Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 14.04.2026 
In an industry leaning towards “100% AI everything”, it’s tempting to see AIO as the final nail in the SEO coffin. The way people search is undoubtedly changing, but that doesn’t mean the fundamentals are any less important.
Amid countless cries of “Is SEO dead?”, First Internet recognised something vital. Now is not the time for theatrical AI hype, or reinventing the SEO wheel. It’s time to combine solid SEO foundations with AI aware (not AI obsessed) search strategies.
When you treat AI search optimisation and local SEO as one integrated strategy, not separate disciplines, something truly extraordinary can happen.
Our latest campaign with Mulmar did just that.
First Internet – who are we?
First Internet is an award-winning multi-service digital marketing agency based in South Manchester. We specialise in SEO, web development, web maintenance and social media marketing. Our team may be small (currently 18 brilliant minds), but we are mighty. Born in 1998 (yes, the same year as Google), we’ve grown up with the internet. We’ve weathered every SEO storm, from Google’s Panda update to the rise of AIO, and we know how to stay ahead of the game.
In the volatile SEO world, our experience and levelheadedness is what sets us apart. It was fundamental to our success with Mulmar.
The client and the challenge
Mulmar is a leading supplier and service provider of commercial coffee machines across the UK. Their repair service is a critical lifeline for businesses to whom coffee machines are more than just equipment. They’re revenue generators. When a machine goes down, operators need a solution as quickly as you can say “coffee machine repairs near me.”
The challenge? Mulmar already had strong brand recognition and credibility in the industry, but their website wasn’t effectively capturing urgent, high-intent searches for rapid repairs on a local level.
First-page and AI-mode visibility were non-negotiables.
That’s where First Internet came in.
We needed to learn, react to and adopt emerging AI search behaviours, built on time-tested SEO fundamentals – all within an extremely tight budget (only nine hours per month).
Our solution – Turning local visibility into local demand
We had to reach Mulmar’s audience at a local level, and fast. Given the urgent nature of their target audience’s repair-based queries, speed, visibility and instant trust was vital.
How did we get Mulmar up to speed?
Location-Focused Page Optimisation – We optimised core service pages to target localised repair intent, ensuring strong relevance for “near me” and location-specific searches.
Short, Concise, Info-Dense AI-ready Content – We intentionally streamlined content to deliver critical information rapidly.
Clear intent signposting – We designed page layouts and copy to immediately reassure users that they had landed in the right place.
FAQ expansion to capture query fan-out and long-tail intent – This way, we could support both traditional organic results and AI-led search experiences.
Service clarity and trust-building content – We enforced Mulmar’s credibility and boosted high-intent conversions through structuring on-page content to clearly outline Mulmar’s range of repair services, the variety of machines they repair, call-out times and relevant compliance standards, deliberately targeting well-known commercialbrands Mulmar works with.
Sitemap optimisation and internal visibility improvements – as both a technical best practise and a discoverability enhancement to elevate key pages in the site hierarchy.
The creativity of this campaign lay in its restraint and intent alignment. Rather than overproducing content, every decision was driven by:
- The urgency of repair-based searches.
- The need for fast reassurance and clarity.
- The evolving role of AI in search result presentation.
And boy did we deliver.
The results
Targets were smashed across the board.
- Targeted +20% impressions → achieved +30.5%
- Targeted +5% clicks → achieved +9.6%
- Targeted top-20 positions → improved from 26.7 to 19.8 (+25%)
- Targeted +30% conversions → delivered +68.7% YoY
- Email clicks up +250%
- Phone clicks up +34.9%
- Contact Form clicks up +26.7%
- Targeted 50% local-page conversions → achieved 67%
By blending local SEO fundamentals with AI-aware content structuring, we delivered a solution that was both technically robust and creatively strategic. It positioned Mulmar as the most relevant and reliable choice at theexact moment their audience needed them.
What this nomination means to us
This nomination is a testament to our belief that good SEO isn’t just about jumping on the latest bandwagon. It’s about thinking logically, methodically, and creatively, building solid SEO from the ground up, and knowing how to apply fundamentals to emerging search trends.
Modern search visibility is no longer driven by rankings alone, but by being present at the exact moment of intent across AI-driven discovery, traditional SERPS, and local search. It’s about being AI aware, not AI obsessed, innovative, but commercially grounded, and technically intelligent, yet user-first. That is what search excellence looks like in 2026.
Head of digital strategy, Andy McLoughlin, said about the nomination: “This nomination reflects what we believe great SEO should be, commercially focused, user-led, and grounded in strong fundamentals. With Mulmar, we showed that even with a small budget, a clear, strategic approach can deliver real, measurable impact in an evolving, AI-influenced search landscape.”
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