How long does AEO take to work?
Honest expectations at three, six and twelve months, and why the first quarter is mostly invisible.
Treat three months as a citation checkpoint, six months as a decision about the programme, and twelve months as a longer view of its commercial usefulness. These are review horizons, not a promise that enquiries arrive on a timetable. AEO can earn a citation without earning a customer. Before spending £1,500 a month, decide which of those outcomes you need and what evidence would justify continuing.
Why the first quarter looks quiet
Much of the foundation work is invisible from outside. WebWisp's Growth Blueprint maps buyer questions, competitor gaps, your ideal customer and their buying journey. The AI-Visibility Foundation covers structured data, consistent business facts and machine signposting through llms.txt. None of that necessarily changes how your homepage looks. None of it gives an engine an instruction it must obey.
Publishing is also separate from being used as a source. New or changed content needs time to be crawled and reconsidered. Engines re-evaluate sources on their own schedule. Making a page available does not mean every engine has retrieved it, accepted its information or chosen it for a particular answer. There is no single refresh date we can put in your calendar.
That explains a quiet quarter. It does not excuse an undocumented one. Ask to see the research, the technical changes and the published content. Work completed is evidence of delivery, not proof of visibility. A useful review keeps those separate so that a busy production schedule cannot stand in for an answer to whether the programme is working.
What to examine at each horizon
The table below describes evidence to examine, not results you are certain to receive. Keep the buyer questions and the record of checks consistent enough to make comparisons useful. Save the question, engine, date, answer and cited page. Answers can vary between checks, so one favourable screenshot cannot establish that you are reliably visible.
| Horizon | What you can inspect | What to decide |
|---|---|---|
| 3 months | Research and foundation changes, published answers, and dated citation evidence against the written target. Check what remains missing as well as what appeared. | Has the agreed citation target been met within 90 days? If it has not, apply the guarantee. Delivery alone does not meet a citation target. |
| 6 months | Citation checks across the period, the relevance of questions answered, and any traceable visits or enquiries. Review enquiry quality alongside visibility. | Is the evidence strong enough to justify continuing beyond the minimum term? Separate weak visibility from a problem turning interest into enquiries. |
| 12 months | The longer record of citations, content changes, enquiry quality and any sales you can credibly connect to the work. Record gaps in attribution. | Does the commercial evidence justify the ongoing cost? Continue, change scope or stop on that basis, rather than because a year has passed. |
What the guarantee actually covers
Guaranteed citations in 90 days, or we work free until you have them.
The citation target is agreed in writing before you sign. Read that target as carefully as the price. Ask which questions and engines it covers, what counts as a qualifying citation and how the evidence will be checked. Those details need agreement before the work starts, not an interpretation after the deadline.
The stated remedy is that we work free until you have the agreed citations. It is not a promise of revenue or a refund. Meeting the citation target does not establish that the programme has paid for itself. A source can be cited without a reader clicking through, making an enquiry or buying. Keep the guarantee test and the commercial test separate.
What £1,500 a month commits you to
Visibility costs £1,500 a month with a six-month minimum. At the listed rate, six monthly payments total £9,000. That is the spending commitment to assess, rather than treating the first payment as a standalone trial. The published terms specify no setup fees, Direct Debit and 30 days' notice after the minimum term.
Visibility includes four content pieces a month, monthly optimisation, the foundation and research work, conversion machinery, credibility work, and a dashboard with a monthly call. The programme comparison sets out the scope. Decide whether you can fund the minimum term without depending on immediate sales. If you need the first month's enquiries to pay the second month's fee, this is a difficult commitment to make.
Where our control ends
We do not decide what an engine cites. We can improve the material available to it, but selection remains the engine's decision. We do not control your sales follow-up either. If an enquiry goes unanswered, greater visibility cannot complete that sale for you.
Results also depend on you supplying information and approvals on time. Accurate service details, evidence for claims and decisions on drafts cannot be invented on your behalf. Delayed inputs leave less approved material available for publication and discovery. Make those dependencies visible in the review; do not quietly treat them as an extension of the guarantee. Resolve any effect on the written terms explicitly.
Questions before committing
■ 01What if it does not work after 90 days?
Check the evidence against the citation target agreed in writing before signing. If that target has not been met, the guarantee says we work free until you have the citations. If citations arrive but sales do not, that is a separate commercial problem. The guarantee covers citations, not sales.
■ 02Should I wait twelve months before judging it?
No. Review delivery and evidence throughout, test the citation target at 90 days, and assess continuation against the six-month minimum and notice terms. A longer observation period is useful only if the evidence and your budget justify it.