggest you do here is run test prompts that mirror the type of prompts a human might use. Abi, this is the point where you put the test prompts in the chat please. And then go and have a look and use a temporary chat, by the way, on ChatGPT, or whatever your preferred platform is. I would start with ChatGPT, because the majority of people in the UK use it, but use that temporary chat and then check the cited sources. So at the bottom of the screen it says “sources” and click on that, a panel will open up on the right hand side. Scroll down that panel, and it will show you where AI has been to make its recommendation, and what you’re looking for there is directories that you didn’t know existed, but ChatGPT has been to to form part of its recommendations. And then you visit those directories and see whether you can get a listing on there. Yell.com is a good example. It does go to yell.com. Not saying you have to pay money to yell.com, I’m just saying a free listing might make sense. In Nottingham for example, there are business directories that I didn’t know about six months ago. I do know about now, and we try to make sure Yardstick is listed there. So you’re just looking for directories, often local, not always. There might be a specialist niche you’re not listed on that you could be. The way you find those directories is run those dummy searches, look at the searches, and then scroll down on the right hand side. Number six, blogs and articles. If you’re getting really serious about your AIO, AI optimisation, we need to be publishing source material that is relevant to your clients and your audience. And I would suggest it’s a bit arbitrary, but I would suggest a minimum of three blog articles per month. It’s always been a good idea from an SEO perspective, for those firms where SEO is important, it’s a really good idea from an AI perspective, because AI needs this source information. It’s one of the reasons why Reddit has become such a popular place now. If you do a Google search, fair chance a Reddit or subreddit or Reddit page will be in the search results because Google loves, AI loves that content rich material on Reddit, so long form content helps AI answer questions from humans Q&A’s listicle form content. Listicle, being a mash up of list and article, a horrible marketing term, but it kind of gets the point across. 10 reasons why, eight mistakes retirees make, six things you can do to reduce your IHT bill, that sort of stuff. AI loves that sort of content. And I’ll be publishing articles, those articles on a monthly basis, based on the questions humans might ask AI. There’s a couple of ways of finding those topics out. You could go to AI, you can go to humans. It’s why Marcus Sheridan’s book “They Ask, You Answer” is fabulous, because it teaches you how to use questions asked by humans, your clients, your prospects, and turn them into content. For me, I was building an AIO strategy, I would be publishing at least three blogs a month. Number seven, I think we’ll finish off having Abi, then do the questions. Number seven, build other expertise indicators. We need to impress AI with your expertise, and we’ve talked about some of the ways of doing that already. The blogs will help, the Google reviews will, the VouchedFor reviews will, etc. But there are other ways of doing this as well. So just think about what might impress a human and it kind of is what will impress AI, awards for example both shortlisting, highly commended and wins. When you appear on podcasts, that’s a vote of confidence. That’s a signifier of expertise. If you’re a guest on somebody else’s podcast, getting your name in the newspapers for the right reasons, but getting your name in the newspapers as an expert, talking head, being quoted on something that’s an indication of expertise. If a journalist is coming to you for a quote, not because they don’t think you’re an expert, it’s because you think you’re an expert, and you’re going to give a good copy too. So getting your name in the newspaper will work really, really well as well. Case studies work well. Guest articles on other people’s websites. So your accountant publishes a blog, go and ask them if they can put an article on their website, getting speaking slots elsewhere. Basically, what you’re trying to do is push out onto the web, whether it’s on your website or other people’s websites, expertise indicators. Think of it this way, if it would impress a human, it’s going to impress AI. So as I give seven, give you one more bonus one. All of this is great, and if you do these seven, you will see more traffic coming to your website from AI. You will see leads coming from AI. But you need to be prepared, I think for potentially tougher first meetings. And the reason for that is the AI does more than give the recommendations. When I’ve been running dummy searches, it gives the recommendations. You know what? Then goes a bit further, because it likes to be helpful AI. And what it will do is it will give questions to the consumer that they should ask at that first meeting with you, and therefore you might get longer emails on that initial inquiry. You might get tougher questions on that first meeting, or at least more questions on that first meeting. So as part of your AI strategy, I would be researching the questions that AI might tell humans to ask you at that first meeting, and then practice your answers so that they are really polished, really sharp, really effective, because there’s no point doing all this if then someone comes with the list of questions that you don’t want to answer or can’t answer the first meeting while prepared. So little bonus action there that you need to do. If you do all the other seven, if you don’t need all the other seven, then you’re not going to do this. You won’t need to do this. So let’s wrap up and do some questions. And I think you’ve got a limited window here to get ahead of the game. The genie is out of the bottle from an AI perspective, we’re not going back. I think 2026 is a pivotal year, believe me or not, let’s see what happens at the end of the year. But I absolutely and passionately believe the opportunity that business has had in the early 2000s to rank well on Google is being replicated, from an AI perspective here. I think you’ve got two choices, therefore you get ahead of the game, or you try and play catch up. That’s hard. You’ve got seven things that you can go away and do, if anybody’s got any questions about those seven things, then put them in here, or message me afterwards. And if you want us to do those FAQs, those location pages or both, type in hi@theyardstickagency.co.uk, in the subject line, put those three words or one of those three words, and we’ll be in touch. You don’t need to do anything more than that. We’ll do some questions a minute, Abi, let’s talk about Steve Martin. Not that Steve Martin, at our next webinar.

Abi Robinson 

Yes, of course. So I think anybody who has any interest in marketing and reading about marketing will probably have heard of Robert Cialdini and the book “Influence”. Well, Steve is one of his most well known collaborators, and they work very closely together, so you can expect a lot of insights from Steve that he will share with Robert around behavioural marketing and a lot of things that we can take from behavioural science to improve how we run our businesses. So he’ll be joining us at the end of the month in March, and we’ll be talking about a lot of common mistakes that people end up falling into that undermine trust with potential clients and existing clients when you have a prospect that doesn’t engage immediately, what to do about that. Practical ways to increase credibility on your website, how to stand out and demonstrate authority and which of Cialdini’s principles that are most underused within financial services, plus a ton of other things. So I’m wittering on so you’ve got time to scan the QR code, but if you haven’t got your phone handy, don’t worry. I will put the link in the follow up email later on, and we’d love to see you this time next ones where we’ll be chatting to Steve.

Phil Bray 

Fabulous. Thank you, Abi. I really enjoyed writing the registration page for this and the brief for that webinar a couple of days ago. I think it’s gonna be a fabulous session, and turning what marketing creates new inquiries into new clients, is what it’s all about, and that webinar is going to be gold for that. Right Abi, any questions?

Abi Robinson

We do have a couple, yeah, we’ve had one from Catherine, which if you’re not sure, I might have an answer for but it’s, “how do we build a profile on Reddit when most subreddits don’t allow self promotion or soliciting. In Ireland, just one relevant subreddit, which is r dash Irish personal finance that has 122,000 visitors per week but won’t allow self promotion.”

Phil Bray

So I think for me, this applies to things like Facebook groups as well. The first thing to do, and it sounds as though you’ve already done it, is understand the rules of the subreddit, and I guess you got a couple of choices here. You go and build your own and start from scratch, where you go and piggyback other people’s audiences. And I’m a much bigger fan of piggybacking on other people’s audiences, because the hard work of building an audience has already been done. But you do need to understand the rules to start with what you can and can’t do, and if it doesn’t allow self promotion, think it’s then a case of finding out, what classifies a self promotion? Because you could go on that subreddit and add tons of value by just answering questions. No self promotion, no “if you want to learn more, get in touch”, but just giving really factual information, being really, really helpful, be on giving mode all the time. And then ultimately, when somebody does move themselves in market and is ready to seek advice from a professional, they might have remembered your name and then go and do the Google search or the AI search. So for me, I would understand the rules. If the rules allow you to provide generic information and helpful information, then do that. And if you do that enough, you don’t need to self promote it’ll take care of itself.

Abi Robinson 

And Jack wants to know, “how would you feed qualifications to AI, slash, how to find your qualifications?”

Phil Bray

So I think that’s about on the individual adviser pages for your website. So you should have a team section for your website. Or if you’re a sole practitioner, you are that person on the team section. Each individual member of the team should ideally have their own individual page, and on that page you should talk about the adviser, planner, and remember, paraplanners and admin staff have qualifications as well. So there, you would talk about the accreditations that those people have got, and you talk about the qualifications that they’ve got as well. And I would be listing the constituent parts. So I wouldn’t put “achieved level four”, I would be listing the constituent parts of the person’s level four status, or whatever that might be, G10 with an explanation, G20 with an explanation. I’m dating myself now by talking about G10 and G20 but that’s how I’d do it. I’d do it on the individual team pages,

Abi Robinson 

Fab and then any more for any more. But at the minute, this is the last one from Chris, and he would like to know “what’s your view on using AI to write those three blogs, slash articles every month, dead internet theory?”

Phil Bray

Not actually sure what dead internet theory means, so I wouldn’t mind an explanation about that, Chris, but I can answer the first part of the question. So would I use AI to write the blogs? Honestly no I wouldn’t, but I do think it has a part to play in blog creation. So blog creation, or article creation, is a bunch of steps. Ideation, what are you going to write about? Research, getting the information you need, writing, editing and proofing. Ideation, AI can help with. Research, it can help with, check your sources, make sure there’s no hallucinations there. Personally, I would write it myself or get somebody to write it for you. AI can certainly help with the edit and different forms of AI can help with the proof, read, Grammarly, that sort of stuff. So for me, producing a blog or an article or a guide or anything that’s written, I break it down into its constituent parts. Think about where AI can help. Think about which tools you could use. Would I use it to write it? No.

Abi Robinson

And well, we’ll end with a nugget of knowledge for you then Phil. The dead internet theory suggests that the internet has become predominantly unpopulated by AI generated content and automated bots with human activity in the minority.

Phil Bray

Interesting. I hear that a lot on LinkedIn. I think there’s a doom loop on LinkedIn of people using AI to write posts about people writing too many posts with AI. That kind of doom loops around. Guys, thank you so much for your question today. Really appreciate the time everybody spent with us. Appreciate the thoughtful questions as always, hope the answers have been useful. Go and register for the session with Steve Martin, it will really help turn your marketing into business growth. See you this time next month. Cheers, everybody. Bye, bye.