Your #1 SEO agency in Switzerland

An SEO agency ensures that a company is found where its customers are searching. The work consists of four areas: technical website optimization, research into relevant search terms, creation of suitable content, and strengthening external authority through links from other websites.

For several years now, a fifth area has been added: visibility in AI search systems such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity. At ZUMO SEO, technical developers, content specialists, and AI search experts work under one roof, so you have a single point of contact for all five areas.

Six points you can check before hiring:

• Proven case studies. Ask for two projects from your industry, including the initial situation, the measures taken, and the results. Anyone who only shows logos has no results.
• No ranking guarantees. No one controls the Google algorithm. A guarantee for position 1 is a warning sign, not a mark of quality.
• Transparent scope of services. What is included in the monthly fee, what is charged additionally, and who handles the implementation.
• Access to your own data. Google Analytics, Search Console, and all content created belong to you, not the agency.
• Transparent process. Ask them to explain what would happen in the first 90 days. Anyone who cannot answer that concretely does not have a plan, just a sales pitch.
• Measuring AI visibility. Ask how the agency checks whether your brand appears in AI answers. Anyone who responds only with buzzwords is still working with the standards of three years ago.

If you can only ask one question, ask this: How would you know in six months that the collaboration has been successful? A good agency will name two to three verifiable metrics in response, rather than just expressing a desire for more visibility.

There is no universal answer to this question, and you should be skeptical of any agency that names itself here—us included. The right agency depends on three things: your industry, your budget, and whether you need strategic consulting or operational implementation.

Anyone looking for ranking lists should know how they are created. Some comparison articles online come from agencies themselves, which place themselves at the top. Others come from portals that sell listings. Such lists are only credible if they disclose their criteria and how they are weighted, and very few do that.

ZUMO SEO is an SEO agency based in Zurich specializing in search engine optimization and AI visibility. Whether we are a good fit for you is better determined in a half-hour conversation than by any ranking list.

That depends on the volume. Once you reach the equivalent of about one full-time position dedicated to SEO, an in-house team becomes cost-effective. Below that, an agency is usually cheaper because you are purchasing technical, content, and analytical expertise without having to hire three people.

Below this threshold, there should still be someone in the company who has time for the topic, even if it is only a few hours a month. They review content, handle internal coordination, and provide industry knowledge that no agency can offer. Without this role on the client side, every project slows down significantly, regardless of how well the agency works.

No, and no one should. Google and AI search systems decide algorithmically which content is displayed, and the criteria are constantly changing.

What we do promise is something else. Before the project begins, you will receive a prioritized list of measures; during the project, you will get transparent documentation of every change; and in our reporting, you will see the development of the agreed-upon metrics, even if they trend downward in a given month. With AI search systems, there is a methodological limitation, as their answers vary from query to query. What can be promised there is work on the prerequisites, not a specific spot in an answer.

For any company whose customers search for their services online, from sole proprietorships to large corporations. Company size is secondary.

External support is particularly worthwhile in four situations: when internal expertise is lacking, when a relaunch is pending and visibility must not be lost, when competition is noticeably increasing, or when inquiries are declining even though rankings have remained stable.

It will not be worthwhile in two cases. If your clients come to you exclusively through personal recommendations or tenders, there will be little demand generated via search. Likewise, it is not effective if no one in the company has time to review content and make decisions, as every mandate will then stall halfway through. We prefer to clarify both points beforehand rather than after three months.

Three steps to a quote. First, contact us by phone or email, where we clarify the key data of your project and schedule an appointment. Then, an introductory meeting via video call or phone, lasting 30 to 60 minutes, where we get to know your company, your goals, and your challenges, and identify areas for optimization together. Finally, an individual quote, which we are happy to present to you personally in a follow-up call if you wish.

Once commissioned, the actual work begins, starting with an analysis of the current status and a prioritized SEO roadmap, followed by implementation in stages and ongoing regular reporting.

You will be assigned a fixed contact person, determined during the initial consultation, who will remain the same throughout the entire term. Who this is depends on your project—specifically your industry, language region, and the focus between technical optimization, content, and AI visibility.

Two things are crucial here. The person advising you also works operationally on the project; we do not separate sales from implementation. Depending on the task, we bring in additional specialists, such as developers or editors, without changing your point of contact. You can see who works with us on our about us page.

We work with mandates starting with a minimum term of three months, after which they can be cancelled monthly. Shorter terms are possible for a specific SEO audit, which is billed as a one-off project.

The reason for the minimum duration is technical, not commercial. Technical changes require a crawl cycle, content needs time to be indexed, and ranking effects are rarely seen before the sixth week. A four-week mandate creates effort without a measurable result, which would be unsatisfactory for both sides.

For SMEs, meaningful ongoing support at ZUMO SEO starts at CHF 1,200 per month. A one-off SEO audit is calculated as a project, while larger mandates and enterprise clients are handled individually.

The price is based on three factors: the size of the website, the competitive pressure in your industry, and the proportion of content we produce ourselves. An online shop with 5,000 products in a competitive market requires more effort than a twenty-page service site in a niche. We disclose services and costs in writing before the project begins, without flat rates that only clarify their content after the fact. This also applies to support, including GEO and LLMO.

We typically see initial measurable improvements after 6 to 10 weeks, and reliable results after 3 to 6 months. For highly competitive terms or very new domains, it takes longer.

Two examples from our work: At Fust, the visibility index doubled within 18 months; at von Salis, website traffic doubled within 12 months. Both were ongoing mandates, not one-off optimizations. With AI visibility, the timeframe depends less on fixed deadlines and more on the quality of content and the number of external mentions; here, we see effects that are sometimes faster and sometimes significantly slower.

Yes, many of our partnerships work exactly like that. Advertising agencies, web developers, and marketing consultancies that want to offer search engine optimization to their clients work with ZUMO SEO as a white-label partner.

We provide the service, you maintain the client relationship, and we remain invisible to your clients. The details can be found in the ZUMO SEO Reseller Program.

Yes, and many of our partnerships work exactly like that. Advertising agencies, web developers, and marketing consultants who want to offer their clients professional search engine optimization work with ZUMO SEO as a white-label partner. We provide the service, you maintain the client relationship. Everything is completely discreet. Details on the ZUMO SEO Reseller Program.

Our portfolio covers all levels of visibility, from keyword research, technical SEO optimization, and on-page optimization to off-page link building. This is complemented by local SEO for companies with a regional catchment area and optimization for AI search systems.

We also offer adjacent services, such as Google Ads, ads in ChatGPT via OpenAI Ads, or website development, though these are separate and not part of an SEO mandate. This way, you can see exactly where your budget is going at all times and evaluate each service individually.

Because the Swiss market is small, multilingual, and highly competitive. If you aren't visible here, you lose customers not only to local competitors but also to German and international providers who are targeting the same search results.

Added to this is a peculiarity that many underestimate: in Switzerland, regional classification often determines who is displayed for many search queries. A nationally oriented strategy without local roots is therefore often insufficient, and conversely, a Google Business Profile alone is not enough for national visibility. We combine both, depending on the starting point, via local SEO for a single location or a national SEO strategy for Switzerland.

No, that is not necessary. However, proximity is useful because workshops, kick-offs, and coordination meetings with multiple stakeholders are easier to conduct in person than via video call.

More important than the address is whether the agency knows your market. For location-based search queries, it is often not national visibility that determines who gets noticed, but the map results above the list of hits. Anyone wanting to appear there needs a well-maintained Google Business Profile, consistent information across all directories, and content with a genuine regional connection. You can find out how we approach this on our page about local SEO.

ZUMO SEO is located at Langstrasse 151 in District 4, Zurich. From there, we support companies in the city and canton of Zurich, the rest of German-speaking Switzerland, the Romandy, and Ticino, as well as clients in Germany and other markets. We conduct initial consultations on-site or via video call; you can reach us at +41 44 551 40 51 and hello@zumoseo.ch.

Knowledge of the local search reality. In Switzerland, .ch domains enjoy high user trust, search patterns differ significantly between language regions, and local competition is often more decisive than national competition.

Then there are practical differences that matter in everyday business: Swiss spelling without the "eszett," Swiss High German for terms like "Velo" or "Occasion," pricing in Swiss francs, and data protection requirements under the revised FADP. An international agency that applies a German keyword set to Switzerland loses reach precisely because of these factors.

It turns one project into three. Each language region requires its own keyword strategy because people search differently in Geneva than in Zurich—not just in terms of language, but also in how they phrase their search queries.

A practical example: A service provider from Zurich looking to grow in French-speaking Switzerland doesn't need French translations of their German texts; they need content tailored to the competition in Lausanne and Geneva. The search terms differ, the competitive landscape is different, and references from German-speaking Switzerland are less effective there. We therefore conduct separate research for each language region and use native-speaking copywriters; our team covers German, French, Italian, and English.

With SMEs, we start where the impact is most quickly visible: technical blockers, local discoverability, and the two or three pages that drive the most revenue. Fifty-page strategy documents are not part of that.

When working with SMEs, we almost always encounter the same three weaknesses: a technically outdated website, an incomplete or non-existent Google Business Profile, and content that describes services but fails to answer the questions customers ask before making a purchase. These three issues can usually be resolved within a few weeks.

Industries where research is conducted before a purchase benefit the most. This applies to providers with long decision-making phases and high order values, such as financial services, healthcare, education, real estate, SaaS, and industry, as well as e-commerce and tourism, where decisions are made faster but involve a high volume of search queries along the way.

In the B2B sector, the situation has shifted over the last two years. Decision-makers increasingly research providers via ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Claude, creating a shortlist before a website is even visited. For B2B services that require explanation, investing in visibility is therefore more worthwhile today than it was a few years ago.

An SEO audit is the stocktaking before any strategy. We examine the technical health of the website, including crawlability, load times, and indexability, as well as content quality, keyword coverage, the backlink profile, internal linking, and increasingly, the representation of your brand in AI search answers.

The result is not an error log, but a list sorted by impact. Each point has an estimated effect and an estimated effort, so you can decide what happens first. We work with the leading SEO tools for crawling, ranking data, and backlink analysis. The evaluation is then carried out by a person who checks the findings, filters out irrelevant reports, weights the rest, and compiles the report. An automatically generated tool export does not replace this step.

We evaluate every term based on four criteria: actual search volume in the Swiss market, the underlying search intent, realistic ranking potential given the current competition, and economic value for your company.

The economic value is often skipped, yet it is the most important criterion. A term with 5,000 searches per month and purely informational intent brings in fewer orders than one with 200 searches and clear purchase intent. For keyword research, we combine tool analysis with manual review of search results, because only the actual composition of the hit list shows what kind of page Google expects in that position. Additionally, we capture how users would phrase the same request to a language model, as these formulations are longer and more sentence-like than classic search terms.

We report monthly on two metrics: the ranking development of the agreed-upon terms and the number of organic visitors. This is how an SEO mandate can be measured. For AI visibility, we also include the frequency of mentions and the context of those mentions in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok.

A separate analysis is important. A consolidated value across all AI systems looks tidier but says little, because each system draws from a different pool of sources. We therefore report per system. In addition, we record in every report which measure went live when, so that changes can be attributed rather than just described. We are happy to clarify which metrics make sense for your project in an initial consultation.

The three areas build on each other. Technical SEO ensures that search engines and AI crawlers can actually read and categorize your website, covering load times, mobile display, clean code structure, and correct indexing. On-Page SEO concerns everything on the page itself, such as content, heading structure, metadata, and internal linking. Off-Page SEO builds authority outside your website, primarily through references and mentions on thematically relevant pages.

A common mistake is to start with the third area. Links to a website that is not technically sound or whose content misses the search intent are largely wasted. The logical order is therefore technical, then content, then authority.

Content is the foundation, but only if it fully answers a specific question. A page that only touches on a topic struggles in search results and is rarely used as a source by AI systems because it contains nothing worth citing.

For AI search, three additional requirements apply. Authorship must be clear, statements need verifiable sources, and every section must remain understandable on its own. The last point is the most frequently overlooked. A language model pulls a paragraph and inserts it into its answer without the rest of the page. What is not in that paragraph does not exist for the answer. We describe how we structure content accordingly in our SEO Content Creation Service.

Backlinks remain a powerful signal of trust, but quality clearly outweighs quantity. A reference from a recognized Swiss trade publication carries more weight than a hundred entries in directories without thematic relevance.

For AI visibility, the goal shifts. What counts there is the mention of your brand in editorial text, even without a link, because language models evaluate the context in which a name is mentioned. Industry articles, PR, and inclusion in industry directories become more important, even if they often do not provide a usable link. We work in both directions; our approach is outlined on the page for Off-Page SEO and Link Building.

International SEO is the adaptation of your website to multiple country and language markets. This includes deciding between country-specific domains and subdirectories, clean hreflang tagging, language variants like de-CH versus de-DE, and content-adapted texts rather than translations. It becomes useful as soon as you want to acquire customers outside of Switzerland.

The most common mistake is on the technical side: incorrect or incomplete hreflang tags, which cause Google to display the wrong language version. The second most common is machine-translating existing texts, which, while understandable, fails to hit the search terms of the target market. More on this on our international SEO page.

GEO is the optimization of content to be used and cited as a source in the answers provided by AI search systems. This includes Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, as well as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok.

The focus shifts compared to the classic search results list. There, it is about a position in a list that the user goes through themselves; here, it is about a single paragraph in a text generated by the system. This favors content that answers directly and uses numbers, dates, and sources rather than long introductions. Google itself classifies this work as part of SEO, not as a separate process. How we implement this is explained on our GEO Agency page.

LLMO (Large Language Model Optimization) aims to ensure that language models know your brand and mention it proactively. GEO aims to ensure your website appears as the source for a specific answer.

The difference becomes clear with an example. If someone asks an AI system how a specific tax rule works and your page is cited as evidence, that is GEO. If someone asks which trust companies in Zurich are recommended and your company name appears in the list without any source being linked, that is LLMO. The second case depends more on mentions outside your own website than on the website itself.

Neither. GEO is not a buzzword, but it is also not a discipline separate from SEO. Google explicitly stated this in its official documentation on optimizing for generative AI features in May 2026. From the perspective of Google Search, optimizing for generative AI search is an optimization for the search experience and therefore remains SEO. We have discussed this classification in detail in our post on the Google guide.

In practical terms, this means two things. Anyone selling you GEO as a completely new process that works without SEO fundamentals is ignoring Google's own statements. Conversely, things are changing, particularly regarding measurement and focus. Instead of tracking a daily ranking, you measure your share of voice across many iterations. Furthermore, a larger portion of the work now happens off-site, as mentions on industry sites and in comparisons determine whether a system even recognizes your brand. For systems outside of Google, it is also important to note that they draw from different search indices. Our GEO Agency page covers this additional work.

In practice, this question rarely arises because the same work contributes to both. If you must prioritize, SEO comes first. A website that Google cannot read and categorize properly is also invisible to AI systems.

This is why the following order makes sense. Start with the technical foundations and content that fully answers a question, as both search results and AI answers benefit from this equally. Then, focus on the part that specifically drives AI visibility: mentions on industry sites, inclusion in industry comparisons, and measuring whether your brand appears in the answers. Tackling the second stage without the first is paying for work that lacks a foundation.

It works across three levels that must function in tandem. First, content structure: providing direct answers to real questions, using semantically correct HTML, and creating sections that are self-contained and understandable. Second, external authority: mentions on industry-specific sites, high-quality references, and a consistent brand presence across all channels. Third, technical readability: structured data according to Schema.org, clean indexing, and crawler accessibility.

The third point is worth checking, as many overlook it. If structured data is only injected into the page via JavaScript, Google will see it because Googlebot executes JavaScript. However, the crawlers used by AI providers generally do not. In such cases, the markup will validate perfectly in every testing tool, yet remain invisible to AI systems.

There is no way to guarantee it, because Google decides algorithmically which sources are used. It becomes more likely through four things: a clear content structure with recognizable authorship, an answer that appears directly at the beginning of the section, strong E-E-A-T signals, and existing organic visibility for the question in question.

One common misconception should be noted. FAQ markup according to Schema.org no longer generates rich results in Google. Google restricted the display to government and health sites in August 2023 and discontinued it entirely in May 2026. There is also no proven connection between FAQ markup and AI Overviews, because the clear answer on the page is what gets cited, not the markup around it. FAQPage remains useful, however, because the type is valid and makes question-answer pairs clearly machine-readable for search engines and other crawlers. It is not a switch that generates visibility.

There is no industry standard for this yet. We work with a combination of specialized tools and manual spot checks to see if your brand appears in Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Grok, how often, and in what context.

Context is more meaningful than frequency here. Whether your company is mentioned as the top recommendation, as one alternative among many, or as a negative example makes a significant difference and can only be determined by reading the answers, not by counting them. A methodological limitation must be noted: the same question yields different answers when entered multiple times, so any single finding is worthless, and only an evaluation across many runs is reliable.

Because the answer is increasingly provided on the search results page itself. If Google answers the question in the AI Overview, fewer users click through, even though your position remains unchanged.

A typical progression looks like this: A Swiss SME has been stable at position 2 for its main term for years; the rankings remain, but organic traffic drops over several months. A second reason is often involved, as part of the research is shifting to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, where neither ranking nor click appears in your numbers. You can identify the cause by checking in Search Console whether impressions have remained stable while only clicks have fallen. This exact pattern points to the AI response as the cause, rather than a ranking problem.

Zero-click means that the search query ends without a click to a website because the answer is provided directly in the search results or in the AI Overview. The share of such queries has been growing for years.

We do not treat this as a threat, but as a two-part task. For questions that end without a click anyway, we optimize for being cited as a source, because that is where brand awareness is generated even without a visit. For complex, consultation-intensive inquiries, we continue to optimize for the click, because users want to see the provider's site when making decisions with financial weight. Both goals require different content formats, and both belong in a viable strategy.

Yes, because the work does not go to waste; it just has an effect in more places. Anyone who asks ChatGPT & Co. about a provider receives an answer composed of content and mentions from the open web. These are precisely the types of content and mentions that are created during an SEO mandate.

What is changing is the expectation regarding the numbers. Part of the impact no longer appears as a click, but as an inquiry from someone who knows your name from an AI response and calls you directly. Anyone measuring success solely by sessions is therefore systematically underestimating this channel. A simple habit on your part is helpful: ask new customers how they became aware of you and record the answer. This information reveals a portion of the impact that no analytics tool can capture.

E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness and describes the criteria Google uses to assess content quality. Today, these signals determine not only rankings but also whether an AI system accepts content as a citable source.

In practice, this means four verifiable things. An article names a responsible person with their qualifications. It refers to verifiable sources. It is dated and kept up to date. The organization behind it is discoverable outside of its own website. An anonymous text without a date or sources meets none of these criteria, regardless of how well it is written. We systematically build these signals for client projects through author profiles, structured data, external mentions, and consistent brand representation.

It is not about the origin, but the quality. Google evaluates content regardless of whether it was written by a human or a model, and penalizes content that lacks added value, contains factual errors, or shows no recognizable expertise.

The bar is higher for AI search systems. Generic, anonymous text is rarely used as a source because it contains nothing worth citing. We therefore work in a hybrid manner. AI assists with research, structure, and drafting, while professional review, contextualization, and named responsibility for the published text remain with us. Every text undergoes a content review by a subject matter expert before approval, documented with a date and review note.