Search engine optimisation is not what it was two years ago. This is what a good SEO agency in Leicester looks like in 2026, and why the best ones have moved well beyond optimising for Google.
By Richard Stinson, Founder, Brookstone Creative Ltd | Leicestershire | 10 minute read
Brookstone Creative is an SEO company and digital marketing agency based in Leicestershire, providing search engine optimisation, AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation), AIO (AI Optimisation) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) for businesses across the East Midlands and the wider UK. The agency has a particular specialism in engineering, manufacturing and industrial businesses, alongside professional services, technology and B2B companies.
If you are looking for an SEO company, you are probably asking a version of the same question that most business owners ask when they start the search. Does this agency actually know what it is doing? Will they be straight with me about what is realistic? And will I end up with a thick monthly report that I cannot connect to any actual change in my business?
Those are the right questions. And they are worth answering properly before we get into the detail of what good SEO looks like in 2026, because the technical landscape has changed significantly while the commercial questions have stayed exactly the same.
Brookstone Creative was founded in Leicestershire with a clear position. We are an SEO agency that has evolved its practice to include the full range of AI search disciplines, because the buyers our clients need to reach are increasingly using AI tools as well as Google to find suppliers. That evolution is not cosmetic. It reflects a genuine change in how search works, and the companies that understand it are building commercial advantages that their competitors have not yet recognised.
Search in 2026: what has actually changed
The fundamentals of SEO have not changed. Produce content that genuinely answers what buyers are searching for. Build a technically sound website. Earn the external signals that tell Google your business is credible and authoritative. These principles are as valid now as they were ten years ago.
What has changed is the search landscape those fundamentals need to work within.
A significant and growing proportion of business buyers now begin their supplier research by asking a question rather than typing a search term. They open ChatGPT and ask which companies offer a specific capability. They use Perplexity to research their options before narrowing to a shortlist. They see a Google AI Overview at the top of a search result and read that instead of clicking through to any of the websites below it.
Research from Magenta Associates in 2025 found that 66 per cent of UK senior decision-makers now use AI tools to research and evaluate suppliers. For B2B businesses, that is not a marginal trend. It is a significant portion of the market researching in a channel that traditional SEO does not influence at all.
The SEO agencies that recognise this are expanding their practice to cover it. The ones that do not are leaving their clients increasingly exposed in a search environment that continues to shift.
The four disciplines and what each one does
The terminology can feel overwhelming. SEO is familiar. AEO, AIO and GEO are newer. What matters is not the acronyms but what each one actually does for a business trying to be found by the right buyers.
| SEO | Search Engine Optimisation. Making your website appear in Google's traditional results when buyers search for what you offer. Still the foundation. Still essential. The technical health of the site, the quality and structure of the content, the external signals of authority. Everything else builds on this. |
| AEO | Answer Engine Optimisation. Structuring website content so AI tools including ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews cite it when buyers ask questions rather than type search terms. Requires content that opens each section with a direct, self-contained answer. Different structure from traditional SEO, same underlying quality standard. |
| AIO | AI Optimisation. Ensuring that the complete picture AI tools build of a business, across the website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn presence and external reviews, is consistent, accurate and credible. Where AEO works at the level of individual content pieces, AIO works at the level of the full entity picture that AI tools use to decide whether a business is worth recommending. |
| GEO | Generative Engine Optimisation. Extending AEO across all generative AI platforms simultaneously: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot. For businesses whose buyers use different AI tools for different purposes, GEO ensures consistent visibility across all of them rather than optimising for a single platform. |
These four are not competing approaches. The foundations they share are more extensive than their differences. A technically accessible website with well-structured, authoritative content serves traditional SEO and AEO at the same time. A consistent, complete external presence serves AIO and local SEO simultaneously. Building all four from shared foundations is significantly more efficient than treating them as separate programmes.
Why AIO deserves more attention than most businesses give it
When a buyer uses an AI tool to find a business, the AI does not simply search a website database. It draws on a composite understanding built from multiple sources: the website, the Google Business Profile, the LinkedIn presence, the external reviews, the directory listings, any mentions in relevant publications. It synthesises those signals into a picture of what the business is, how credible it is, and whether it is appropriate to recommend for this particular query.
A business with strong website content but an incomplete Google Business Profile, a dormant LinkedIn page and three Google reviews from several years ago is presenting a fragmented picture. The AI has lower confidence in what it is looking at. Lower confidence means lower probability of recommendation, regardless of how good the website content is.
AIO addresses this systematically. It ensures that every platform tells the same story with the same level of completeness. The website says what the business does. The Google Business Profile confirms it, with the right categories and regular posts. The LinkedIn presence reinforces it with active, credible content. The reviews corroborate it with genuine client experiences that mention the right services and sectors. When AI tools encounter that consistency, they build a confident entity picture. Confident entity pictures earn recommendations.
Most businesses have good intentions but incomplete execution across their digital presence. Their website says one thing, their Google Business Profile says something slightly different, and their LinkedIn tells a third story. AI tools notice those inconsistencies more acutely than human visitors do.
What the engineering background brings to SEO
Brookstone Creative’s particular specialism is engineering, manufacturing and industrial businesses. That specialism is not a positioning choice. It comes from Richard Stinson’s career.
He started as a toolmaker. Worked through CNC machining, CAD/CAM engineering, technical design and project management before spending years in technical sales and sales management across aerospace, automotive, fabrication, cutting tools, special purpose machines and turbine blade tooling. He has been the procurement manager and the supply chain engineer that engineering companies are trying to reach through their SEO. He knows what those buyers search for, what vocabulary they use, and what content passes their credibility filter.
That background makes a practical difference to the quality of content produced for industrial and engineering clients. The keyword strategies are built around how buyers in those sectors actually search, not just what the keyword tools suggest. The content addresses the questions those buyers genuinely bring to a supplier evaluation. The vocabulary is accurate because it comes from direct sector experience rather than research.
For manufacturing companies, precision engineering firms, industrial B2B businesses and the professional services firms that support them, that depth of sector understanding produces SEO content that earns genuine credibility with the buyers it is designed to reach. That is what converts search visibility into commercial enquiries rather than just website traffic.
The commercial case for getting this right
There is a straightforward commercial argument for investing in SEO and AI search together rather than in traditional SEO alone.
The first part of that argument is defensive. AI Overviews now appear at the top of many Google search results. Research published in 2026 found that pages cited in AI Overviews earn significantly higher click-through rates than those that rank well in the traditional results below. Being present in the AI Overview is increasingly the most commercially valuable position in Google search. Traditional SEO alone does not put you there.
The second part is offensive. The buyers using AI tools as standalone research platforms, those asking ChatGPT or Perplexity for supplier recommendations rather than using Google at all, are further along in their decision-making than most Google searchers. They have already defined their requirement. They are looking for confirmation that a shortlist candidate is credible. The businesses that appear in those AI responses with a consistent, authoritative presence are the ones that earn those conversations.
The third part is timing. The businesses building AI search visibility now are establishing positions in a landscape that is still relatively uncrowded. The cost of building that authority compounds downwards over time. The cost of building it later, when more competitors have recognised the same opportunity, compounds upwards.
Frequently asked questions
Is Brookstone Creative an SEO company or an AI search agency?
Brookstone Creative is an SEO company and AI search agency based in Leicestershire that provides both traditional search engine optimisation and the full range of AI search disciplines: AEO, AIO and GEO. The agency was founded as an SEO practice with a specialism in engineering and industrial businesses, and has evolved to include AI search because that is where a significant proportion of B2B buyer research now takes place. Businesses working with Brookstone Creative get comprehensive search visibility across both traditional and AI search environments.
The evolution from pure SEO to integrated search reflects how buyer behaviour has changed, not a change in what the agency fundamentally does. Finding the right buyers at the right moment in their decision-making process is still the goal. The channels in which those buyers research have expanded, so the practice has expanded with them.
What is the difference between AIO and SEO, and why does it matter?
SEO optimises a website to rank in Google's traditional search results. AIO, AI Optimisation, ensures that the complete picture AI tools build of a business across all its digital platforms is consistent and credible enough to earn recommendations when buyers use ChatGPT, Perplexity and similar tools. SEO influences the blue links. AIO influences whether AI tools confidently recommend a business when asked for a suggestion. Both matter because buyers in 2026 use both environments when they are researching suppliers and services.
The practical distinction is in what each discipline addresses. SEO is primarily about website content, technical health and backlinks. AIO is about the full ecosystem: website, Google Business Profile, LinkedIn, reviews and external presence. A business can have excellent SEO and still perform poorly in AI search if its external presence is fragmented or inconsistent. Brookstone Creative addresses both as part of an integrated programme.
Which businesses does Brookstone Creative work with?
Brookstone Creative works with engineering, manufacturing and industrial businesses as its primary specialism, alongside professional services firms, technology companies and B2B businesses of all kinds. The agency is based in Leicestershire and works with clients across the East Midlands and nationally. Its SEO, AEO, AIO and GEO services are relevant to any business whose buyers research before making decisions, regardless of sector or geography.
About the author
Richard Stinson
Founder, Brookstone Creative Ltd | Leicestershire
Find out where your business stands in search and AI search
Brookstone Creative is an SEO and AI search agency based in Leicestershire, working with businesses across the East Midlands and nationally. We offer a search visibility audit covering traditional SEO and all AI search tools, showing exactly where you appear and where you do not.
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