If someone asked ChatGPT for the best [your category] nearby, would you come up? Or would it cheerfully recommend the shop that posted last Tuesday and remembered to update its hours?
A strong brand that nobody can find is a private diary. You did the hard part — the position, the words — and then hid it in a drawer next to the extra business cards from 2019.
Visibility is how effectively your brand shows up where customers are looking. Search. Social. The two channels your buyers actually use. And, now, the AI answer that never bothers to click through.
You know the week. Three strong posts. A little rush. Then silence, because payroll happened. The Google Business profile still has last year's holiday hours. The site is beautiful. It just never quite ranks for the thing people type when the pipe bursts, the retainer is due, or they need a photographer by Saturday.
Positioning and messaging only work if someone can find them. Visibility is the "please exist in public" part.
How It Helps a Brand
Showing up in the right two or three places makes every later marketing dollar work harder. High-intent buyers already looking for what you do should be able to land on you — not only on the competitor who published more consistently (and, let's be honest, more boringly).
The "where" has changed, and it is a little rude about it:
- SparkToro and Similarweb: in early 2026, 68% of U.S. Google searches ended without a click — up from 60.5% in 2024
- Fewer than 1 in 3 searches now send someone to a website at all
- Pew Research Center (July 2025): when an AI summary was present, 8% clicked a traditional result, versus 15% when it was not
- Only 1% clicked a source inside the summary itself
- HubSpot: half of consumers now use AI-powered search, and 40.6% of marketers are updating SEO for those changes
That is why this pillar includes AI search, not as a side hobby you will "look at in Q4." Traditional SEO still matters. Answer Engine Optimization is now part of the same job: be findable by people and by the machines that summarize you.
Where do your buyers actually look first — Google, Instagram, a Facebook group, a text from their sister-in-law? If you disappeared from that one place for a month, would anyone notice? (If the honest answer is "probably not," that is useful. Uncomfortable. Useful.)
An email list, a steady cadence on one platform, and a site that can be understood by people and machines will beat a heroic burst of posts across five channels that you abandon by Thursday.
When People Can't Find You
- Strong story, but nobody searching for the problem finds you
- Publishing is sporadic, so nothing compounds — it just… restarts
- You are on too many channels and consistent on none
- The site is invisible to search and to AI tools that summarize the category
The starting point is not "be everywhere." Everywhere is how you end up nowhere, slightly out of breath. It is the two or three channels where your buyers actually look, then a cadence a real human can keep.
In the WunderBrand Score™
Visibility is the third pillar. Pulse will flag it when the biggest opportunity is simply being found. The score treats AI search as part of visibility, not a side topic.
Previous: Messaging. Next: Credibility: Why People Trust You. Series start: the WunderBrand Score™.