AI Search Visibility For An Industrial Automation Company Across 4 AI Engines
Rebuilding a WordPress automation company's entity, product-line schema, and engineering-media citations so AI engines cite the company for PLC, controls, and integration prompts.
Axion Controls
A mid-market industrial automation company selling PLCs, HMI panels, and system integration services to manufacturers across North America. Respected engineering brand, invisible in the AI answers where controls engineers now shortlist vendors.
Industry
Industrial Automation
Focus
PLCs, HMI Panels & System Integration
Target Audience
Manufacturers & Controls Engineers
The Challenge
The WordPress site had spec sheets locked in PDFs, no Product schema, and a thin About section. Engineering-media citations existed but pointed to competitors, and Axion's engineers weren't surfaced as named experts anywhere.
Axion Controls
" Only 3 of 26 tracked engineer prompts cited Axion, while Rockwell, Siemens, and two aggregators owned nearly every answer. "
The Strategy
Baselined engineer-intent prompts
Tracked 26 controls-engineer prompts (PLC selection, protocol comparisons, integrator recommendations by vertical) across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews weekly.
Rebuilt the company entity
Cleaned Wikidata, Crunchbase, and 12 industrial / automation directories. Added senior engineers as named experts with credentials and application-note authorship.
Lifted spec content out of PDFs
Rewrote 28 product and integration-service pages with definitional openings, spec tables, and Product + Service + FAQPage schema. Preserved PDF spec sheets as downloads.
Placed citations in engineering media
Contributed 6 technical articles to publications and forums (Control Engineering, Automation World, PLCTalk) that repeatedly appeared as AI answer sources.
Before (Perplexity)
Axion Controls
- —Only Rockwell + Siemens cited
- —No Axion mention
- —No integrator services surfaced
- —No AI Overview coverage
After (Perplexity)
Axion Controls
- ✓Cited alongside Rockwell + Siemens
- ✓PLC + HMI specs quoted verbatim
- ✓Integration services surfaced by vertical
- ✓Also cited in Google AI Overview
AI answer mockup - ILLUSTRATIVE Perplexity answer to 'best mid market PLC vendors for food and beverage' now cites Axion Controls.
Keyword Movement
| Keyword | Before | Now |
|---|---|---|
| mid market plc vendors food beverage | not cited | cited (Perplexity + ChatGPT) |
| hmi panel comparison rockwell alternative | not cited | cited (ChatGPT + Gemini) |
| system integrator for packaging line | not cited | cited (Google AI Overview) |
| modbus vs ethernet ip when to use | cited (1 engine) | cited (3 engines) |
Representative results based on comparable engagements.
Getting engineering to sign off on marketing copy nearly killed the rewrite.
The first pass at product pages was rejected by the engineering lead as overpromising. I moved to a workflow where every page's spec table and definitional paragraph were drafted from engineering-approved application notes before marketing touched voice - approval time dropped from weeks to days.
" Our sales cycle didn't shrink. What changed is that the first call now often opens with 'ChatGPT mentioned you were strong at X' instead of us having to earn every mention from scratch. "
Client name changed for privacy.
Ready to be the next case study?
Book a consultation with me on Upwork.
I'll personally scope your project before any engagement. No account managers, no hand-offs.
First audit call is free, no commitment.
What happens next
Typical engagement: 4-6 months. First deliverable in week 1: an AI-visibility audit across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews for your top 20 buyer prompts, with a prioritised entity, schema, and citation plan.