Plug and Play Tech Center: +228% Search Impressions, +286% AI Mentions

Case Study

Client: Plug and Play Tech Center — global innovation platform and startup accelerator, connecting startups, corporations, and investors.

The Challenge

As a platform operating at the intersection of startups, corporations, and investors, Plug and Play needed to strengthen its organic search visibility while also preparing for a shift already underway in its own audience: founders, investors, and candidates increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews to research programs and partners before ever visiting a website directly.

What We Did

• Technical SEO audit and fixes — improving crawlability, site speed, and indexing across key program and content pages
• On-page and content optimization — aligning existing pages with real search intent across their core topics and programs
• AI visibility and entity optimization — strengthening structured data and topical authority so AI platforms can accurately discover, understand, and cite Plug and Play’s content
• Ongoing performance tracking — monitoring both traditional rankings and AI citation trends month over month

The Results

Traditional SEO — year over year (February 2025 vs. February 2026):

AI search visibility — since tracking began:

Why This Matters for Startups & VC-Backed Companies

Startups, accelerators, and investment platforms operate in a research-heavy ecosystem where founders and investors increasingly use AI tools to shortlist who they engage with before ever visiting a website. Working with Plug and Play gave us direct, measurable experience growing visibility for exactly this kind of high-consideration, tech-savvy audience — across both traditional search and the AI platforms now shaping how they get discovered.