NET BRANDING LIMITED
AI SEO and Digital Marketing Insights
This is where Net Branding Limited shares what we are learning about SEO, AI search and websites that get found. Each article explains one idea in plain English, with the technical detail you need to act on it. We write for business owners, marketers and developers in New Zealand and beyond who want useful guidance rather than hype. You will find our latest articles below, followed by the topics we cover and how we decide what to write about.
Would you rather have advice that is specific to your own website? Book a free SEO and AI visibility audit and we will apply these ideas to your situation.
Topics
Topics we cover
Our insights follow the same structure as our services, so you can move easily from an idea to the work behind it.
AI search:
- LLM SEO, and how large language models choose sources.
- Generative engine optimisation and answer engine optimisation.
- Google AI Overviews and what they mean for organic traffic.
- Schema and entity optimisation for machine readable brands.
SEO:
- Technical SEO, including crawling, indexing and site architecture.
- On page SEO, from titles and headings to content structure.
- Local SEO and Google Business Profile.
Websites:
Sector and place:
- SEO for particular industries and locations around New Zealand.
If you have a question you would like us to cover, send it to us. Some of our most useful articles start as client questions.
Why we write about AI search and SEO together
You will notice that many of our articles move between traditional SEO and AI search in the same piece. That is deliberate.
Why? Because the two share most of their foundations. AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews draw on content that has been crawled and indexed from the web. Published industry research from seoClarity, for example, found that 94 percent of the Google AI Overviews it studied cited at least one URL ranking in the top 20 results for related sub queries. A website that search engines cannot crawl, or that ranks poorly, starts at a disadvantage in AI answers too.
There are real differences. AI systems tend to assess content in smaller passages, they reward clear, self contained answers and they rely heavily on how consistently your business is described across the web. Those differences shape the advice in our AI search articles.
Our view, held since we started in 2008 and tested through every change in search since, is that AI search is an extension of SEO rather than a replacement for it. The organisations that do well are the ones with clear, accurate, well structured websites. Our articles aim to show you how to build exactly that.
SEO tips for New Zealand businesses
Not every article needs to be technical. These are the practical SEO tips we give New Zealand businesses most often, each of which we expand on in our articles and service pages.
- Keep your business name, address and phone number identical across your website, your Google Business Profile and directories.
- Create a separate page for each main service, and say clearly where you provide it.
- Write page titles and headings that match how customers actually search, in New Zealand English.
- Answer common customer questions directly on your website, in short sections that make sense on their own.
- Add schema.org structured data so search engines and AI tools can identify your business, services and location.
- Check Google Search Console regularly for crawl errors, indexing problems and pages losing visibility.
- Make sure your site loads quickly on mobile, because that is how many local customers will find you.
- Ask happy customers to leave a review on your Google Business Profile.
None of these is new, and none is a shortcut. Together, though, they fix the problems we see most often on New Zealand websites. Our local SEO and small business SEO pages go further.
Want to talk through which of these matter most for your organisation? Contact Cathy Mellett, our director, for a straight answer.
How we research and write our insights
Advice about AI search is everywhere, and much of it is speculation presented as fact. So how do we decide what to publish?
Our articles are written by Net Branding Limited, an Auckland digital marketing agency working in the field since 2008. Our director, Cathy Mellett, oversees what we publish. Every piece follows a few rules:
- We base guidance on published documentation, such as Google Search Central and the schema.org vocabulary, and on what we observe in client work.
- Where we cite research or statistics from others, we link to the original source.
- We separate what is established from what is still uncertain, and say so.
- We review articles when search engines or AI tools change in ways that affect the advice.
- We write in plain New Zealand English and explain technical terms the first time we use them.
We also hold ourselves to the same standard we apply to clients: no guarantees. Nobody can promise that a technique will produce a specific ranking or an AI citation. What we can share is best practice and the reasoning behind it.
Useful Insights and Client Reviews
Latest articles
Our three most recent articles all deal with the same question: how do AI search systems decide which businesses to understand, trust and cite?
| Article | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Re Engineering Schema Architecture for Generative Engine Retrieval | Why basic organisation or article schema is no longer enough, and how nested JSON LD graphs linked to sources such as Wikidata help AI systems read your business without guessing. |
| How LLM Retrieval Pipelines Evaluate Information Density and Source Citation | How retrieval systems break pages into chunks and favour clear, fact rich sections, and how to write so your key points can be extracted and cited. |
| Entity Mapping Strategies to Establish Brand Authority in AI Search | How to establish your brand as a recognised entity through consistent naming, aligned classifications and trusted co occurrence with your industry topics. |
Each article is short enough to read in a few minutes. Where a topic needs more depth, we link to the relevant service page so you can see how the idea is applied in client work. For example, the schema article connects to our schema and entity service, and the retrieval article connects to AI content and generative engine optimisation.
New articles are added to the top of this list as they are published.
Turning insights into results
Reading about SEO and AI search is a good start. Applying it to your own website is where the value lies, and that is often where people get stuck.
What usually gets in the way? Limited time, uncertainty about priorities and the worry of breaking something that currently works. That is normal. Most organisations need an outside view to decide what to fix first.
When you work with us, we take the ideas in these articles and turn them into a plan for your website:
- We audit how search engines and AI tools currently see your business.
- We set priorities in plain English, with the reasoning behind each one.
- We carry out the work, or support your team to do it.
- We review progress and adjust the plan as search changes.
You can read more about our process, see examples in our case studies and learn about Net Branding Limited. If your website itself is the barrier, our websites hub explains how we build sites designed to be found.
Frequently Asked Questions
What will I find in the Insights section?
Practical articles about SEO, AI search, schema and entities, content and websites. Each one explains an idea and what to do about it.
Who are these insights for?
Business owners, marketers and developers who want to improve how their organisation is found and described online, in New Zealand and internationally.
How often do you publish?
We publish when we have something useful to say rather than to a fixed schedule. New articles appear at the top of the list on this page.
Is this an AI SEO blog or a general SEO blog?
Both. We cover AI search topics such as LLM SEO and generative engine optimisation alongside technical, on page and local SEO, because the two share most of their foundations.
How often should SEO strategies be reviewed?
Regularly. Search behaviour, competitors, websites and AI systems all keep changing, so we review client strategies as part of every engagement and recommend at least a structured review each year.
Can I suggest a topic?
Yes. Send your question through our contact page. If it is likely to help others, we may turn it into an article.
Planning a new website and want these principles built in from the start? Ask us for a quote on a site designed to rank and to be understood by AI tools.