LSEO has been named a finalist in three categories at the 2026 US Search Awards, earning recognition across AI Search software, B2B SEO, and B2B paid search.
The three finalist categories are:
- Best AI Search Software Solution
- Best Use of Search – B2B (SEO)
- Best Use of Search – B2B (PPC)
For LSEO, the recognition is especially meaningful because of what those three categories represent together.
Search is changing.
Traditional SEO and paid media remain critical growth channels, but the rise of AI-powered discovery is fundamentally changing how customers research companies, compare alternatives, and decide which brands deserve consideration.
LSEO has spent the last several years preparing for that shift while continuing to produce measurable results through the search channels businesses depend on today.
Being named a finalist across SEO, PPC, and AI Search software is a reflection of both sides of that strategy.
We are continuing to execute the fundamentals while building for what comes next.
Three Finalist Categories. Three Different Parts of Modern Search.
The US Search Awards recognize outstanding work from agencies, brands, technology providers, and search professionals across the United States.
LSEO’s three finalist selections span very different areas of the search ecosystem.
That’s what makes this recognition particularly exciting for our team.
Best AI Search Software Solution
LSEO was named a finalist for Best AI Search Software Solution for LSEO AI: Turning Brands Into Recommendations.
AI Search presents marketers with an entirely new measurement problem.
Traditional search gave us rankings, impressions, clicks, keywords, and relatively predictable paths between discovery and a website.
AI platforms work differently.
A potential customer might ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Meta AI, or Google AI a question and receive a synthesized recommendation before ever visiting a traditional search results page.
Brands therefore need to understand an entirely new set of questions:
- Is AI mentioning our company?
- Which AI engines are recommending us?
- Which pages are being cited?
- What prompts are leading people to our brand?
- Why are competitors being recommended instead?
- What can we change to improve our visibility?
LSEO AI was built to answer those questions.
The platform measures brand visibility across major AI engines, identifies cited pages, reveals the prompts behind AI traffic, evaluates pages for their ability to be understood and cited by AI, and provides specific recommendations to improve performance.
Rather than stopping at visibility reporting, the goal has always been to connect measurement with action.
That philosophy also extends to Mention Engine™, LSEO’s platform for helping brands and agencies build strategic third-party brand authority.
We increasingly believe the future of search will be defined by a simple transition:
Yesterday’s internet rewarded ranking. Tomorrow’s internet increasingly rewards recommendation.
Helping brands understand—and compete in—that environment has become one of LSEO’s most important areas of innovation.
Best Use of Search – B2B (SEO)
LSEO was also selected as a finalist for Best Use of Search – B2B (SEO) for our work with Cooper Strategy.
The campaign is an example of what we believe modern B2B SEO should become.
Cooper Strategy operates in the highly specialized 340B healthcare consulting market. The potential audience is relatively small, buying cycles are long, and the people researching services are often senior healthcare, compliance, pharmacy, and financial decision-makers.
When the engagement began, Cooper Strategy had effectively no organic Google presence.
LSEO built the search strategy from the ground up.
That included technical SEO, development of topical authority around Cooper Strategy’s core 340B services, content designed around the questions its market was actually asking, and optimization for both traditional search and emerging AI discovery.
By May 2026, Cooper Strategy had grown from zero Google clicks and impressions at the beginning of the engagement to 97 monthly clicks and 15,600 monthly impressions. Across the engagement, organic search generated approximately 85,900 impressions and 751 clicks, with 97% of those clicks coming from the United States.
But traffic alone was never the real objective.
LSEO paired the organic strategy with its Visitor Intelligence program to help identify the business professionals engaging with Cooper Strategy’s content.
During April and May 2026 alone, the program identified and profiled more than 50 named B2B professionals interacting with the site, including visitors from major healthcare systems, insurers, consulting firms, covered entities, and other organizations across the 340B ecosystem.
Cooper Strategy’s content also began attracting visitors from AI platforms including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Vertex AI.
The result demonstrates how we see the next generation of B2B SEO:
Create visibility. Build authority. Understand who is engaging. Turn search intelligence into business intelligence.
SEO should not end with a ranking report.
It should help a company understand whether the right market is finding it and what that attention means commercially.
Best Use of Search – B2B (PPC)
Our third finalist recognition is for Best Use of Search – B2B (PPC) for LSEO’s work with Network Partners Group.
Network Partners Group serves pharmaceutical and medical device companies across highly specialized areas including packaging engineering, labeling, regulatory affairs, quality and compliance, and project management.
This presented a very different search challenge.
The total number of relevant buyers is limited.
Clicks can be expensive.
And generating more traffic is relatively meaningless if the people clicking have no commercial intent.
So LSEO deliberately moved in the opposite direction of conventional paid search optimization.
Instead of trying to maximize traffic, we concentrated the campaign around high-intent searches from potential buyers actively looking for specialized life sciences consulting support.
The strategy intentionally sacrificed volume in favor of quality.
Across 2025, approximately $46,000 in media spend generated 109 bottom-funnel conversions, and Network Partners Group attributed more than $1 million in sales pipeline to the campaign.
That is more than a 20X relationship between managed media spend and client-attributed pipeline value.
The lesson is one that applies far beyond this campaign:
In B2B search, the cheapest click is rarely the objective. The right buyer is.
Great paid search isn’t about making every dashboard metric go up.
Sometimes it means buying fewer clicks, targeting far more carefully, and optimizing around the business outcome that actually matters.
What These Three Finalist Selections Mean to LSEO
Individually, we’re proud of each finalist recognition.
Together, they tell a larger story about where LSEO is headed.
We built our reputation in search.
SEO remains foundational.
Paid media remains an extraordinarily powerful way to capture demand.
But customer discovery is expanding beyond the traditional search results page.
AI systems are increasingly becoming research engines, comparison engines, and recommendation engines.
That doesn’t eliminate SEO.
It expands the definition of search.
And it requires agencies and brands to think differently about visibility.
A company needs a technically sound website.
It needs authoritative content.
It needs intelligent paid acquisition.
But increasingly, it also needs a strong identity across the broader web, credible third-party validation, measurable AI visibility, and the authority signals necessary to become a brand that AI can confidently recommend.
That intersection—SEO, paid media, AI Search, data, authority, and recommendation visibility—is where LSEO is investing heavily.
“I’ve spent nearly three decades watching search evolve, and every major transition creates uncertainty before it creates opportunity. AI is doing that again. What makes these finalist selections meaningful to me is that they recognize both the work we’ve been doing for years and the technology we’re building for where search is going next.”
— Kristopher B. Jones, Founder, LSEO
For LSEO CEO Jimmy T. Martin, the breadth of the recognition is equally important.
“Being recognized across SEO, PPC, and AI Search software says a lot about this team. We’re not abandoning the fundamentals to chase the next trend, and we’re not ignoring where the market is headed either. Our job is to help clients grow today while preparing them to compete tomorrow.”
— Jimmy T. Martin, CEO, LSEO
From Search Visibility to Recommendation Visibility™
The internet is moving from an environment dominated by search results toward one increasingly shaped by recommendations.
That means companies will need to understand more than where they rank.
They will need to understand whether AI systems recognize their brands, which sources validate them, how they compare with competitors, and whether they are being included when customers ask AI for recommendations.
At LSEO, we call that Recommendation Visibility™.
It’s the degree to which AI systems understand, trust, cite, and ultimately recommend a brand.
Our work in SEO, paid media, LSEO AI, Visitor Intelligence, and Mention Engine all increasingly connects to that broader objective:
Helping brands be visible at the moments that influence decisions.
Whether that moment happens in Google, inside an AI assistant, on a third-party publisher, or somewhere else entirely is becoming less important than making sure the brand is present when the customer is ready to act.
What’s Next
The 2026 US Search Awards winners will be announced later this year in New York City.
For now, we’re grateful to be among the finalists and proud of the LSEO team, our technology, and—most importantly—the clients who trusted us with the campaigns behind these submissions.
Three categories.
AI Search software. SEO. PPC.
Three very different disciplines, but increasingly part of the same mission:
Help brands become easier to discover, easier to trust, and easier to recommend.
Learn more about LSEO and how we’re helping companies compete across traditional and AI-powered search.
And for brands and agencies ready to strengthen the third-party authority that influences AI recommendations, explore Mention Engine™ by LSEO.