Graphic design is national, sometimes global. Clients pick on style fit, sector experience and price, not on postcode. This page is the 15-point checklist for designers who want to be cited by AI tools. Start with the free checker set to national mode, or skip to the $15 workbook.
Graphic design queries are specialism, sector and style driven. Founders ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude for "brand designer for a fintech", "packaging designer for natural wine", "designer who works on Webflow sites". Models match on case studies, sector tags, and clear pricing. Designers with portfolio sites that name the work but not the sector or the budget get skipped.
The usual gaps on graphic designers websites:
None of that is hard to fix. Most of it is under an hour per item.
The first 40 words of the homepage, rewritten.
Crafting distinctive visual identities that elevate the modern brand experience.
Brand designer for B2B SaaS, fintech and healthtech. Identity systems from £8k, full brand projects from £20k. Remote-first, UK and EU clients. Based in Bristol, working globally.
The after version is the one ChatGPT can match against “best graphic designer for a B2B SaaS brand identity under £8k”. The before version is functionally invisible to AI search.
These are the kinds of prompts real customers type into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude when they are trying to hire. Every one of them is a chance for a model to name you, or name somebody else.
Paste any of these into ChatGPT right now and see who gets named. If it is not you, that is the gap the checklist below is designed to close.
Same 15-point framework we run on every business we audit, adapted to the reality of graphic designers. Items are ordered by impact, not difficulty.
Name the sectors you work in (B2B SaaS, fintech, D2C, healthtech). Name the work you want (identity, packaging, brand systems). Name a starting price. "Design that makes an impact" is not a query. "Brand designer for B2B SaaS from £8k" is.
Every case study page names the sector, the budget band, the deliverables and the timeframe. Models match "designer for fintech" to pages that actually say "fintech". Add CreativeWork schema with about and audience fields.
Every portfolio image gets alt text that names the client sector and the deliverable. "Logo design" is weak alt text. "Brand identity for Series A fintech, 2025, deliverables: logo suite, typography, motion" is matchable.
Not a fixed price list. A "projects from" for each service. Brand identity from £8k. Packaging from £5k. Full brand system from £20k. Founders pre-filter on budget. Refusing to publish any number loses you shortlist slots.
Logo suite, typography system, colour palette, brand guidelines, motion, templates, rollout. List exactly what is in each tier. Models cite specifics.
Discovery, concepts, refinement, rollout. Each stage with a duration and what the client sees. Models cite process when asked "what is it like to work with X".
Questions: what is the typical timeline, do you work with Webflow or Framer, how many concepts, do you do packaging, do you take equity, how do IP and licensing work. Wrap in FAQPage JSON-LD.
Use audience.audienceType on your Organization schema. List the sectors you want. "SaaS founders", "fintech brand owners", "D2C food and drink brands". Models use audience to route specialism queries.
National and remote-first designers belong under Organization (with ProfessionalService additionalType). LocalBusiness is wrong for this category. Getting this wrong is one of the most common errors we see.
Client logos with permission, and testimonials with the client's name, role and company. "Helped us launch our Series A deck" attributed to a named founder beats an anonymous five stars.
Featured In [Eye magazine], winner of [D&AD], on the [Brand New] archive. Every mention becomes an entity-link that boosts authority. sameAs schema to your Dribbble, Behance, LinkedIn, Are.na profiles.
Paste the ten sector-specific prompts into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Log citations. Adjust.
Pick the three designers cited instead of you for your sector. Compare case study depth, sector tags, process pages, pricing. Close the gap.
For a solo designer, your LinkedIn and personal site carry entity signal. Same bio, same sector focus, same sameAs links. Models cite people by name in this category more than in trades.
A solo or small studio designer can run this backlog in a weekend. Hero, sector-tagged case studies, pricing, deliverables, process, FAQ, schema. Ship and measure for a month.
The basics, in the order an AI model reads them:
Every item on the checklist above folds into this same picture. Get the picture right and citations follow.
The free AI Visibility Checker gives you the exact prompts to paste into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. No signup required to see the result.
Copy and paste each prompt into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Log the three businesses named each time. That log is your competitor-gap baseline.
Founders ask ChatGPT for sector-specific designers ("fintech brand designer under £10k"). The model names two or three. Portfolio-style sites without sector tags, budget bands or pricing guidance get skipped.
Add sector tags and budget bands to every case study. That one change makes your work matchable against the queries founders actually type.
DIY with the $15 workbook covers most solo and small studio designers. The $197 audit is for designers wanting a ranked fix list with copy ready to paste.
One to three weeks on ChatGPT.
No. The National mode in the checker skips location and weights sector, portfolio and pricing signals instead.
Yes. getseoforai.com/checker, National mode. Under 60 seconds.