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Learn / Hiring an AEO Partner
Book a 30-minute growth review. Engagements start at $5,000/month.
Hiring an AEO partner is a make-or-buy decision. You can hire a specialist consultant, build in-house, or buy a large SEO agency retrofit. The wrong choice usually shows up as weak citations, slow money-page work, and no one accountable for AI referral quality.
This hub compares consultant vs agency models, lists questions to ask before you hire, and points to published results. It does not name competitor agencies in new copy. Use the comparison pages and the results page to judge fit, then book a call if you want a senior operator who owns strategy and execution.
Proof you can check today: Riseworks at 288% organic growth over 12 months, Lumanu AI-sourced conversions, iSpeedToLead citation share, and Pactvera early visibility wins, all linked from /portfolio and /seo-results-austin-heaton.
Engagements start at $5,000/month with a 3-month minimum. Local AEO add-on is $3,000/month. White-label AEO is offered for agencies. Full detail: /pricing.
A senior consultant owns strategy and execution with fewer handoffs. Large agencies often retrofit classic SEO. Compare on /aeo-consultant-vs-agency.
Ask for published case studies with engine-level metrics, not vanity traffic alone. Start with /seo-results-austin-heaton and /portfolio.
Use the questions post in Start here, covering ownership, engines covered, pilot scope, and reporting.
Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Austin Heaton.
Next step: get a live read of where AI engines recommend competitors instead of you.
In-house is the right call in some companies. Fractional is the right call in others. Here is the comparison a marketing or growth lead actually has to make.
Senior work without a full-time seat. No salary number invented here - we scope on the call.
Hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production.
Starts on the live site. Money pages, entity work, and citations can move in the first month.
Recruiting, offer, notice period, then ramp. You wait before the first commercial page ships.
You work with Austin. Strategy and execution sit with one senior owner. See the AEO + SEO strategist page.
You hire a leader. That person still has to prove the AEO skill set and still has to staff the work.
Austin owns strategy and the work: money pages, technical SEO, mentions, MOFU/BOFU, citations.
A SEO lead still needs writers, PR, and tech. The hire is a manager seat unless you also fund the bench.
Built for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews - plus Google. Citations, entities, commercial pages.
Most SEO lead job specs are still classic SEO: rankings, content calendar, reporting. AEO is a different skill set.
The work starts on the pages buyers already ask AI about. Faster path to a citable commercial page.
First citation waits on hiring, then on the production team the hire still has to assemble.
Do not hire a consultant when you need a people manager. Do not hire a SEO lead when you need senior AEO shipped this quarter.
This is not a strategy deck handed to a junior team. Austin owns the commercial pages, the entity signals, and the technical foundation that get you cited.
These are the live case studies. Same numbers as the portfolio.
We review where your site loses visibility across technical, on-site, and off-site - then send the exact fixes.
Get My Free Report Card →You are choosing who owns Google and AI search, and whether that person also does the work.
An AEO + SEO strategist or fractional search lead is a senior owner who ships money pages, entity work, technical SEO, and citations. An SEO-only team is a full-time seat. That hire still needs writers, PR, and tech unless you fund those too.
The homepage FAQ already states it: hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production expenses.
That is the fully loaded seat - not just base salary. If the consultant model fits, we scope it on a call.
Hire SEO-only when you need a full-time people manager, a large team already in the building, and someone inside every internal political loop.
Hire the consultant model when you need senior AEO now and one person who owns strategy and execution. Adjacent: AEO for B2B, AEO for FinTech, AEO for Crypto.
Yes, in most companies. The title is leadership. The citations still come from commercial pages, entity mentions, and technical access. Austin's consultant seat covers strategy and that work.
Documented on this site. Lumanu: 656 AI-sourced clicks and 101 conversions in 60 days. Riseworks: 288% organic growth and 575% AI search expansion. Pactvera: 6,000%+ impression growth and placement next to DocuSign in 11 days. iSpeedToLead: 310.8% AI search growth and the #1 citation share at 7.79%. See the case studies.
Book a call. We look at whether you need a full-time SEO lead or a consultant / fractional owner. Book a call with Austin or use the contact page.
If you need senior AEO ownership - and you are deciding consultant vs a full-time SEO lead - book the call. We will tell you which model fits.