“Let’s make you the answer.”
Agency grounding
Leighanne has spent more than ten years in search. She built her experience with FTSE 500 companies and global digital agencies, including Tullo Marshall Warren, where she worked across SEO and paid social.
She saw that the same thinking could help businesses of every size get discovered. In October 2018 she set up LA Search, a UK registered practice, to do exactly that.
Her aim from the start has been to connect with the people behind a business as well as the business itself. Her own line for it is helping companies go “from invisible to unstoppable”.
Becoming the answer
Search has changed under everyone’s feet. People now ask ChatGPT or Gemini, or read Google’s AI Overviews, before they click on anything.
Leighanne works on both fronts. Alongside classic SEO she practises GEO, generative engine optimisation, which makes a business the source that AI answers cite and recommend. In her view it rests on good SEO, so she builds the two together.
She has turned that thinking into a practical framework in five groups, running from the technical basics of a site to how a brand appears in sources such as Wikidata.
“SEO consultant for brands that want to be the answer.”Leighanne Makrygiannis, LinkedIn
The work itself
The person a client speaks to on the first call is the person who does the work. Leighanne keeps it that way on purpose.
Her results are specific. For AerialJohnny, a drone services company, project enquiries rose by 473 per cent, with qualified leads coming from luxury yacht owners and global brands. A music tuition client said her “ability to translate all aspects of SEO into specific strategic tasks for me and my team has been of huge value.”
She teaches as well. Her LA Search Academy offers self paced SEO and GEO lessons with live Q&A, and she has joined Dixon Jones on The Knowledge Panel podcast to discuss how digital PR and SEO meet.
LA Search is a Semrush partner and is featured in the Women in Tech SEO Founders Hub.
People first
Leighanne lives and works in Arona, on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, and keeps UK hours for clients in Britain and the United States.
Her approach is human first. She starts with what a business wants to be known for, then shows where it stands in Google and in AI answers.
She is part of the Group Partners Expert Network. As more decisions begin with a question typed into a search box or an AI, she helps make sure that the strategy Group Partners helps leaders build is the one people actually find.
The path
From global agencies to the age of AI answers.
- Agencies
Builds her craft with FTSE 500 companies and global digital agencies, including Tullo Marshall Warren.
- 2018
Incorporates LA Search in the UK.
- 2022
Joins Dixon Jones on The Knowledge Panel podcast to talk digital PR and SEO.
- GEO
Adds generative engine optimisation, so clients are cited in AI answers.
- Academy
Launches the LA Search Academy for SEO and GEO.
- Now
Runs LA Search from Lake Maggiore.
In her own words
“Let’s make you the answer.”
“From invisible to unstoppable.”
“I do the work myself, so the person you speak to on the first call is the person doing the work.”
“Tell me what you want to be known for.”
“Come in, the kettle’s on.”