Free Playbook
The complete operating manual for B2B search now that assistants answer first. Built on what we have learned running SEO for more than 700 clients. Every pillar tells you what to do for a B2B business specifically, then hands you the free guides, tools and Claude skills that do the work.
Start here. Harry walks through the system behind this playbook using StudioHawk's own results.
AI now builds the shortlist. Your buyer used to scroll a page of results and decide for themselves; today an assistant reads the web on their behalf and hands them three or four names. If it cannot read enough about you, compare you or reference you, you are not on that list, and you will never see the search that excluded you.
Most advice about this is ecommerce advice wearing a B2B label, and that matters because the two curves run in opposite directions. Assistant referral traffic to B2B sites has been falling while ecommerce climbs. If your business case is built on the headline growth figures, it is built on someone else's channel.
Our own data points somewhere more useful. The payoff in B2B shows up in sales velocity before it shows up in traffic: leads that arrive already informed by AI research close in about two weeks, against roughly six weeks from every other channel we run. Buyers turn up convinced rather than curious, and they have already pre-qualified themselves against your public work.
Three things move the needle hardest for a B2B business, and they are covered first below: topical authority, uniqueness and digital PR. What follows sets out six areas that together decide whether AI search can find you, understand you, trust you and quote you, each one translated into what a B2B business should actually do, with the free guides, tools and Claude skills that run the work.
All six areas below matter. These three move the needle hardest for a B2B business, and they are where we would start on a new engagement tomorrow.
Own the subject rather than one page about it. Comparison content is the strongest single content-type predictor of B2B AI search traffic in the published research, at roughly double the correlation of the next best type, and the returns bend hardest across the first twenty pages.
Go to RelevanceGive assistants a reason to quote your sentence instead of someone else's. In B2B that usually means a number only you can publish, computed from data only you hold and updated on a schedule. If a competitor could produce it from public sources, it is an article rather than an asset.
Go to UniquenessContent explains only about 28 per cent of the variation in B2B AI search traffic. Brand and category fit explain the rest, and assistants build that picture from sources you do not own. Our own branded impressions rose 181 per cent on the back of placements, awards and reviews.
Go to OffsiteRun them in this order the first time. Structure is a gate, so nothing below it counts until it passes. The framework layer sits on top of these areas and can be swapped without touching the work underneath.
Can machines crawl, parse and use your pages?
In B2B this is pass or fail before anything else counts. The assistants doing the reading fetch raw HTML and do not run your JavaScript, so a single-page-app product page or a client-side-rendered help centre is invisible no matter how good the writing is. Fetch your twenty priority pages with JavaScript off. If the answer, the proof and the call to action are not all in that response, stop here and fix it before funding any content.
How does the rest of the web talk about you?
This is the pillar most B2B teams underfund and it decides your ceiling. Across 116 B2B sites, content explained only about 28 per cent of the variation in AI search traffic; brand and category fit explained the rest. Assistants recommend the names that keep appearing across sources you do not own. Our own branded impressions rose 181 per cent on the back of placements, awards and a live reviews hub, and every one of those repeats the same sentence about what we do.
Why would AI quote your sentence instead of someone else's?
B2B buyers ask specific questions, and assistants quote whoever answers them with something the rest of the index does not have. The highest-leverage version for a B2B business is a number only you can publish, computed from data only you hold, updated on a schedule. If a competitor could produce the same figure from public sources, it is an article rather than an asset.
Do you own the subject, or just one page about it?
Comparison content is the strongest content-type predictor of B2B AI search traffic in the published research, at roughly double the correlation of the next best type, and the returns bend hardest across the first twenty pages. Build them around the competitors your sales team genuinely loses to, and concede at least one point per page. A comparison that never concedes anything gets discounted by buyers and assistants alike.
Is there human proof behind the claims?
B2B buying involves several people and at least one of them is looking for a reason to say no. Proof shortens that. We rebuilt our case study library from ten dated examples into more than fifty structured breakdowns, one problem and one solution each, and inbound organic qualified leads grew 248 per cent over the following year. Fresh, specific and attributable beats polished and general.
Are you measuring it, or flying blind?
Two traps here, and they pull in opposite directions. Your analytics undercounts assistant referrals because the default channel groupings miss most of them, so the reported number is a floor. At the same time, assistant traffic is rising across the whole web, so growth is not proof your work caused it. Report presence and citation separately, compare against pages you did not touch, and watch sales velocity: our AI-sourced leads close in about two weeks against roughly six from other channels.
Underneath all six areas sits an operating rhythm, and the rhythm matters more than any single tactic: publish one new case study, earn a handful of genuine reviews, ship one video or podcast, keep a consistent posting cadence, and release one useful free asset. One named person owns that checklist and makes sure it happens.
Consistency is the mechanism. Repetition of the same clear message, across sources you do not own, is what turns a claim about your business into something an assistant treats as settled.
The eight free Claude skills that do the most work for a B2B business. Install them, point them at your site, and they return the audit rather than the theory.
The whole-site audit written for a B2B business rather than a generic one. Start here.
Open the SkillScores your site across the six areas above and returns the gaps in priority order.
Open the SkillBuilds your buying roles, then scores any page against each one. Includes a mode that reverse-engineers a real converted lead into what the page got right and what to add.
Open the SkillFinds what competitors cover that you do not, which is where most B2B comparison content should start.
Open the SkillChecks whether machines understand who you are and what you specialise in, consistently, across the web.
Open the SkillTurns the Offsite pillar into an actual outreach programme with drafted, personalised pitches.
Open the SkillFinds what your page adds that nothing else ranking already says, and what to add if the answer is nothing.
Open the SkillMeasures your slice of AI answers so the Evaluation pillar has a number attached.
Open the SkillBrowse all free skills in the Claude SEO Skills library.
