How Rathbones Achieved 2.3x AI Visibility Growth in Competitive Wealth Management

About Rathbones

Rathbones is a leading UK wealth management firm providing discretionary investment management, portfolio management services, and wealth planning to high-net-worth individuals and families. Operating in one of the most competitive sectors of financial services, Rathbones needed to enhance its visibility in AI-powered search where consumers increasingly turn for financial guidance and firm recommendations.

Website

The Opportunity

As more consumers turned to LLMs for financial advice and wealth management recommendations, Rathbones faced a challenge: traditional SEO strategies weren’t translating to AI visibility effectively.

The opportunity was clear. Rathbones must establish an authoritative presence in AI search. Wealth management is a trust-driven industry, and being cited by AI models as a credible source would directly impact brand perception and lead generation.

Challenges & Objectives

Challenges

• Competing against wealth management firms with 3x higher initial AI visibility scores
• Lower brand awareness compared to other market leaders in the space
• Critical technical issues limiting AI crawlability across the site
• Content organisation
• Content held in multiple locations, making it difficult for AI models to parse authority
• Lack of clear author attribution and credentials that AI models favor

Objectives

1. Build measurable AI visibility across key LLMs
2. Close the competitive gap with other leading wealth management firms
3. Fix technical barriers preventing AI models from crawling and citing content
4. Create organizational buy-in and cross-functional collaboration for sustained AEO success

The Approach

Rathbones used Goodie’s Answer Engine Optimization platform across three strategic phases:

1. Phase 1: Foundation & Education The team started by building internal understanding of AI search fundamentals. Using Goodie’s competitive benchmarking, Rathbones saw exactly where they stood against competitors and which platforms offered the biggest opportunities. The platform established baseline metrics through a visibility score analysis and revealed the technical gaps preventing visibility with the technical agent.

2. Phase 2: Quick Wins & Organizational Buy-in Goodie’s platform identified immediate opportunities that demonstrated value fast:

• Social Signal Optimization: Added review information and schema markup to the site, giving AI models clear trust signals to reference.
• Content Highlighting: Created timelines and structured content that showcased expertise and authority, making it easier for AI models to understand and cite Rathbones’ thought leadership.

These early wins built organizational momentum and proved ROI, expanding team engagement from 3 to 5+ active members across disciplines.

3. Phase 3: Strategic Scaling

With buy-in secured, Rathbones implemented recommendations across the site:

• Technical Infrastructure: Fixed URL structures and PDF optimization that were blocking AI crawlers. Goodie’s Technical optimizer pinpointed exactly which technical elements needed attention.
• Earned Media Strategy: Used Goodie’s Optimization Hub to identify which high-authority sources drove the most AI visibility, then focused PR efforts accordingly.
• Multi-Platform Monitoring: The AI Visibility Dashboard tracked performance across key LLMs simultaneously, showing which platforms converted best and where to prioritize efforts.

Results

Despite starting from a lower position, Rathbones achieved strong growth across every key metrics:

Overall Growth

Platform-Specific Performance

• Achieved visibility leadership among direct competitors
• Established competitive positioning against larger rivals
• Built presence across emerging platforms

Topic-Level Visibility

Strategic focus on core service areas delivered category-leading results:

Key Takeaways

Competitive Intelligence Is Essential

Goodie’s competitive benchmarking showed Rathbones exactly what other market leaders were doing differently, simplified content architecture, prominent author credentials, award displays with schema markup, and coordinated PR targeting high-authority sources. This intelligence informed every strategic decision and helped Rathbones close a 3x visibility gap.

Technical Optimization Lay The Foundation

Before any content strategy could work, Rathbones needed to fix fundamental technical issues preventing AI crawlers from accessing and parsing their content. Goodie’s platform identified these barriers and provided clear guidance on remediation.

Multi-Platform Monitoring Reveals Opportunity

Different AI platforms favor different content types and structures. By tracking performance across key LLMs simultaneously, Rathbones identified where to focus efforts and which platforms offered the biggest upside, rather than guessing or spreading resources evenly.

Authority Requires Sustained Effort

While technical wins can deliver immediate results, building lasting authority in AI search requires strategic patience. Rathbones combined quick technical fixes with long-term content planning, understanding that consistent presence across “evergreen” topics compounds over time.