AI SEARCH VISIBILITY
The Authority Climb™
Be found when your next client asks AI who to hire
Your expertise deserves to be part of the answer. The Authority Climb helps your business become easier to find, understand and recommend across Google and AI search. Start with evidence of where you stand today. Then follow a clear plan to strengthen your website and build authority beyond it.
The moment that decides who gets the call
Your best clients now ask AI who to hire long before they ever reach your website. If AI can’t see, understand, and trust your business, the opportunity goes to someone else, and you never even know the conversation happened. You can be exceptional at what you do and still be invisible at the exact moment that decides who gets the work. Expertise wins the work. Authority wins the chance to do it.
The Authority Climb is 500 Creative’s evidence-led method for helping AI recognize and recommend your expertise. It’s a five-step strategic climb that helps professional service businesses attract higher-quality leads and become the obvious choice across Google and AI search. Each step builds on the one below it.
The Five Steps
The climb is built on one principle: you cannot build authority without the foundation that supports it.
See where you stand first, or get the complete plan from the start. Both begin with what AI says about you today. Then the work: the plan put into action, by us or by your team.
01
AI Discovery Scan
What does AI say about your business when you are not in the room?
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What AI says about your business today, and who it recommends instead
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The top three questions your ideal clients ask, tested across the major AI engines
$500 CAD
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Every result documented as evidence, never summarized
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Your AI Visibility Score and live readout: what it means, and what to do next
02
AI Visibility Audit
The exact reasons why AI is overlooking you and a prioritized plan to fix them.
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A full assessment of your website's content, technical structure, and trust signals, plus keyword research on your core services
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Your rating across the Six Dimensions of AI visibility, each scored and explained in plain language
$2,500 CAD
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A prioritized action plan: quick wins, strategic improvements for the first three months, and the metrics to track progress
03
Offsite Authority Roadmap
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A full read of your presence across seven authority categories, compared with the competitors AI recommends instead
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Your opportunities ranked by impact, with a Start Here shortlist
A six-month plan and toolkit for building authority beyond your website.
$4,000 CAD
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A six-month plan, month by month: foundation and visibility, momentum and authority, then amplification
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A review system and a directory toolkit, ready to use, plus the AI check-in searches that show your progress
04
Authority Sprint
Done-for-you implementation of the on-site fixes, with a before-and-after report.
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Done-for-you implementation of the on-site gaps your Audit uncovered
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May include refining your core messaging, restructuring priority pages, strengthening expertise and trust signals, and technical improvements
From $1,500 CAD
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Every change based on your Audit findings, scoped to what your business needs
05
Authority Building Program
Ongoing strategy and execution, managed for you, so authority compounds over time.
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Your Roadmap, executed month by month: strategy, execution, monitoring, and refinement
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Three tiers, from strategy and guidance to full execution
From $750 CAD a month
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A Monthly Progress Report tracking the visibility targets set at kickoff
The Climb Plan
(Scan, Audit, and Roadmap)
Know exactly what to do
$6,500 CAD
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Your AI Discovery Scan, AI Visibility Audit, and Offsite Authority Roadmap in one engagement.
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what AI says about you today, why it overlooks you, the prioritized fixes for your website, and a six-month plan for the authority AI looks for everywhere else.
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Delivered with a 60-minute strategy debrief covering all three reports and how you want to execute them
Any platform. Same climb.
The climb is platform-agnostic. The Scan and the Audit analyze how AI sees your business, not what your website runs on. WordPress, Squarespace, Webflow, custom builds, all of it climbs the same way. The Sprint is our done-for-you option on Wix; on any platform, your own developer can implement every fix from your Audit's action plan instead.
Your Roadmap does not depend on the Sprint: it comes with the Climb Plan, and its off-site work begins once your fixes are underway, whoever makes them.
What you are climbing toward
Visibility in AI search can generate qualified referrals without relying on paid ads. The goal is measurable: appearing consistently when AI is asked the questions your prospects ask, being recommended for your core services, and outperforming the competitors who currently get named instead of you.
Meet the Strategist Behind The Authority Climb
The Authority Climb was created by Melanie Vendette, AI Search Strategist and founder of 500 Creative. Drawing on 20 years of experience in marketing and business growth, including a decade in SEO and strategic web design, she developed the method to help professional service businesses attract the right clients and become the name AI tools recommend.
Melanie refreshed our website two years ago, and I’ve trusted her advice ever since. When she suggested we look at whether AI was recommending Hovester to potential clients, I wanted to know where we stood. Her AI Visibility Scan revealed that our competitors were being recommended for bid and proposal services in Canada, while we weren’t showing up. The Audit explained what was holding us back and gave us a clear plan. Melanie then put that plan into action, walking us through the changes and the evidence behind them. A month after launch, our website traffic had more than doubled. In the follow-up AI check, Hovester appeared as the top recommendation for “best bid proposal consultant in Canada.” What I value most is that Melanie sees opportunities I might otherwise miss and makes it easy to understand what needs to happen next. If you want to know whether AI is recommending your business, I highly recommend working with her.