From Google to ChatGPT: How Safelincs became the fire safety brand trusted by both people and AI
Safelincs, the UK’s leading supplier of fire safety equipment and training, has long been regarded with trust, reliability, and life-saving expertise amongst businesses and their peers. As digital behaviour evolved and AI-driven search began reshaping how consumers and professionals discover information, Safelincs recognised the need to adapt.
Over a 12-month partnership with eComOne, Safelincs embarked on an ambitious strategy to strengthen its digital visibility across both traditional search engines and emerging AI platforms.
The result: an SEO success story. One that extends beyond Google rankings into recognition by AI systems themselves. Safelincs is now not only appearing in search results but being cited as a trusted authority within Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.
Objectives:
The objectives for this project were clear from the beginning:
- Increase Safelincs’ visibility in both Google SERPs and AI responses.
- Ensure authoritative content (e.g., fire extinguisher guides, fire exit rules) was surfaced in LLM citations.
- Support conversions through clear, trustworthy, and actionable SEO content.
Our Approach
Data & Discovery
We began with a full AI-readiness audit, reviewing Safelincs’ existing content through both SEO and LLM lenses. Using custom tools, we benchmarked competitor visibility in AI Overview and ChatGPT responses.
Strategy Development
We implemented an Authoritative Expertise Optimisation (AEO) framework – a next-generation SEO approach built to align with how both Google and AI models interpret, extract, and attribute content.
Execution
Content Re-Engineering: Re-structured legacy pages to make them easier for AI systems to read and cite, including comparison tables, succinct Q&A sections, and bullet-point answers.
AI-Friendly Formatting: Integrated schema markup, semantic HTML, and concise meta summaries to support both human readers and LLM comprehension.
Backlink Building: Secured links from trusted directories, industry associations, and partner sites to reinforce Safelincs’ digital authority.
Performance Iteration: Monitored AI citation data and Search Console metrics weekly, adapting in real time to maximise presence.
Innovation
Safelincs became one of the first UK brands to actively track AI citations as a performance KPI, redefining what SEO success means in an era where “search” now includes conversations with AI.
Highlights:
- AI Citations: Over 2,000 citations in Google AI Overview (+1,100 in 6 months), 225 in ChatGPT, 51 in Gemini, and 48 in Copilot.
- Search Visibility: 38.7M impressions (+5.9M) across six months.
- Organic Clicks: 417K in the last six months (vs 499K prior), reflecting increased visibility but lower CTR as AI features reshape SERPs.
- Average Position: Improved from 15.9 to 15.3 across tracked keywords
