Questions
20 questions, grouped by topic What owners ask us before they start.
Everything businesses want to know before the strategy call – including the points where we advise against it. If your question is missing, send it to team@blacklyne.ai – we will answer it personally.
The other half of the answer
Four cases in which we say no.
Every provider writes who they work for. This is the list behind it – and it is the reason the strategy call comes before any work together, not after.
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Area taken
In your town we already work with a business of your specialism. Two in the same area would fight over the same search terms – we would devalue both.
We say no and tell you which area is free.
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Nobody is searching
Before the strategy call we measure how often your service is searched for in your catchment area at all. If the volume is too small, the work does not pay for itself.
We say no, even if that is one job fewer.
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It has to be this week
Findability grows over weeks, not overnight. If you need an appointment or a filled role within fourteen days, paid advertising serves you better.
We say so on the strategy call and point you elsewhere.
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You are after volume
If you want more enquiries, whatever they are, ads get you them cheaper. We build the opposite: fewer enquiries that fit, because it is clear beforehand what you do and what you do not.
Then we are not a fit, and we say so beforehand.
Is this worth it for us?
We are at capacity. Why become more visible?
Because being at capacity is a state, not a permanent one – and because visibility takes a few weeks to build, while needing it takes only one resignation or a weak quarter. On top of that, the same groundwork that brings customers also makes your open roles findable. In most businesses we work with, that is exactly the tighter bottleneck.
Everything comes by referral. Is that not enough?
Referral is the best channel there is, and the only one you cannot steer. But the person referred does not call straight away – they look you up. What they find decides whether the referral turns into an appointment. An empty map profile costs you exactly the customers someone sent your way.
How do I know whether this pays off for us?
From the call, and that costs nothing. We measure what Google, the map and the AI systems say about you today and who gets named instead – several runs, so it is not a snapshot. Afterwards there is a figure on the table rather than an opinion. If your town is so crowded that the work would not pay off, we say so there.
Roughly what does it cost?
A one-off build and a monthly amount for upkeep and measurement. The figure depends on what already exists and how contested your town is – which is why this answer gives no number that would be wrong for you. On the first call we work it out with your figures, and if it does not pay off, we say so there.
We have nobody to look after this. Who does it for us?
Nobody. That is the point. You tell us about your business once – services, hours, specialities, open roles – and then we build and maintain it. Your effort after the start is a few minutes a month for questions.
What you promise – and what you don’t
Do you guarantee we will be at the top on Google or ChatGPT?
Not a specific position. Anyone promising that is selling a bet as a certainty – no provider controls what Google ranks or which names an AI system gives. What we do commit to: we measure every month, in search and in AI answers. If nothing moves within eight weeks of going live, we keep working without the monthly fee until it does.
How do you measure without it becoming arbitrary?
With the same questions to the same systems, every month, and every figure as a median across several runs. That matters: a single query gives heavily fluctuating results for local searches and even more so for AI answers – in our own measurement, nine out of ten questions we put to ChatGPT on two consecutive days came back with different sources on the second day. Whoever sells you a single measurement as a success is showing you noise.
How long until something happens?
The site goes live seven days after you sign off text and images. We usually see first movement in search and first mentions in AI answers after four to eight weeks. If you need something faster, paid advertising serves you better – and we say so on the strategy call.
We need someone right now. Does this help?
Not for the role this week. For that there is our sister brand Blacklyne Recruiting with a placement sprint through paid campaigns – it works in days. What we build here takes weeks to work – but then it does not stop. Many businesses need both, in that order.
Who owns what
What exactly is ours afterwards?
Everything that gets built, once the build is paid for: domain and website with source code and access, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, your content, your data. Cancel us tomorrow and we hand all of it over – to you or to whoever looks after it next. It just stops being maintained and measured by us.
Are we tied to you afterwards?
No. There is no platform you rent and no access we could switch off. We stay as long as the upkeep pays off, not because you have to keep us.
If everything is ours, what do you live on?
On the build and the ongoing upkeep. Visibility is not a state you create once: competitors catch up, systems change their answers, content ages. Leave it for a year and you fall behind. That is exactly why our interest is the same as yours – we earn from it continuing to work, not from you staying dependent.
We already have a website. Does it have to go?
Not necessarily. Often the site is fine in design terms and what is missing is exactly the layer underneath that search engines and AI systems read. Then we add to it instead of rebuilding, and the build gets cheaper. If the foundation does not hold, we say so clearly and weigh both routes against each other.
One business per town
Why only one business per town and specialism?
Because visibility is decided locally. Two businesses of the same trade in the same town fight over the same search terms, the same place on the map and the same AI answer – we would devalue both and sell one of them something we were breaking ourselves. So we take only one per town and specialism. If yours is taken, we say no.
How large is such an area?
As large as your catchment area, not a postcode. For a practice that means districts; for a garage with a speciality it can be a whole region. We draw it along the radius your customers actually come from – and fix it by name, so nobody argues about it afterwards.
What if our competitor got there first?
Then we say no to you, and directly on the strategy call rather than later. That is uncomfortable, and the only way to make the promise worth anything at all.
Ongoing support
What exactly are we paying for each month?
Upkeep and measurement: sharpening content, adding new services and vacancies, keeping the map profile current, keeping up with technical changes – and measuring every month where you stand in search, on the map and in AI answers. Without that, a site falls behind within a year, because the others keep moving.
Is this an agency retainer?
Not in the usual sense. With a retainer the flow stops when the money stops, because accounts and data sit with the provider. Here everything is yours: cancel, and we hand over the site, domain and logins; the profile and content stay yours. It just stops being sharpened and measured by us.
Can I stop at any time?
Yes. What has been built stays yours – with access and source code. We keep nobody through a contract – only through what the upkeep brings in.
Why not build it once and be done?
Because visibility is not a building, it is a position relative to others. Your competitor catches up, search systems change their answers, your services and vacancies change. Building once gets you the jump, upkeep holds it. If you only want the build, you get the build – we just tell you beforehand what will be left of it twelve months on.
Questions that only arise in one sector are answered on their own pages: 9 sectors, each with the questions that actually come up there – from physiotherapy to the garage.
The next step
Three businesses rank ahead of you. None of them does better work.
Anyone searching in your town sees a handful of names. If yours is not among them, the job is gone before you hear about it. On the call we tell you why.
What happens on the call
- Beforehand we check where you stand on Google and on the map, who gets named in your town instead, and what someone searching actually finds answered on your site.
- On the call we go through it together – on your site, not on slides. You see which enquiries are passing you by today, and why.
- At the end you have what needs doing, in what order, and what it costs. If it does not add up for you, we say so – that happens.
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