ARO™ Proposal — Freedom Fiduciary Advisors

Your ARO Score — Audited May 14, 2026

ARO Score

60/100

Below competitive threshold

Models Recommending

2/4

ChatGPT + Perplexity: passing

Opportunity Gap

50%

AI-driven leads not reaching you

Est. Monthly Revenue Gap

$5.6K

~75 leads/mo going elsewhere

Platform-by-platform

ClaudeSelected — Rank #2

Recognizes Charleston office, clean schema, strong fiduciary signals. Notes: Charleston content is thin relative to Virginia Beach. Local authority signals are absent.

GeminiSelected — Rank #2

Confirms Charleston address via schema. Passes on structure alone. Confidence 72. Fragile. One competitor optimization shifts this.

ChatGPTNot Selected — Rank #4

Finds the site. Understands it. Does not recommend. Confidence 54. Schema not optimized for local context. No competitive local signals.

PerplexityNot Selected

Explicitly flags: "Primary branding emphasizes Virginia Beach, Richmond, Eastern Shore — not Charleston." Recommends competitors instead. Confidence 92 that you are the wrong answer.

The Diagnosis

Your site has solid bones. The real issue is geographic identity conflict. AI reads you as a Virginia Beach firm that expanded into Charleston — not a Charleston firm. That costs you half your AI-driven referrals.

01Homepage signals Virginia Beach as headquarters. Every model sees this. Two use it to disqualify you from Charleston searches, even with a physical office there.
02Charleston-specific content is absent. AI evaluates local authority by looking for location-native content: community references, local market expertise, city-specific signals. That content does not exist yet.
03All four markets face the same structural gap. Virginia Beach, Richmond, Eastern Shore, and Charleston are each competing for AI recommendations in their markets. None of the location pages are built to win that competition.
04Schema exists but is not market-optimized. The foundation is there — genuinely rare and valuable. But schema is currently doing one job (being found) when it needs to do two (being selected).

Why Two Platforms Skip You

These are not vague visibility issues. Each platform gave a specific reason. Each reason has a specific fix. Here is what they said — verbatim from the audit.

ChatGPT

Not Selected — Rank #4 of competitors found

"The site provides clear information about services and location, but schema markup is not fully optimized. Competitor information is missing for local context."

The fix: Local schema with market-specific service areas, competitive positioning signals, and FAQ markup targeting Charleston-specific buyer questions.

Perplexity

Not Selected — Actively recommends competitors

"Primary branding emphasizes Virginia Beach, Richmond, and Eastern Shore, not Charleston. It does not demonstrate strong local authority, differentiation, or reputation signals."

The fix: Charleston-native homepage signals, a fully rebuilt Charleston location page with local authority content, and fiduciary trust signals that read as local expertise.

The upside: Claude and Gemini already recommend you. The technical foundation is solid. This is a positioning and content problem — not a rebuild. The fix is surgical and the timeline is 4 weeks.

Your Live ARO Report

↗

View the Full Audit on ARO Index

Your complete score breakdown — signal scores, model-by-model results, opportunity gap data — is live on the ARO Index platform. This is the same data that informed this proposal.

aroindex.com — Freedom Fiduciary Advisors Audit →

Why the query is standardized:
ARO audits run a consistent buyer-intent query across all businesses in a category — in this case, "best fiduciary financial advisor in [city]." This allows fair comparison across the index and reflects how real buyers actually use AI. Your score reflects real selection behavior from that real query, not a curated test designed to flatter.

Project Scope — Full Firm Optimization

Homepage Rebalancing

Restructure to read as a multi-market fiduciary firm. AI must see four equal markets — not a Virginia Beach HQ with satellites.

Four Location Pages

Virginia Beach, Richmond, Eastern Shore, Charleston — each rebuilt with market-native content and local authority signals. One page is not a template for another.

Schema Overhaul

Full FinancialService schema rebuild across all locations with multi-location support, service-specific markup, and FAQ schema targeting real buyer questions.

Services Page Restructuring

Restructure for direct-answer extraction — so when someone asks "what does a fiduciary advisor do," your site answers it definitively across all AI platforms.

Trust and Authority Signals

Fiduciary designation is your strongest differentiator. We surface it in formats AI can parse, cite, and weight in recommendation decisions.

Pre and Post ARO Report

Full audit before work begins. Full audit after delivery. You see exactly which scores moved, on which platforms, and why.

4-Week Timeline

Week 1

Deep audit, schema inventory, content gap analysis across all four markets

Weeks 2–3

Homepage and schema rebuild. Location pages drafted, reviewed, refined.

Week 4

Implementation, post-audit across all 4 platforms, before/after score report delivered

Investment

One-Time Project

$7,500

4-week delivery · All four markets · Full before/after audit

Pre-work ARO audit with full model breakdown
Homepage restructuring for multi-market identity
Four location pages rebuilt for AI selection
Complete schema overhaul across all locations
Services and trust signal restructuring
Post-project audit with before/after score report

Monthly Monitoring

$1,500 /mo

3-month minimum · Begins after project delivery

Monthly re-audit across all 4 AI platforms
Score tracking via ARO Index Console dashboard
Competitor shift alerts in your markets
Quarterly content updates to maintain selection signals
Platform behavior monitoring as AI models evolve

On monitoring: AI platforms re-rank constantly. A competitor optimized after your project can displace you with no change on your end. Market rate for comparable monitoring is $2$2,000–$8,000/month. This is the entry point — and it is what protects the project investment.

Why This Is Time-Sensitive

97%

of enterprise CMOs reported positive ROI from ARO/AEO optimization in 2025

2×

conversion rate of leads arriving via AI recommendations vs. traditional search

94%

of digital marketing leaders are increasing AEO investment in 2026

Q2 '26

marked as the AEO inflection point — first-mover window is closing fast

The firms that move now establish the citation patterns AI learns from. Once a competitor is consistently recommended in your markets, displacing them requires significantly more effort than establishing the position first. Your ARO Score of 60 means the window is open. Two platforms are already sending clients elsewhere.

Why ARO™ — Not Another Agency

01

Selection, Not Mentions

Most AEO agencies measure whether your name appears in an AI answer. ARO measures whether AI selects you when a buyer asks for a recommendation. Different problem. Different fix. Different result.

02

Live Research Platform

The ARO Index is a live database of real selection behavior across thousands of businesses. Your score is observed data from real queries on real platforms — run this morning. Not a prediction.

03

Proven on Our Own Site First

The ARO methodology was built and verified on tagmakessc.com before any client saw it. ARO Score: 89. 4 of 4 models recommending. Tested before sold.